Family history: Andy's family immigrated to Manchester 100 years ago. His mom was born in Manchester and graduated from Manchester Central High School and the University of New Hampshire. Andy grew up visiting relatives and playing on Elm Street in Manchester. Andy's independence and conservatism come from his Granite State family roots.  For more about Andy’s century of New Hampshire family history please click here.

Education: Andy holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Illinois (B.S. 1966, Juris Doctor 1969). He also attended the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, (1965) and while in high school attended Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut) for advanced study.

II. CONSUMER ADVOCATE: THE PEOPLE'S ATTORNEY GENERAL

In 2013 Andy Martin celebrates forty-four (44) years as a public interest lawyer at the national and state levels. A partial list of examples follow:

Antitrust Litigation:  Andy began a long association with antitrust litigation/legislation and the media when he filed the first antitrust lawsuit against the three major television networks to bar anticompetitive practices in network affiliation agreements in 1969. In 1998, he filed the first antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corporation as part of his efforts to protect cyberspace for the public.

Sex discrimination: Andy was one of the first advocates to fight wage discrimination against women in the workplace; in 1969 he was a party to and helped spearhead the first major attack on sex discrimination AT&T, at the Federal Communications Commission.

Water Pollution: In 1972, Andy filed the first federal court lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois challenging "impoundment" of federal spending for water pollution control by the President Nixon. The U.S. Supreme Court later upheld his legal theories.

Victims of Crime: In 1972, as head of the Illinois Consumer Council he was an expert witness before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee in early congressional efforts to protect victims of crime. These hearings formed the basis for subsequent federal legislation protecting victims of crime in the judicial process.

Financial Regulation: In 1973, he conducted the first administrative trial at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington seeking to force bank regulators to exercise strict supervision over bank holding company expansion. Over a decade before the 1980’s banking crisis, Andy was fighting for stronger regulation of financial institutions. In the 1990's, Andy opposed the financial deregulation that triggered the financial collapses of 2007-2009.

Racketeering Litigation: Andy was the first consumer litigant to popularize and publicize the "civil RICO" statute for use against politicians and white-collar crime in Chicago. As a result of his seminal efforts beginning in 1976, "civil RICO" became a revolution that has changed the face of federal jurisprudence.

Congressional Investigation: Andy helped lead congressional investigators in 1980 to one of the biggest real estate scandals in history, a corrupt financial empire in Chicago/nationally that was severely damaged as a result of legislative scrutiny.

Illinois Consumer Council: Andy formed the Illinois Consumer Council in 1970 and that organization remained active for decades, until it was gradually superceded by more specific consumer activist entities.

Housing abuses: In 2005 Andy launched FightPulte.com, FightDiVosta.com and FightDelWebb.com, his newest public interest organizations to oppose corrupt practices by a national homebuilder and to advocate increased regulation of the financial activities of the real estate industry.

V. FOREIGN POLICY, MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE EXPERIENCE

Andy has forty-eight years of experience in Asia, Southwest Asia and the Middle East; he is regarded overseas as one of America’s most respected independent foreign policy, military and intelligence analysts.

Andy’s experience fighting terrorism began during the Cold War in 1965, when he became an acolyte of Professor Bernard Fall. The U. S. Government was calling the Viet Cong “terrorists” and insurgents; use of the word “terror” had largely lapsed after World War II. Professor Fall believed that Viet-Nam was a “revolutionary” war, a military campaign based on political goals that more properly fit the matrix of political analysis.

After Professor Fall was blown up, Andy persevered in studying counterinsurgency (COIN) in Viet-Nam. Andy founded the Revolutionary War Research Center and in 1974 began to offer counterterrorism consulting at the World Trade Center, becoming one of the nation’s first counterterror experts. Andy was in New York on September 11, 2001 and rendered assistance.

Andy was in Iran and Afghanistan during the hostage crisis in 1979-80, and has regularly returned to Southwest Asia since then. He lived in Iraq in 2003. His analysis of the terrorist threat in Iran during 1979-80, and again in Iraq in 2003, were leading-edge predictions of what Americans faced in the future. Andy’s worldwide sources give him an “over-the–horizon” view of America’s national security.

Andy is a member of the American Legion.

VI. WASHINGTON EXPERIENCE

Andy served as an assistant to Illinois’ United States Senator Paul H. Douglas in Washington in 1966. He remained close to the Senator after Mr. Douglas' retirement from the Senate and undertook special projects for the Senator.

Andy has been an expert witness and consultant on congressional matters (see above) and worked closely with congressional staff members over the years.

Although personally conservative on many issues, he has been described by a Tampa Tribune newspaper columnist as "neither far right nor far left." In short, Andy addresses each issue on its merits and looks at the total picture before making a decision. He has become one of America's foremost public interest lawyers by being what a consumer advocate should be: Independent, aggressive and totally committed to fighting for ordinary citizens, not special interests.

VII. COMPUTER ADVOCACY

The First Consumer Advocate in Cyberspace Andy has become the nation's first Consumer Advocate in Cyberspace through his efforts to police the software industry and fight attempts to monopolize computer markets. His computer industry reform proposals have drawn worldwide attention. In 1995, Andy formed the first computer-oriented public interest organization, the Committee to Fight Microsoft (CTFM). The CTFM proposed new statutes to regulate computer industry abuses, led a boycott of Windows 95 and Windows 98 and has been vehemently attacked by Bill Gates and Microsoft Corporation.

Andy's creative legal strategies are largely responsible for the relentless governmental attacks on Microsoft. In 1995, Andy created the concept of energizing state attorney generals to fight Microsoft. He complained to all fifty (50) state attorneys general to take action under their consumer fraud statutes, thereby awakening the sleeping giant of state attorney general litigation. He pressured the Department of Justice to file antitrust charges. He lobbied on Capitol Hill for legislative action. In sum, he personalizes in one man the opposition to Bill Gates. Andy and his supporters continue to monitor the computer industry for abuses.