Edward Friedman
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Fifth President of the United Systems Alliance from 2212 to 2220, defeating President Marinar in 2212. He was succeeded by Eoam of Ryl'Att.
[edit] Biography
Born in the city of Urbana, Illinois on May 21st, 2150, Edward Friedman was the son of Marshall and Lily Friedman.
His early life was unexceptional, graduating from Urbana High School and then getting a degree in business from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) College of Business.
From 2173-2180, he worked for the MarsCo Corporation, rising to Vice-President of Mercury Mining Operations. In 2180, he was lucky enough to be on Mercury when the Battle of Earth occurred, as MarsCo's Headquarters in Los Angeles was destroyed.
Feeling a sense of duty, Friedman ran for the open United States representative spot for the United Nations of Earth, left vacant by the death of Malik Wiley. He won that race in a tight election.
From 2180-2192, Friedman served as a UNE representative, and eventually was named Minister of Defense under President Anar. He remained in that position under the Administration of President Boyle.
In 2210, under the increasingly un-popular Presidency of President Marinar, Friedman resigned as MoD. He then began a campaign to un-seat the President. In 2212, he did what had not been done in the young history of the Alliance, he defeated an incumbent President.
Though close numerically, the election was a decisive victory for Friedman, winning 41% to Marinar's 40% and 19% to Centauria Parliamentary Senator Malogo. Jomo Malogo an early candidate had slipped in the polls due to a business scandal, but had announced that he would throw his support to Friedman in the case of a tie. With that bloc of votes in the Parliament, Friedman was assured a powerful Presidency.
[edit] Administration
President Friedman's administration was primarily known as the "House Cleaning" Administration, attempting to resolve and eliminate many of the problems of the previous Marinar Administration. Some even refer to it as the "beta test" of the Alliance, after what seemed to be a solid start to the interstellar government under Presidents Parker, Anar, and Boyle and the huge spike in crime and governmental incompetence that followed under the Marinar leadership.
First among his moves as President was to increase security in the Alliance. Pirating and even murder were at all time highs in 2212, and business, colonization, even Fleet operations were all suffering.
President Friedman got Parliament to pass massive new funding for police officers and for Starfleet patrols, as well as the deployment of defense platforms on key Alliance worlds.
Additionally, he sought to reform Starfleet itself, which had become a haven for inexperienced officers, working their way up the chain of command by doing meaningless, but noted duties, thus earning themselves promotion. The most egregious example was a lowly Ensign who, via the old promotion system, became a Captain in a matter of months, simply by running courier missions from Starfleet HQ to Mars.
This culminated in Parliament's passage of the The Defense Authorization Act of 2219, which finally took promotion from an automatic computerized award system to a merit-based system with Fleet officers in judgement.
[edit] Later Life
After leaving the Presidency in 2220, President Friedman retired back to Urbana, Illinois with his wife, Margot. He wrote his memoir, the best-selling "Stand Up Sometimes", and lectured. In 2223, he became a Visiting Professor of history and politics at UIUC.
