Richard Riordan

Richard J. Riordan ( born May 1, 1930 in New York City ) is a Republican politician from California, who was from 2003 to 2005 California Education Minister and 1993-2001 Mayor of Los Angeles. 2002 Riordan stepped up to the elections for governor of California, but was not successful. He is a Catholic, is married to Nancy Daly Riordan and has three daughters from his first marriage.

Prior to his political career

Riordan, an Irish- American, was born in Flushing, a neighborhood of New York, and studied at Princeton University, where he earned a degree in philosophy. Riordan served as a soldier in the Korean War and subsequently acquired in 1956 by the University of Michigan his Doctor of Law. A short time later he acquired from his father, an inheritance which he invested in four companies: Control Data Corporation, Litton Industries, Haloid (predecessor of Xerox ) and Syntex. Within a few years he made the $ 80,000 in assets close to $ 500 000.

He moved to Los Angeles to work at the law firm O'Melveney & Myers, but spent the next years in order to move from company to company, where he improved his skills as a venture capitalist. His achievements included the first company that could inexpensively produce videocassettes.

Mid-1980s, he founded a venture capital company called Riordan, Lewis & Haden, along with J. Christopher Lewis, a former professional tennis player and the former quarterback of the Los Angeles Rams, Pat Haden. In addition, Riordan has been involved in a wide variety of other companies; the best known is one of the toy producer Mattel.

The Riordan Foundation

Richard Riordan Riordan created the Foundation in 1981 with the aim to enable people to successfully exist in society. The Foundation operates inter alia on projects to teach reading and young adults leadership skills children. The Foundation now has over 2,300 successful graduates. In addition, she has provided over 23,400 computers in over 2,110 schools in 40 states and more than 145,000 books for primary schools.

Mayor

When Tom Bradley, mayor of Los Angeles, his retreat announced Riordan expressed interest in the mayoral elections of 1993. This was for various reasons, an election with key character. Bradley had five tenures behind, so that the winner of the first new mayor would be after two decades. During Bradley's tenure, the city itself had changed dramatically. Los Angeles had become a world city, but at the same time had had recorded a sharp increase in crime, particularly street gangs. In addition, the traffic of the city had become a massive problem. The boom of the past three decades had passed. In the LAPD under Chief of Police Daryl Gates racist tendencies came on. Gates was due to its strategy under massive criticism. The riots in 1992 came after four police officers of the LAPD had attacking a African American.

Together with Mike Woo Richard Riordan was the top candidate in the election campaign. Riordan won the election with 54 % of the vote and was after more than 30 years, the first Republican mayor. Many of his decisions were, however, blocked by the Democrat-led city council or turned out to be simply unfeasible. Nevertheless, he was re-elected in 1997. His opponent was Senator Tom Hayden.

During his second term, a new subway line, the " Red Line ", built, a project that he was very keen at heart. In 2001, Riordan was succeeded by James Hahn, as he could not run again after two terms.

In 2002, Riordan decided for the governorship of California to run, but lost to Bill Simon. After his defeat, he was appointed in 2003 by Arnold Schwarzenegger to the education minister, he held this office until 30 June 2005.

Current participation in politics

Richard Riordan is working closely with the acting mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, together.

• Mayor (Los Angeles )
• Member of the Republican Party (United States)
• Americans
• Born in 1930
• Man