Helliniki Katastasis wrote:
NS Nation Name: Helliniki Katastasis
Character Name: Steven "Steve" MacGregor
Character Gender: male
Character Age: 66
Character Height: 6'4
Character Weight: 210lbs
Character Position/Role/Job:
Candidate for Virginia Governor (2021)
CEO of MacGregor Technologies (1986-)
Owner of the Washington Post (2013-2021)
Co-Founder of the MacGregor-Howe Corporation (1975-1986)
Student at the University of Maryland (1973-1977)
Character Country/State of Birth: McLean, Virginia
Character State of Residence: Fairfax Station, Virginia
Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Main Strengths: Outsider reputation, name recognition, personal wealth, connections in Washington, bilateral appeal (Wolfists v. Moderates)
Main Weaknesses: Seen as out-of-touch, personal wealth, lack of political instinct, untested in politics, born into wealth, personal life
Biography: (Minimum 2-3 paragraphs)
The MacGregor family has a storied past in Virginia. Steve's grandfather, Lyle MacGregor was the patriarch of the family, immigrating from Ireland in 1914. Settling in Northern Virginia, he spent most of the immediate postwar period hopping between jobs, before finding his calling; When Prohibition was enacted, he quickly jumped into the moonshining business, becoming a titan of illegal smuggling network in and out of Washington. A jailbird throughout the following decade, he made connections with various congressmen and lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Marrying a young woman in 1928, their son Henry was born in 1930. A studious child, he used his father's connections in DC to aquire an academic scholarship from Princeton, graduating not long before Steven was born. Moving the the prestigious suburb of McLean, Henry ran for and became a longtime congressman from Virginia until 1971. A leading pro-civil rights voice in Virginia and at odds with the more southern-minded colleaguesof his, he passed the ideals of liberty and justice for all unto his son.
Steven, an academic like his father, maintained steady averages throughout grade school and graduated from a private high school with a 3.96 GPA, and became the valedictorian of his graduating class. Attending Princeton like his father, he became a star student. However, behind the scenes,, it was much different. Frequenting bars and undesirable institutions in downtown Princeton, he wasted away most of his income made working at McDonalds by gambling, drinking, and smoking various hard drugs, including LSD and heroin. A supporter of Eugene McCarthy and John Anderson, he became a staunch progressive in politics and very outspoken while in school, much to the anger of his family in Virginia. Adopting the now-aging lifestyle of a hippie, he made plans to move to San Francisco after graduated and wrote once in a letter home that he was going to "live the rad life in heaven". On the bright side, along with a few of his friends, including childhood friend George Howe, he took a number of classes in computer science and technology, and in 1975 launched a company from their dorm room, originally dubbed "Princeton Computers". Aiming to revolutionize the computer industry into something that could be used at the workplace - inspired by what Howe and MacGregor had seen in class at Princeton. The first few years of the company went slowly, as they came up with thousands of designs for computers and only ever producing one prototype (that now sits in a display case at MacGregor's house), which included a large monitor, and a large platform that was connected by wire to the main computer. Using a steel stylus with a cloth tip, you could write letters and draw diagrams on the platform, which would then project onto the monitor. When an attempt to patent the device failed, both Howe and MacGregor lost interest in the company, until they graduated in 1977. Marrying one of his friends involved in the company, Jeanne, he moved back to McLean and decided to quit the drugs and habits he had developed at Princeton.
Operating the company now completely with Howe, who lived in Annapolis, they began a switch to manufacturing computer parts, in a attempt to grow the company. Purchasing a warehouse in Baltimore, they quickly hired employees as the economy suffered in 1983. Acquiring a contract with California-based startup Apple, Steve used his father's ties in DC to aquire a contract with the Department of the Interior, and later with the Defense Department to manufacture computer parts to be used in both federal and domestic markets. Their company exploding, they soon expanded operations to nearly two dozen storage centers across Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and nearly twenty manufacturing sites from Norfolk to Hartford. A titan of the east coast market, between 1983 and 1985 their profits and both Howe and MacGregor's net worth skyrocketed by 278% a 360% respectively. In 1986, a blow to the company occurred when a disagreement over the direction of the company sent George Howe packing in 1986, after the board of directors sided with MacGregor, who pushed for expansion into more markets. However, still relatively unknown by the general public, they launched a series of home computers, hard drives, PCs, and even a video game console, Neuron, in 1988. Dropping the console and hard drives in 1991, they focused on new innovations throughout the nineties, such as pioneering the first digital watch in 1996, with a small touch-pad that flipped open from a cover to reveal a watch, step tracker, and phonecall system. Dropping their contract with Apple to compete with them, they became a smash hit throughout the 90s and 2000s in the technology industry, going public in 1999 and going international in summer 2001. However, trouble brew as MacGregor's personal life collapsed that winter, when it was revealed he had been cheating on his wife for nearly a decade with a company intern, whom he promptly married after his divorce was settled in 2002.
When the War on Terror began in 2002, the defense contract was renewed between MacGregor Technologies and the feds, as new technology developed over the course of the war, with MacGregor-made parts being used in GPS, laptops, and monitoring systems, as well as cameras and displays for the Army, as well as by the White House. Becoming the third-most prominent company in technology behind Microsoft and Apple, a short attempt was made in 2006 to launch a search browser, however this didn't go far as Google stomped out all competition. The largest employer in the technology and manufacturing sector across the Eastern Seaboard, the company was hit extremely hard by the 2008 financial crash. Thousands of employees were laid off, and salaries were cut across the board, including for MacGregor. Feeling sympathy for the laid-off workers, he donated nearly 25% of his wealth to charity to help the unemployed by the financial crash, earning him widespread praise in the media.
In 2010, he made a pledge that the recovering company would attempt to re-hire as many of its laid off workers as possible. Throughout the company's lifespan, MacGregor made a commitment not to outsource jobs away from the United States. He became more involved politically in the 2010s, as he became a critic of many of (Barack Obama)'s economic policies, and founded the America Forward Organization in 2012 to fund conservative and evangelical candidates across the country. Endorsing Mitt Romney in 2012, he became a Romney surrogate and stumped for him throughout Virginia, however the state still went to (Obama) by a decent margin. Searching for a way to become more active outside of the company, he purchased the Washington Post in 2013 and oversaw a shift by the paper in a more conservative direction, encouraging executives to sack liberal editors and replace them with conservative ones. Back at MacGregor Technologies, he oversaw another shift further away from manufacturing and into consumer sales, acquiring contracts with Home Depot, Walmart, Tractor Supply, and countless small businesses across the country for exclusive rights to sell MT products at the stores, and to provide discounted parts, laptops, computers, and printers to small businesses. Partnering with Verizon to spread internet connection across rural America, he saw the company rebound in popularity and profit in the late 2010s, with a large portion of the technology sector under his control.
An initia skeptic of Wolf and his more protectionist and anti-monopoly policies, he stayed somewhat distant from the President throughout his term.
In 2017, MacGregor and wife Ann ambically split after 15 years of marriage. In 2019, MacGregor married May Hoover, a staffer at the Energy Department.
Escalating his involvement in politics, he became a harsh critic of national Democrats and Governor (Northam), and worked with President Wolf on several initiatives involving technology companies. Expanding involvement in AFO and launching a weekly podcast entitled "MacGregor One-on-One" in 2018, he became a frequent guest and contributor to Fox News and Newsmax TV. In an attempt to be more transparent, 2019 saw a release of 30 years worth of tax returns, internal investigations into corruption and privacy by an independent commission, and released a feature on the MT website which let users see their data as shown in code at MT and how it was being used. Labeled one of the cleanest and most transparent companies, MacGregor lambasted Apple, Facebook, and other companies for their privacy concerns.
In December of 2020, MacGregor announced that he would be lessening his involvement at MT and run for Governor of Virginia as a Republican. To avoid a potential conflict of interest, he announced he would sell the Washington Post, and it was then purchased in January by (Elon Musk).
Other Info:
Net Worth: ~$850 million
Has one child with first wife Jeanne
Has three children with second wife, Ann
Has one stepchild with current wife, May
Company name:
Princeton Computers (1975-1977)
MacGregor-Howe Corporation (1977-1986)
MacGregor Technologies (1986-2018*)
(*Shortened officially to MT in 2018, however both are still used)
Only close friends, family know about personal history as a young adult
I have read and accept the rules of the roleplay: (Helliniki Katastasis)
Do Not Remove: DRAFT87421
Paulson will befriend any ex-hippie Republican.
