Jack Ryan (politician) facts for kids

John Clemens Ryan (born October 6, 1959) is an American former investment banker and politician who was a candidate in the 2004 U.S. Senate race in Illinois. In 2000, he retired as an active partner at Goldman Sachs to teach at Hales Franciscan High School, a private Catholic high school in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood.

His 2004 campaign for the Senate, against Barack Obama, received widespread media attention.

In March 2005, Ryan launched 22nd Century Media, a news media company dedicated to providing hyper-local news in both print and digital media formats. In 2015, Ryan left 22nd Century Media to launch REX, a technology-based real estate services company that works outside the MLS to sell homes. The value proposition of REX was to reduce the cost of real estate commissions from the customary 6% to 3.3%. This led to a legal battle with Zillow and the National Association of Realtors that responded by dismantling their commission structure to move away from the market-dominating 6% commission structure which CNN called "seismic" in its implications.

Early life

Ryan spent his childhood in Wilmette, Illinois, the son of Helen Marie (Bruns) and Donald Robert Ryan, a managing partner at a trade and clearing house. One of six siblings, he attended New Trier High School. He graduated from high school in 1977 and went on to Dartmouth College, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and his JD from Harvard Law School, with honors.

Investment banking

Ryan worked at Casa Juan Diego, a refugee camp for Latinos fleeing the Central American civil wars. He worked for Goldman Sachs as an investment banker and eventual partner, first in New York City, and then in the Chicago branch.

In 2000, after Goldman Sachs went public, Ryan's net worth was in the tens of millions. He retired from Goldman as a partner and taught for three years at Hales Franciscan High School in Chicago. He left his teaching position to run for the Senate in 2004.

Starting in 2005, he ran 22nd Century Media, which published 15 separate localized newspapers and websites in the Chicago area.

He runs REX, a technology-based real estate services company that works outside the MLS to sell homes. Ryan has dedicated the wealth created from the venture to building homes and schools for children. As part of its social mission, for every 50 homes it sells, REX builds a home for someone who doesn't have one.

2004 U.S. Senate race

Ryan hoped to succeed retiring Republican Peter Fitzgerald in the United States Senate. On March 16, 2004, he won the Republican primary, pitting him against Democrat Barack Obama. However, after his divorce records containing damaging allegations were unsealed and made public, he announced his decision to withdraw his candidacy on June 25, 2004, and officially filed the documentation to do so on July 29. During his Senate campaign, Ryan was a proponent of across-the-board tax cuts and tort reform, reductions in federal spending, as well as a proponent of equal opportunity in education.

In 2004, Ryan's staff had Justin Warfel (a campaign worker) follow Barack Obama throughout the day and record everything he did in public on videotape. The tactic backfired when Barack Obama and others, including Ryan's supporters, criticized this activity. Ryan's spokesman apologized and promised that Warfel would give Obama more space. Obama said he was satisfied with Ryan's decision.

Campaign demise

Ryan married actress Jeri Ryan (née Zimmerman) in 1991; together they have a son, Alex Ryan, born 1994. They divorced in 1999 in California, and the records of the divorce were open but their custody documents were sealed at their joint request. Five years later, when Ryan's Senate campaign began, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate, sought to have the records released. On March 3, 2004, several of Ryan's GOP primary opponents urged release of the records. Both Ryan and his wife had agreed to make their divorce records public, but not make the custody records public, claiming that the custody records could be harmful to their son if released. On March 16, 2004, Ryan won the GOP primary with 36 percent to 23 percent against businessman and perennial political candidate Jim Oberweis, who came in second. Obama won the Democratic primary, with 53 percent to 23 percent against Dan Hynes, who came in second.

On March 29, 2004, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider ruled that several of the Ryans' custody records should be opened to the public. The following week, on April 2, 2004, Barack Obama called on Democrats not to inject them into the campaign. The Ryan campaign characterized Obama's stance as hypocritical because people they alleged to be Obama's backers had been emailing reports about the divorce records before Judge Schnider's decision and urging the press to seek to open them.

In May 2004, a Chicago Tribune poll found Ryan trailing Obama 52% to 30%. Ryan officially withdrew his candidacy on July 29, 2004.

Local journalism

Following his political career, Ryan resumed his newspaper business. On February 27, 2014, he launched the Highland Park Landmark, the 12th hyper-local news publication published by his company, 22nd Century Media, and the fifth hyper-local product to serve Chicago's North Shore suburbs. When asked why he chose to enter the news media industry, Ryan told Chicago Reader, "I was committed to improving the communities in which we live, and our profession seemed like a very good way to do so."