Early Life, Education, and Early Political Career
Frelinghuysen is a member of a family long prominent in New Jersey politics. He is the son of Peter Hood Ballantine Frelinghuysen II, great-great-grandson of Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, and great-great-great-nephew of Theodore Frelinghuysen, who each represented New Jersey in the Congress. After graduating from Hobart College in 1969, where he had been president of the Kappa Alpha Society, Frelinghuysen enrolled at Trinity College for graduate work. However, the United States Army drafted Frelinghuysen before he could graduate from Trinity. Following basic training at Fort Dix, he served with the 93rd Engineer Battalion in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam.
After his military service, Frelinghuysen worked for the Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders until he was elected to serve as a Freeholder in 1974.
In 1983, Frelinghuysen was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly, representing the 25th legislative district. He ran in 1990 for New Jersey's 12th congressional district, but finished third to Dick Zimmer and Phil McConkey.
Read more about this topic: Rodney Frelinghuysen
Famous quotes containing the words early, political and/or career:
“I do not know that I meet, in any of my Walks, Objects which move both my Spleen and Laughter so effectually, as those Young Fellows ... who rise early for no other Purpose but to publish their Laziness.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“In a town-meeting, the great secret of political science was uncovered, and the problem solved, how to give every individual his fair weight in the government, without any disorder from numbers. In a town-meeting, the roots of society were reached. Here the rich gave counsel, but the poor also; and moreover, the just and the unjust.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)