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Fredric Mark "Ric" Edelman is the founder of Edelman Financial Engines, the author of 10 personal finance books and the host of a weekly personal finance talk radio show called The Ric Edelman Show. Edelman was also the host of the public television show The Truth About Money with Ric Edelman. Edelman is the founder of the RIA Digital Assets Council and the Funding Our Future Coalition, with the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Edelman Financial Engines
Ric and Jean Edelman co-founded Edelman Financial Services, a financial advisory firm, in 1987. He was chairman of the company from 1987 to 2018. Edelman sold a majority stake of Edelman Financial Services to Sanders Morris Harris Group, a wealth management firm, in 2005. In 2015, private equity firm Hellman & Friedman became the majority owner of Edelman Financial Services. In 2018, Hellman & Friedman merged Edelman Financial Services with another firm, Financial Engines, to form Edelman Financial Engines. Ric Edelman took up a position on the board of the combined firm, where he oversees financial education and client experience.

Industry recognition
In July 2001, Edelman's book Ordinary People, Extraordinary Wealth appeared at #1 in the paperback "Advice, How-to and Miscellaneous" category of the New York Times Best Seller list. Edelman was ranked the #1 Independent Financial Advisor in the United States by Barron’s in 2009, 2010, and 2012. In 2016, Forbes ranked Edelman among the top 10 wealth advisors in America. In 2019, Barron's added Edelman to its Financial Advisors Hall of Fame. Also in 2019, InvestmentNews named Edelman to its list of "20 people who helped shape the financial planning industry" and Investopedia named Edelman one of its top 100 financial advisors. The editors of Talkers Magazine ranked Edelman #69 in its 2020 "Heavy Hundred" list of the most important radio talk show hosts in America.

Personal life
Edelman grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He majored in communications at Rowan University (then Glassboro State College), where he met his wife Jean. He began his career as a reporter for McKnight Publications from 1980 to 1986.

Jean and Ric Edelman founded the Edelman Nursing Career Development Center in partnership with Inova Health System in 2001, and donated $1 million to the program in 2008. The Edelmans donated $1 million to Rowan University towards the Edelman Planetarium on campus in 2002. In October 2016, the Edelmans donated $25 million to the Edelman Fossil Park at Rowan University. Rowan university also named Edelman a "Distinguished Lecturer". The Edelmans donated another $10 million to Rowan University's endowment in 2019, earmarked for tuition aid for students. Rowan University renamed its creative arts school the Ric Edelman College of Communications & Creative Arts in February 2020.

In January 2020, Ric and Jean Edelman pledged $1 million towards the production of a documentary about Alzheimer's disease research. During the early stages of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, the couple made a donation to cover the cost of flying N95 masks to New Jersey to be distributed to area hospitals.

Books authored

 * The Truth About Money with Ric Edelman (1997)
 * Ordinary People, Extraordinary Wealth (2001)
 * What You Need to Do Now (2001), a financial planning book written in response to the events of September 11, 2001
 * Discover the Wealth Within You (2003)
 * The Lies About Money (2007)
 * Rescue Your Money (2009)
 * The New Rules of Money (2010)
 * The Truth About Retirement Plans and IRAs (2014)
 * The Truth About Your Future (2017)
 * The Squirrel Manifesto (2018), co-written with wife Jean Edelman