Jaison Robinson, ’09: Adventures Have Taken Him from Launch to Launch Pad
A couple of years ago, Jamie Van Horne Robinson posted on social media about her husband, Jaison Robinson, ’09. “Married a guy who can’t wait to get as far away from me as possible,” the post said.
It was a joking reference to the fact that Jaison would soon be traveling far above the earth, as an astronaut on a Blue Origin spaceflight.
“I like to see what is out there, beyond our everyday horizons,” Robinson said. His adventures have included hiking for a week in Antarctica, skydiving, breaking the sound barrier in a fighter jet, walking on the wing of a biplane in flight, and scaling the top of the world’s highest waterfall. He was a member the United States national water polo team. While his just-graduated classmates were studying for the bar exam, he was in Samoa as a contestant on Survivor, where he was among the last to be eliminated.
Surpassing challenges is at the core of Robinson’s family history. His parents left the Jim Crow South, ending up in California, where his mother became an award-winning public-school principal and ran a program to help African-American men prepare for college. His father earned a PhD from Stanford, became a college professor and dean, and served on the state board of education. “They were part of a generation where they were the first Black everything,” Robinson has said.
His father also made some small real estate investments, which Robinson has helped to build into a very successful real estate company.
“The real estate business helps fuel many of the things that Jamie and I most want to do,” he said. In 2020, the couple created Dream Variations Ventures, which funds minority and women entrepreneurs who are creating the future in fields that include climate and environment, sports, health, and entertainment. In 2022, they established the Jaison and Jamie Richardson Foundation, whose grantees have included a program that helps low-income families achieve debt-free home ownership in Detroit, and another that works to ensure that all families can access high-quality early education and childcare.
As a trustee of the National Public Radio Foundation since 2020, Jaison is pleased that the Jaison and Jamie Richardson Foundation can direct funds to that organization. “There are people from the whole spectrum of political views on NPR’s board, and we all love NPR,” he said. “There is too little neutral and truthful information in media these days, and NPR is a beacon of what news should be.”
The foundation has also endowed a scholarship fund at the Law School to promote diversity among the student body. “I don’t think anyone leaves the Law School thinking in the same way as they did when they arrived,” he said. “You learn how to face intellectual challenges, see multiple sides of arguments, and potentially change minds with logic and reason. And unlike so many major institutions today, the Law School, and UChicago as a whole, continue to honor free speech and rigorous academic inquiry, trusting that minds grow best from challenge, not coddling.”
He said that of all the experiences of his life, one stands out as the most remarkable: having children. There are three now: James, John, and Josie. “The miracle of life, the miracles of curiosity and growth, the miracle of the deepest love and the continuity of love through generations—it’s all amazing and wonderful to me, and it’s all right there with me every day, reminding me of the past and challenging me to keep doing my best to help create a better future.”