Michael J. Calhoun ’70

Michael, a lawyer who was a top official in the Department of Health and Human Services during the presidency of George H.W. Bush and who later helped lead an AIDS foundation, died Feb. 24, 2009, of cancer of the thymus at his home in Mill Valley, Calif.

In 1989, Michael became chief of staff to HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan and helped oversee a department of 65,000 employees. He led the first cabinet-level tour of Africa to explore the impact of AIDS and was “widely credited with helping Sullivan get control of the department and his image,” according to a 1990 article in the National Journal.

He left government service in 1991 to take a fellowship to study in Japan. He wrote a book, The Silver Market: New Opportunities in a Graying Japan and United States, and was an adviser to the Japan Society.

He settled in California in 1992 and was a vice president of Stanford Hospital and a consultant on health care in Asia and Africa. In 2007, he became COO of Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation in San Francisco.

Michael was a trustee of Princeton and the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  

His survivors include his wife of 17 years, Kathy J. Williams; their children, Jordan and McCall; his parents, Leon and Aileen Calhoun; and a brother.