Fredric D Abramson

About Fredric Abramson
Mark Twain said “the two most important days of your life are the day you’re born and the day you find out why? For me, the why is to apply my gifts to solve problems.
I was born in Philadelphia and attended the public schools there. I grew up a Phillies and Eagles fan. And sometimes saw the Philadelphia A’s. I saw Ted Williams hit what might be the hardest hit home run. The ball was still rising when it hit the upper deck of Shibe Park in dead center, at 467 feet. Who knows how much farther it would have gone.
I was fortunate enough to be admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, starting in electrical engineering and winding up in mathematical biology and English.
In these early years, I worked in several businesses. One of these was in the rock and roll field, promoting rock and roll shows and working with recording artists as they made records. Another was working in retail sales. I worked for an early big-box store called Bargain City. At the age of 18, I became manager of two departments in Bargain City. I managed the record department and the appliance department. My duties included merchandising, promotion, and supervising personnel. This was all before I graduated from Penn. After graduation, I taught mathematics for a year in two Philadelphia high schools and worked in the Youth Conservation Corps.
Despite a rather dismal undergraduate record at Penn, with a low GPA and several semesters on academic probation, I decided to go to graduate school, largely to avoid Viet Nam. I applied and was admitted to the University of Rochester and Stanford, while Penn State and Maryland turned him down. I went to Rochester in 1965, and obtained my Masters agree in biology. After Rochester, I entered the University of Michigan in the graduate program in Botany. I took a year off and worked as a computer programmer – statistician in Population Planning in the School of Public Health. This experience introduced him to the global issues in public health as well as how technology can be used to solve problems. I then became a Ph.D. candidate in human genetics and population planning.
My Ph.D. work was a mathematical analysis of the frequency of pregnancy loss based on 600,000 pregnancy records from New York City. This would now be considered one of the 1st big data analyses. In the early seventies I designed the 1st decision support system in the health care field to pinpoint the specific factors that caused people to become infected in hospitals. This is while I was teaching at the University Kentucky Medical School.
After that I started a company to design, manufacture and sell custom-fitted sheepskin seat covers for sports cars. This was early 1970’s.
I then had the opportunity to be an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow at the MIT Sloan School of Management where I obtained my Masters of Management. I came to the D.C. area in 1977. I worked for General Electric, first as deputy project manager for DHEW Secretary Joseph Califano’s national review of alcohol programs and policies and then to pick science experiments for NASA’s Spacelab. My subsequent work included developing a method to measure the objectivity of nuclear inspectors for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and serving as the Chairman of the Maryland Governor’s Commission on Worker’s Compensation Laws. In 1980, my wife and I were part of a half-dozen observers at Ronald Reagan’s New Hampshire campaign headquarters, the Holiday Inn in Manchester, the night Reagan won the New Hampshire primary.
The essential aspect of my career is that I was a success in technology, science and business before I entered the law in the eighties. I graduated from the American University Law School with honors, and was admitted to the Maryland and DC bars, the U.S. Patent Office Bar, and the U.S. Supreme Court bar.
My technical expertise is reflected in my international software publishing activities. This includes serving as the Chair for the Business Section of the Software Publishers Association as well as Chair of the International Business Special Interest Group. I also served as general counsel and chief scientist to a supplement-based weight loss company: Fit America.
My focus is entirely on finding the right solution for the client and acting as an informed reliable source of information and thought in which I actually can helps educate and teach the client so that the client can make better decision. As a lawyer I helps businesses form contracts, manage their intellectual property, and when necessary go to court. My background in business strategy, organization structure, and managerial finance provides a rich context for my legal and business analysis.
Since the late ‘90’s, I has taught business courses to the Johns Hopkins graduate students in biotechnology. The courses include Managerial Finance, Economics, Creating the Biotechnology Enterprise, Technology Fraud and Abuse, and Ethical, Legal and Regulatory Issues in Biotechnology. As one experienced South Florida lawyer told him, “you don’t let the legal tail wag the business dog.” I provide pro bono assistance to a number of non-profit organizations.