Richard Riordan: From Business to Public Service

Richard Joseph Riordan is an American businessman, public servant, and politician who served from 1993 to 2001 as the thirty-ninth Mayor of Los Angeles. Riordan is a Republican. He was born on May 1, 1930 in Flushing, New York. Riordan grew up in Westchester County, New York. After earning his bachelor of laws degree, Riordan moved to Los Angeles and became an attorney for O’Melveny & Myers law offices in 1956. He resigned from the firm in 1959 and joined Nossaman LLP as partner.

From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, Riordan was a venture capitalist who invested in startups in the medical, computer and semiconductor sectors. Riordan and J. Christopher Lewis co-founded a private equity in 1982. This company is known today as Riordan, Lewis & Haden.

In 1983, Riordan co-founded another private equity company, the Riordan, Freeman and Spogli. This company was one of the earliest sponsors of leveraged buyout transactions which focused on the supermarket sector. Among the grocery chains acquired by Riordan, Freeman & Spogli were Boys Markets in Los Angeles, Bayless Southwest in Phoenix, Piggly Wiggly in various Southern states, P&C Foods in Syracuse, and Tops Markets in New York and Pennsylvania. After Riordan resigned from the company in the late 1980s, Bradford Freeman and Ronald Spogli renamed the company as Freeman Spogli & Co. and continued with leveraged buyouts.

Riordan organized The Riordan Foundation in 1981 to help people in acquiring the necessary skills to successfully compete in society. The Foundation is teaching children to read and write. It nurtures the leadership skills of young adults. Today, after over 25 years, more than 2,300 young people have graduated from the computer-based literacy programs, and youth and leadership development programs that the Foundation has offered. The Foundation has also distributed more than 23,400 computer sets to hundreds of schools and purchased books for elementary school libraries.

In 1993, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley retired from public office. Riordan became interested in running for the position. The 1993 election was pivotal in many ways. Since Bradley served for five terms, his successor would be a new face in twenty years. These twenty years witnessed rising crimes and traffic jams that damaged the city’s image. The robust economy built three decades before that time fizzled. Plus the Los Angeles riots that erupted following the acquittal of four LAPD agents after beating Afro-American motorist Rodney King did not die down.

Riordan ran for mayor against Mike Woo of the Democrats. His campaign tagline presented him as the businessman “tough enough to turn LA around.” Riordan won the election to become the first Republican mayor of LA in 30 years.