Rick Ahearn
Frederick L. "Rick" Ahearn (born 1949) is an American political and corporate consultant, currently serving as executive vice president of Potomac Communications Strategies in Alexandria, Virginia. He is best known for his long service as lead advanceman for Ronald Reagan, as a candidate in 1979–1980 and for most of his two terms as president; he was standing close to Reagan during his attempted assassination on March 30, 1981. Ahearn was also a senior adviser and planner for the presidential funerals and burials of Reagan (in 2004) and Gerald Ford (in 2006–2007), as well as Jack Kemp (in 2009) and First Lady Nancy Reagan (in 2016). In all, he has served five U.S. presidents and six vice presidents, and aided 14 presidential campaigns from 1968 to 2016. Early life and political jobs Ahearn was born and raised in Chestnut Hill, the son of Francis X. Ahearn, one-time president of the Boston City Council and first deputy Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Doris E. (Johnson) Ahearn. At age 9, he handed out circulars promoting Boston Democrats; as a teenager, he organized crowds for political rallies. He attended Boston Latin School, graduated from Brighton High School, and studied marketing at Boston College. His first political job was for Mayor John Collins. At the age of 19, he worked on the presidential campaign of Democratic vice president Hubert H. Humphrey, advancing the nominee's September 1968 rally in downtown Boston with Senator Kennedy. At 21, he worked for Republican governor Francis Sargent. He again aided Humphrey in his 1972 Democratic primary campaign; however, Ahearn (raised in a devout Catholic home) was revulsed by the liberalism of eventual Democratic nominee George McGovern, and switched his allegiance to Republican Richard M. Nixon. He left college to serve as executive director of Democrats for Nixon in New England (under Collins), and later to organize Democrats for Nixon in California. After the Republican's landslide victory, he continued his political work for Nixon, working in the White House as a political aide in several special Congressional elections in 1973 and 1974. In 1976, Ahearn served as Northeast regional political director for the President Ford Committee, alongside Haley Barbour (who oversaw the South). In 1979 and 1980, he served as advance man for candidate Ronald Reagan. He first joined the Reagan Presidential Advance Office on January 20, 1981, as a staff assistant to the President. Attempted assassination of Reagan, 1981 Ahearn was the lead White House advance man for President Reagan's speech to the AFL–CIO at the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30, 1981. In the now-familiar video footage and photographs, he is seen (in light-grey suit, striped tie and spectacles) preceding the President and then standing beside him while shots are fired by John Hinckley, Jr. Ahearn stayed at the scene, cradling the head of wounded Press Secretary James Brady until medics arrived. He then proceeded to George Washington University Hospital, where he ushered the First Lady to the emergency room, then was the first aide to brief