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Robert A.M. Schick, 41, a lawyer at the Federal Trade Commission from 1978 to 1989, died Jan. 21 at his home in Alexandria. He had AIDS.
Mr. Schick was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale University, where he also received a law degree. He worked for a law firm in his native Salt Lake City before moving to the Washington area in 1978.
At the FCC, he was a senior adviser in the bureau of consumer protection, and had been an attorney-adviser to Commissioner George W. Douglas.
Mr. Schick, who had recently completed a novel, was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union and Sierra Club and was a volunteer with Whitman-Walker Clinic of Northern Virginia. His hobbies were gardening and cooking.
Survivors include his father, Franz Schick of Hilo, Hawaii; a sister Dorothy Schick of Eugene, Ore.; and a brother, Dillon Downey of Springerville, Ariz
Obituary published: WASHINGTON POST, THE (DC) | 27 JANUARY 1994
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Blair Feulner
Robert Schick was my best high school friend. He graduated from Yale and Yale Law with honors. The summer before his senior law year, he interned at a prestigious Salt Lake law firm. He told them he loved the outdoors and liked to hike. So naturally, the firm assigned him to devise a way for a client (a large Canadian mining company), to rape a national park in search of gold.
He decided corporate law was not for him.
So instead, Robert went to work for the Federal Trade Commission (DC) where he was assigned the thankless task of persequting the Evil Funeral Home Industry, which he did with distinction. He and his witnesses testified before Congress about how the industry cynically exploited all our grief. (Still does.)
Unfortunately, his proposed rule making got shot down in a deal that industry lobbyists cut behind closed doors. Robert was pissed, but he knew from the start it was a suicide mission.
About this time Robert announced what the rest of us already suspected: he was gay. And for a wonderful time he hit the DC, underground, club scene. Unfortunately, his timing was fatally flawed. He was diagnosed with Aids and died only a few years before the drugs that would have saved him were developed.
Had he lived, I'm confident Robert would have become head of the FTC. At least, until fired by Trump.
Blaire Feulner
Lisa Burnett
Blair,
Thanks for your thoughts on Rob. I loved hearing about his journey. He died way too young. i'm so sorry but so glad he found his way.
Thanks, LisaBurnett
Renee Hilpert
Dear Blair,
Thanks for sharing Robert's journey with us. It was clear when I met him, in 10th grade Geometry class, that I was in the presence of genius. I knew all too many good people taken by that pandemic; his story re-illustrates how many remarkable people were sadly lost.
I recall you fondly from Olympus Junior's "Traveling Assembly." Do you still have your accordian? Injuries preclude my prancing about as I once did! :D
Warm regards,
Renee Hilpert
Lars Erickson
Rob was one of a kind and a genius to boot. Patient is another way to describe his friendly way of allowing hacks like me to play bridge with him at the prestigious House of Cards. We shared some incredible experiences in the Wind Rivers in Wyoming, climbing Square Top Mountain. Jeff Work and I took Rob and about 40 pounds of Nikon camera gear almost to the top of The Cottonwood Twin Peaks. He was writing a allegorical novel before he moved to the DC area. I think it was called, "Lest Darkness Falls," and I believe he was writing about his own odyssey in the DC gay world. He told me that his first lover was the one who had given him AIDS. The world lost an immense intellect when he passed.
Paul Beck
Rob was a kind genius and every conversation I remember having with him left me feeling he truly cared for others. Sad we lost him so early in life as he had so much to offer.