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  Zschau, Ed
CANDIDATE DETAILS
AffiliationRepublican  
 
NameEd Zschau
Address
Los Altos, California , United States
EmailNone
WebsiteNone
Born January 06, 1940 (84 years)
ContributorNot in Public Domain
Last ModifedDavid
Dec 06, 2023 07:04am
Tags Married - Protestant -
InfoEdwin Van Wyck "Ed" Zschau

Representative from California; born in Omaha, Douglas County, Nebr., January 6, 1940; attended public schools in Omaha; A.B., Princeton University, 1961; M.B.A., 1963, M.S., 1964, and Ph.D., 1967, all at Stanford University; professor, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, 1965-1969; visisting professor, Harvard Business School, 1967-1968; founder and president of Systems Industries, Inc., a computer equipment manufacturer; elected as a Republican to the Ninety-eighth and to the Ninety-ninth Congresses (January 3, 1983-January 3, 1987); was not a candidate for reelection in 1986, but was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate; became a partner of Brentwood Associates in 1987; is a resident of Los Altos, Calif.

he last time we saw Ed Zschau, he was riding off into the political sunset, having narrowly lost his bid to unseat Alan Cranston as U.S. Senator from California. Well, no surprise, he's back. In July, he took over as chairman and CEO of Censtor Corp., a San Jose computer-components manufacturer. His goal: to build Censtor into a major player in the industry in three years, and then run for the Senate again.

Zschau can do it if anybody can. After all, he's already built one successful company, System Industries Inc., which he founded in 1968 and grew to $60 million. Along the way, he emerged as a star of the American Electronics Association, leading the fight to reduce the capital-gains tax in 1978. That role helped propel him to a congressional seat in 1982. Four years later, he won the Republican nomination for the Senate in a tough primary and came within 104,000 votes of defeating Cranston.

It was, Zschau admits, a nastier campaign than he'd expected. Perhaps the unkindest cut came when public-relations guru Regis McKenna, a Cranston supporter, blasted Zschau's business credentials at a well-attended press conference. McKenna, who had taken a seat on System Industries' board after Zschau's departure, charged that he had left the company in a shambles. Although disputed by his former management team and board, the accusation hurt. "I wasn't ready for the blocking and tackling," Zschau says.

Neither was he ready to pack it in. Following the campaign, he became a general partner at Brentwood Associates, a prominent Los Angeles-based venture capital firm. Now, Brentwood and other investors have anted up $31 million to finance development of Censtor's new perpendicular data-recording technology. That technology, says Zschau, could revolutionize the mass-storage industry by enabling computers to record at higher densities and by vastly increasing the speed at which data can be accessed. "We can change the way computers are designed," he says. "That's a race worth running.''

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  11/04/1986 CA US Senate Lost 47.87% (-1.42%)
  06/03/1986 CA US Senate - R Primary Won 37.12% (+7.53%)
  11/06/1984 CA District 12 Won 61.65% (+25.63%)
  11/02/1982 CA District 12 Won 62.93% (+29.45%)
ENDORSEMENTS
US President - Reform Convention - Aug 18, 1996 D Richard "Dick" Lamm
US President - REF Mail Ballot Primary - Aug 18, 1996 D Richard "Dick" Lamm