Michael Robertson, then deputy cabinet secretary and a member of President Barack Obama’s senior staff in the Obama White House, was in his hometown of Fresno when he received devastating news that he never could have expected.
He was diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer – the furthest stage – that had spread from his colon to his liver and lungs.
His Fresno doctors told him it was like he had been “struck by lightning” – there was nothing in his genetics, family history or past health history that could have foretold it.
“I was otherwise healthy my whole life – 35 years old, an athlete into college, professionally doing important work I’d only dreamed of, and finally about to be married and start my own family,” Robertson later wrote in an entry on the White House blog in 2013, revealing his cancer publicly 19 days before the deadline to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. “Fighting to survive a catastrophic disease was NOT part of my plans.”
He would beat the odds and survive another six years.
Robertson died Oct. 30, just shy of his 42st birthday.
Obama shared his condolences publicly the following morning.
“He was driven and dedicated, a constant source of wisdom and kindness, someone who jumped into public service because he believed his efforts could help change this country for the better,” Obama wrote of Robertson in a Facebook post. “He was somebody that any American would be proud to see serving in our public life.”
The Bullard High School alumni moved to Chicago to work as a volunteer for Obama’s 2004 Senate race after graduating from law school at Golden Gate University, and previously the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in political science and played baseball.
Interested in a career in public policy, Robertson had been researching around a dozen Senate candidates when he discovered a video of Obama speaking in a church about how “I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper – that makes this country work.”
“I found in his words the same conviction I carried in my own heart: that we have a responsibility to one another,” Robertson later wrote in a chapter of West Wingers, a book by Obama White House staff. “That we the people, and our connection to each other, are what make this incredible American experiment in civility and society work.”
Lessons learned in Fresno
Robertson learned this lesson early from his parents, John and Karyn Robertson, Fresno educators.
His mother retired as curriculum director for Central Unified School District and now works as a curriculum director for a private preschool. His father retired from teaching at Tenaya Middle School and Malloch Elementary School but still coaches cross-country at Tenaya.
Robertson recalled watching them buy school supplies with their own money for incoming students every fall.
“They explained that not everyone had the same advantages as I did, and I had an obligation to help those who did not,” Robertson wrote in West Wingers. “They instilled in me this principle, which is the compass of my life: those of us in the broader community who have more – whether it is money, social standing, power, privilege, or just simple luck to be born where we were – have the responsibility to first recognize the different circumstances of others and then to support them in any way we can.”
Obama said Robertson never lost “that fundamental decency and optimism.”
Robertson kept a snow globe of the downtown Fresno water tower in his White House office.
Daniel Olmos, a longtime friend from Fresno who worked for the U.S. Department of Justice and White House while Robertson was in Washington, D.C., said Fresno was “such a core part of Mike’s humanity.”
“I wish we had more people in Washington who came from the Fresnos of the world,” Olmos said, “so that people could understand that the decisions people make in Washington have real-world consequences.”
Sahar Robertson said her husband was the kind of “California boy” the region was proud to call its own.
She said he “made it a point to educate people about what Fresno is … the incredible sense of community and diversity of that community.”
Career of service and health care advocacy
Robertson first served on Obama’s Senate staff, becoming deputy to the senator’s chief counsel. He helped secure superdelegate support and votes for Obama’s 2008 presidential election and continued to work on the presidential transition team.
He became a senior official in the Obama Administration, first as chief of staff at the U.S. General Services Administration, then a $26 billion-a-year agency overseeing federal real estate and acquisitions.
During Obama’s second term, he became deputy cabinet secretary and deputy assistant to the president. Robertson was the first and last person considered for the job by Danielle Gray, then cabinet secretary, and assistant and senior adviser to the president.
“He liked working in a collaborative way,” Gray said of Robertson. “Mike really loved the relationship part of politics.”
Part of his role at that time was helping implement the embattled Affordable Care Act.
Robertson decided to go public with his cancer diagnosis after growing tired of hearing politicians attack Obamacare from a financial standpoint. The debate was now personal.
In his White House blog post, titled “It Shouldn’t Have Happened to Me, But It Did,” he talked about being fortunate to have medical insurance through his employer, but said if he didn’t, “I would probably never be approved for insurance in the individual market, or I would have had to pay outrageous premiums just for access to the same services that would save my life, because I didn’t just have cancer, I now have a preexisting condition.”
The message received widespread attention after Obama retweeted it.
Outside of his blog post, he kept mostly quiet about his cancer.
The Los Angeles Times once documented a meeting he had with top officials to implement the Affordable Care Act while he was receiving chemotherapy drugs:
“Michael Robertson put the bag of chemicals in an inside pocket of his sport coat, the pump in the other,” the article states. “He snaked the tubes between the buttons of his shirt to the port in his chest. He adjusted his tie to cover them … A soft ‘bzzt’ every 90 seconds alerted him to another dose and another wave of nausea. He timed the cadence of his questions and comments to the ebb and flow of the chemo. No one seemed to notice, and that’s how he wanted it.”
Robertson’s father said tearfully Monday that “you want to be your son’s hero and during this battle that he had for over six years, he quickly became my hero. … There was never ‘woe is me.’ ”
Robertson later worked as a senior adviser at the U.S. Department of Treasury and served on the Clinton Transition Team in 2016. He went on to work for an investigations and strategic intelligence firm, another investigative law firm, and his own consulting corporation in Washington D.C.
He moved from Washington D.C. to Houston, Texas, where his wife is from, this summer to continue cancer treatments.
Robertson was still working the day he died, sending emails to help colleagues with a project, and filling out his absentee ballot for the Nov. 6 election.
“My husband thrived,” Sahar said. “Calling it a losing battle is not the way to say it … He lived fully and completely.”
A great mind and friend
Robertson first met Sahar over the phone while working for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
“I was just struck by how kind he was,” Sahar said, “and how patient he was.”
Meeting in person for the first time, “literally my breath was taken away.”
“He just had this incredible smile,” she said tearfully.
Robertson also had “an incredible strategic mind.”
“Some called it 3-D chess,” Sahar said, “or an Excel worksheet with a million worksheets open at the same time.”
Sahar, a communications director, got to work alongside Robertson in the early days of the Obama administration. They were married in 2013 and gave birth to their son, Wali, in June 2017.
Obama wrote that Robertson found “great love” in Sahar and Wali, “who will hear from all of us how wonderful his dad was, and whom we’ll help thrive and become a good man like him.”
Friends and family recall Robertson constantly going out of his way to help people.
“He believed in the power of his love and his heart,” Sahar said, “and his caring for other people.”
Gray said Robertson helped her and other Obama staffers move from Chicago to Washington, D.C., and once baked quiches for friends at 5 a.m.
Robertson was also a world traveler. His parents and younger sister, Jaimee Robinson, recall with laughter and affection how he once called them to say he would be taking a camel and yak trip across Mongolia to see the Gobi Desert.
“He felt like, as Saroyan said, ‘In the time of your life, live,’ ” his mother said. “That was really who he was. He accomplished so much in this life because he kept striving for more – more to do, more places to see, more differences to make – and no matter what the odds were. He didn’t let anything hold him back, and he also felt very grateful for the experiences and people he met.”
Michael Robertson
Born: Nov. 4, 1976
Died: Oct. 30, 2018
Residence: Fresno native who last resided in Houston, Texas
Occupation: Former deputy cabinet secretary
Survivors: Wife Sahar Robertson, son Wali Robertson, parents John and Karyn Robertson, sister Jaimee Robinson and her husband Scott, parents-in-laws Hashmet and Samar Wali, and nephews Vincent and Chase Robinson
Memorial and prayer service: 10:30 a.m. Nov. 8 at St. Paul Catholic Newman Center, 1572 E. Barstow Ave., Fresno, followed by a private interment.
Remembrances: A GoFundMe trust fund was created online for Wali’s education, gofundme.com/for-wali-robertson.
This story was originally published November 06, 2018 4:21 PM.