Bob Massie (politician) - Education, Family and Early Career

Education, Family and Early Career

Despite the physical challenges he faced, Massie entered Princeton University, graduating magna cum laude in 1978 with a degree in History. As an officer of his alumni class he established the Class of 1978 Foundation, one of the first university foundations to fund direct summer service for students.

While at Princeton he became increasingly aware of the importance of politics in civil society and individual lives, becoming a leader in the student movement for Princeton’s divestiture from South Africa, and closer to home, campaigning for equal access to University dining clubs, many of which did not admit women as members. During this period he also spent three summers and parts of his sophomore year working in the office of U.S. Senator Henry Jackson (D-Washington). While investigating weaknesses in the U.S. blood supply system, he saw firsthand how industry pressures delayed the implementation of critical safety precautions now taken for granted. Massie’s concerns were tragically underscored several years later, when he learned he had contracted HIV from contaminated blood products, a diagnosis considered a virtual death sentence at that time.

This diagnosis opened another chapter in Massie’s remarkable medical journey, as it became clear, over the ensuing years, that he was one of the very few HIV patients with native resistance to the disease. His immune response was intensively studied by Dr. Bruce Walker at Massachusetts General Hospital and was the subject of a NOVA documentary in 1999. Dr. Walker has pointed to Massie as the person whose immune system launched an entirely new area of international research on HIV.

After graduating from Princeton Massie entered Yale Divinity School, where he concentrated on social and theological ethics, taking a year off to return to Washington to work on issues of corporate responsibility with Congress Watch. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Yale in 1982, and was ordained in the Episcopal church the following year.

After graduation he met and married Dana Robert with whom he had two sons, Sam (b. 1987), and John (b. 1989). The couple divorced in 1995. In 1996 Massie married Anne Tate, an architect and professor at Rhode Island School of Design, with whom he has a daughter, Katherine (b. 1998).

From 1982 to 1984 he worked as an assistant and Chaplain at Grace Episcopal Church in New York, co-founding a homeless shelter.

Throughout this period Massie became increasingly aware of the powerful role of business, for good or ill, in shaping public policy and advancing or retarding economic, social and environmental progress. Determined to better understand and find ways to harness this powerful force, Massie entered Harvard Business School in 1985, on scholarship. He completed the core of Harvard’s M.B.A. program as a portion of his doctoral studies, and went on to write his dissertation on how large institutions balance organizational objectives with perceived moral obligations. He received a Doctor of Business Administration from Harvard in 1989.

While a full-time business student he continued to serve as minister, at Christ Episcopal Church in the working class city of Somerville, Massachusetts, where he was responsible for preaching every week at Sunday services and ministering to hundreds of parishioners. During this period he also edited the Harvard Business School’s weekly newspaper and served on the Ethics Advisory Committee at Boston Children’s Hospital.