Michael Jules Aguirre was born September 12, 1949 at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, California. Mr. Aguirre's parents divorced in the early 1950's and Michael and his six brother's and sisters were raised by his mother, Margaret Claire and stepfather, Richard D. Wright.

During his childhood, the family moved several times throughout the West. When Michael was 15, he faced yet another move, and decided to stay in Phoenix, Arizona where he attended Camelback High School and played defensive line on the football team. To support himself, he worked as a gas station attendant, and picked cantaloupes one summer break for $1 and hour.

Aguirre went on to attend Arizona State University, earning his Bachelor of Science degree in 1971. While at ASU, he served as student body vice president, and was a national field director of The Student Vote, a privately funded organization that conducted voter registration drives on college campuses. In the fall of 1971, Michael enrolled in law school at the University of California, Berkeley, and earned his J.D. degree from Boalt Hall in 1974.

Upon passing the California bar exam in 1974, Mr. Aguirre was appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's office in San Diego. In 1975, he successfully directed a yearlong Grand Jury investigation into a pension racketeering case, helping to save the pensions and earned benefits for hundreds of San Diegans. In 1976, Aguirre was appointed Assistant Counsel to the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, where he led an investigation into a national employee benefit scheme that was defrauding investors of millions of dollars in earned and future benefits.

After leaving the Subcommittee, Aguirre practiced civil law in Los Angeles from 1977 until June of 1980. During that time, he also served as a Senior Lecturer and as an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Southern California where he taught a course on the history of organized crime in America.

In June of 1980, Aguirre returned to San Diego and opened his own law practice, specializing in securities and investment fraud. He has successfully prosecuted investment fraud cases against several companies including First Pension Corp., American Principals Holdings, Inc. and J. David & Company, among others, and has recovered millions of dollars for thousands of Southern California investors.

Aguirre has two children, Arthur and Emilie, and is a parishioner at St. Vincent's Catholic Church.

Conferences Organized by Mr. Aguirre:

• National Organized Crime Conference(1979)
  Mr. Aguirre taught in the History Department at USC from 1979-1980. His primary course was entitled the History of Organized Crime in America. In connection with course, USC sponsored, and Mr. Aguirre chaired, a National Conference on Organized Crime. The purpose of the conference was to develop a national strategy against organized crime. Mr. Aguirre persuaded the foremost authorities on organized crime, from across the county to attend the conference. The Los Angeles Times reported that the "450 prosecutors, investigators and social scientists" attending the conference were a "virtual who's who of persons dealing with organized crime." Forbes Magazine referred to Mr. Aguirre as "the University of Souther California's resident expert on organized crime."
   
• Presidency of John F. Kennedy (1980)
  USC permitted Mr. Aguirre to build on his academic work by offering a course on the Presidency of John F. Kennedy in
  November 1980. Mr. Aguirre once again organized a national conference, this one organized around the workings of the Kennedy Administration. Again, approximately 400 attended the conference. Mr. Aguirre organized the conference in coordination with the John F. Kennedy Library. The Los Angeles Times carried a lead editorial about the conference: "The USC meeting was pulled together, almost on a whim, for the history class of Michael Aguirre, who persuaded more than two dozen men who once worked for Kennedy, or with him, to come and talk about the yong man who became President in 1960 and was assassinated three years later."