Melvin Ernest Freeman

NS Nation Name: Imperial Esplanade

Character Name: Melvin Ernest Freeman

Character Gender: Male

Character Age: 62

Character Height: 5'9

Character Weight: 155 lbs.

Character Position/Role/Job: Former NASA Engineer and Program Director, Representative-Elect (MA-1)

Appearance:

(Image)

Character State of Origin: Alabama

Character State of Residence: Massachusetts and Florida (Maintains second/winter residence since 1998)

Character Party Affiliation: Democrat (1976-2013), Independent (1973-1976, 2013-2016), Green/Progressive (2016-)

Main Strengths: Down-to-earth persona, prestigious professional career (w/ NASA), great networker with lots of connections, strong social and economic progressive.

Main Weaknesses: No prior political experience, upper-middle class (thus not overly-wealthy), relative uninspiring debater and speaker, relative poor-fundraiser(?), variation in ideology with Progressive base on foreign policy (slightly interventionist).

Biography: Melvin was born as a first born on October 27, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama. His father was a welder for a local manufacturing plant, his mother was unemployed, and the family struggled to get by (as did many African American families in the community). Melvin and his younger brother, Devin, were quite subjected to the systemic racism present all-across the region - epitomized by Martin Luther King's "Birmingham Campaign" in the early 60s. Melvin's father, DeMarcus Freeman, were among those arrested by the Birmingham Police Department - which the campaign as a whole ultimately led to the forced desegregation of Birmingham. This event left a lasting impact on the impressionable, nine-year-old Melvin - emboldening him to adopt a social justice warrior ideology for all across the globe. Yet by the time Melvin become a teenager, he focused on advancing himself through school and developed a rather strong fascination with science and astronomy.

Melvin applied to, and graduated from, the University of Alabama in 1976 with a bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering with a particular goal to work for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (aka, NASA). Melvin moved to Huntsville, Alabama after finding employment with the agency at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in lieu of the Space Shuttle and SkyLab projects - as well as the Apollo-Soyuz partnership in the 70s, in 1978. After 20 years of slowly working his way up the bureaucratic ladder at Marshall Space Center, Melvin was transferred to Cape Canaveral (Kennedy Space Center) as one of the senior engineers in 1998 as a result of NASA's participation in the newly-founded International Space Station Program. Melvin rose to direct the Integration Systems Engineering Program by 2001, and was even offered an opportunity to be considered as a Flight Director at one point in 2006 - though he eventually declined such an offer, citing a preference to remain in his then-current position. In 2010, however, his department was eventually altered and Melvin was transferred once again to Goddard Space Center to participate in both the Explorer and Discovery projects. In 2014, Melvin retired from NASA at the age of 60 and moved to Boston to become a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was quickly approached to be an occasional guest contributor for the Boston Herald to discuss various present/future NASA programs.

Incidentally, this gave Melvin exposure and allowed him to quickly build up a slight bit of a local profile - thus eventually enabling him to run for office in time of the 2016 elections. The race, from the start, left Freeman feeling a sense of dread regarding the options, and chances, for Democrats in the 2016-cycle. He was slightly-leaning toward Gov. Irina Kuznetsov, yet eventually as the race continued to devolve into a beleaguering mess and head toward a possible contested convention, Melvin felt that the Democratic Party was becoming more and more of a lost cause of a party and contemplated switching over to the Greens once the WAC bill was passed - eventually deciding to do so after President Winston begrudgingly enacted it into law, seeing as a harbinger of worse things to come. The combination of Melvin Freeman's name-recognition with, primarily, his active grassroots campaigning and his riding the coattails of Ellen Walton's ascension during her presidential bid led to a surprising, albeit marginal, election victory over the Democratic incumbent in MA-1. Melvin's campaign focused mostly on economic/social issues, ran with a message of "empathy for others," and emphasized a particular pledge to combat government corruption across-the-board and across party lines. This, coupled with Walton's electoral victory in Massachusetts as a whole, had put Freeman over the top with a marginal plurality victory in his district.

Other Info: Melvin is married to Paula Cousins Freeman, and together have four kids (three sons and daughter), seven grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter on-the-way in a couple of months. Their family is a very religious one, each of them are outspoken about their faith in God. Melvin is a former Baptist, turned-Non-Denominational, whereas the rest of his family are all still Baptists. Melvin also has a slight southern accent and does not engage on social media debates/fights between various political figures. Melvin maintains a small observatory on his Massachusetts property.