“The Glorious Burden of Being The First”: A Conversation with Robert Traynham

GPPR Senior Podcast Editor Sneha Choudhary (MPP ’24) speaks with Dr. Robert Traynham – a highly accomplished communications and public relations expert, and Emmy®-nominated media commentator with nearly two decades’ experience. In this episode, Dr. Traynham discusses the pride and the burden that comes with being “The First”, the importance of titles, his work with trying to change the system from within, and the role that service plays in his life.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:

SNEHA CHOUDHARY: Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Georgetown Public Policy Review Podcast – I’m your host Sneha Choudhary. Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Robert Traynham. Robert has had an incredibly storied career – he’s worked in the White House, the Senate, broadcast news, radio, nonprofits, Walmart, and most recently Meta. And on top of all of that, is also a highly respected professor at Georgetown University, and in fact, one of my professors, this past fall. In this episode, we discuss the pride and the burden that comes with being “The First”, the importance of titles, his work with trying to change the system from within,  and the role that service plays in his life. Without further ado – let’s get started. 

CHOUDHARY: Hi, Professor, it is so good to see you. 

ROBERT TRAYNHAM: Hello, there! Thank you very much for having me.

CHOUDHARY: Yeah, I was just saying it’s been a while since we’ve connected last. 

TRAYNHAM: Indeed, it’s been at least a semester and a half. So it’s good to hear your voice and to see you, and to talk about all things policy. So thanks for having me on. Thank you. 

CHOUDHARY: Thank you. And you’re out of town right now, right? 

TRAYNHAM: I am. I’m in New England, just outside of Boston, here enjoying the beautiful weather, and hopefully, wherever people that are listening and watching this hopefully, they have great weather, except for allergies. Of course, no matter where you are. 

CHOUDHARY: Exactly. Okay. Well, we’ll keep it tight, because I know you have family coming later today. So, like I mentioned in the intro, you have had such a wide breadth of experience in your career. Can you talk a little bit about what your progression has been like? Specifically, what is your North Star? I know that you’ve probably at every juncture had multiple opportunities, how do you choose what the next best move is?

TRAYNHAM: Yeah, that’s a good question. And thank you so very much for having me on it. It’s so good to spend some time with you. I would say two things, and this will sound slightly contradictory, and that is that I’ve never had a plan. I’ve never really thought through my whole entire life, from a business standpoint or from a professional standpoint: at 25, I want to do this, at 30, I want to do this. I never did that. And I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I will say Sneha, that kind of germaine, really to your question is my values and my values are hard work, you know, remember to always do the right thing when no one’s watching, because it’s not really about the praise or the affirmation. It is about doing the right thing, always. And so for me, in the professional sense that is: showing up for work before everyone else does. One, because I kind of just like that morning zen time, but also, I sweat the small stuff when it comes to making sure that whatever project that I’m working on, if you say, Robert, listen, I need this by May 15th by 5:00, there’s a good chance that you’re going to get it by May 1st at 9:00, because that’s just how I am. So I think the thread throughout my whole entire professional career has been two things: one, I’ve never really thought about the bigger picture with respect to where I’m going to be. But I thought about the smaller picture in terms of how I want to be remembered, how to be respected, how I want to be looked at as a professional and as a peer – so hopefully that kind of makes sense.

CHOUDHARY: It does, it does, and it kind of is relieving to hear that. Because it takes the pressure off of every little next move that you make, you’re wondering: is this the right thing for me? Am I making the right decision? So that provides me some solace for sure. So kind of alongside that in a lot of your roles – we’ve spoken about this, both in class and also in personal conversations about being the first to do something, and the pride that comes with doing it, but also the responsibilities that come with doing so. And in your career you have certainly been the first to do so many things. What has this experience been like for you? And beyond that, with the concept of being the first also comes the importance of titles, and we’ve talked about this before. I actually think I learned this the hard way from you, because in one of my papers I kept referring to the Vice President as just Kamala Harris. And you docked me points for that. You said – the way my generation would say: You have to put some respect on her name, and you have to call her Vice President Kamala Harris! And now that I’ve you know I’ve been in my internship, and I’ve learned more, I’ve really understood why that’s important. So tell me a little bit about why you think titles matter. And then, beyond that, what the experience of being the first has been like for you? 

TRAYNHAM: Yeah. So I’m glad you brought this up, and I’m glad you brought it up in the context of class, and I’m glad you brought it up in the context of the paper that you wrote. I remember that vividly, because there’s so much here, right? And because in many ways we are humans and humans have titles, whatever that might be, whether that’s mom or dad, or pastor, or doctor or Vice President or President, or Professor, you’re going down the list right. And so the respect that title, whatever it might be, and I want to be clear it could be mom, or dad, or friend, or brother, or whatever that comes with that, to me means a lot. And so, therefore, for some people, myself included, which we’ll talk about in a few moments, to have earned that, 

To aspire to that, again it could be mom or dad or something else, but it means something. You know, I always bristle when someone says, well, Kamala, you know she’s not strong enough, or you know, or “Hillary”. Okay, if you’re friends with her. I think you certainly have the right to call her Kamala or Hillary; but if you don’t know her, and or if it’s in the context of policy, or in her position as the Vice President or the Secretary of State. She is the Vice President, and you know I always bristle at this, because oftentimes when we talk about men in this context, it is the President. It’s not Bill, or very rarely do we say, George, it’s President Bush, or President Clinton, or even to a certain degree, you know Barack and President Obama, although the only context or nuance, I would say is that with Michelle Obama she openly says, oh, please call me Michelle, and that’s okay. She reserves the right to say, hey, please call me this. But my point is that this stuff matters especially with marginalized communities. In my view, we have fought so hard. Let me back up. We have been marginalized for so long, right, and to be able, and usually with marginalized communities, we don’t have the luxury of inheriting this position. We don’t have the luxury of, well, our father was a professor at Georgetown, and so I’m at Georgetown. Usually it’s through a lot of hard work and sweat. And so with that I believe should come the right to be able to say, no, no, we’re not friends. Call me Vice President, or whatever the case may be. I don’t want to belabor it, but I do feel very passionate about that. I think other to your question is being the first, and so I used to say, and I still believe this: it’s a glorious burden. The glorious thing is that you’re a trailblazer. You are, you know, breaking a ceiling in some incidences, whether it be in my case: being the first African American, in some cases being the first openly gay, or out gay person in a position. And so that feels good. It means a lot. And you know, in some incidents you’re a footnote to history. The burden is, in my view, and I can only speak for myself, and that is standing on the shoulders of people that came before you that didn’t have that title, but certainly earned the right to have that title, but because of racism and sexism, were never afforded that title. So the burden with that right. The second burden in my view, is that oftentimes you have a big target on your back because of enviousness, because of jealousy. So there’s a lot of people that don’t like the fact that you are the first. And so, there’s an expectation to go 130%, and I think we see this with Vice President Harris. I think we definitely saw this in Barack Obama and other is that there’s such an expectation. And the one thing that I would draw your viewers and listeners to is Michelle Obama. She wrote in her book, Becoming, that when she and the President, this was on January the twentieth, when she and President Obama were in the marine helicopter flying to Air Force One, they were leaving for the last time. And when they got on to Air Force One, she burst out in tears. I believe it was almost for two hours, and she said I was crying because of the burden that Barack and I had for eight years of being the first. The moment that we slipped up, the moment that we mispronounced something, the moment that we didn’t salute the flag, the moment that our girls, because they’re girls and teenagers, would have just done something that teenagers do, right? Just that enormous pressure on the world stage. She just burst out in tears because she could all let it go. She didn’t have that burden anymore, could you imagine? I can’t even imagine. 

CHOUDHARY: No, I can’t. 

TRAYNHAM: But her saying it, and giving us permission to be able to cry and to say. Wow! This is such a burden. I need to cry for two hours. By the way, it’s not just Michelle Obama, right, Nelson Mandela’s talked about this, Oprah Winfrey has talked about this, even Sarah Palin, you know, as a woman talked about this. Rupaul has talked about this being the first cross-dressing individual. So my point is that there’s so many examples, Sneha, of this, so many examples of being the first in my view, there is a glorious burden with that. So I don’t want to belabor it. But I do think that there’s something there that it’s okay to talk about, it’s okay to be vulnerable. It’s okay to be proud about this moment, right in history and time, whatever that might be. But it’s also okay, I think to acknowledge that you’re walking a tightrope emotionally in many cases, and the moment you slip up there’s going to be half of the room that’s going to cheer that you slip up, and that you fell, right? And there’s also going to be a lot of people in the room that’s going to say, wow, they let us down, you know. There’s a lot there, not to keep going on about it.

CHOUDHARY: Yeah, it’s incredibly difficult. I mean that, Michelle Obama example, I think just encapsulates the idea so perfectly. A bit of a follow up here – in situations where you have been the first and potentially have had people say things to you that may have been slightly racist or slightly homophobic, and maybe it’s not even coming from a bad place. Maybe they just genuinely have never been around somebody who has that identity, and don’t know what is right and what is wrong? How do you, in a professional sense, go about that? Even my short time in the workforce, I’ve felt – at what point do you brush things off? And at what point do you say, hey, you can’t say that. What has your experience been like there? 

TRAYNHAM: Yeah, that’s a good question. I’m gonna answer your second part first, and I’ll give you some examples. It depends on the context. It really does, in my view, and this is for everyone. This is so situational, like in a split of a moment you have to make the decision. Oh, this person’s joking. This person means no harm or no, this is a really veiled thing. I need to check this person. So in many ways, and you know this as a person of color, and also as a female. You’re constantly shifting in the workplace depending on frankly how they’re showing up, and you have to adjust to that in many ways right? And so the examples that I would use are, you know, oftentimes not anymore. But a couple of years ago people would say, oh, Robert, I didn’t even know you were gay. You don’t seem feminine.

CHOUDHARY: [laughs] Oh my gosh. 

TRAYNHAM: Okay? And another example would be, you know, and I really had this when I was in high school and in elementary school. You’re so lucky, Robert. You don’t have to tan like we do. You don’t have to stay outside and tan the way we do, because your skin is so beautiful.

CHOUDHARY: Oh my gosh. You do have beautiful skin, the people listening can’t see. But you’re glowing right now. 

TRAYNHAM: [laughs] You and I both! I’m a slight shade darker than you. But you have beautiful skin too, right? So it’s a good example, right? So you and I are joking about it, right? We’re joking, right? But in the context of the workplace, or someone’s being a little serious, in the split moment after, sometimes I have to say: hey, Sneha, that’s not okay. You know you’re not making a joke right now. You don’t say that again. In the context of being feminine or not feminine. That’s not okay. I choose to be who I am, my authentic self. Please don’t mention that again. Right? That’s not funny. So, anyway, to your point, I have to constantly modulate back and forth right. And candidly, I used to get this a lot. I don’t get it anymore. But younger days when I would do radio or I would talk to someone on the phone. I have never met this person. This is really before Google, when you could Google image someone, I would show up and meet someone. Oh, my God, Robert, is that you? You don’t sound black, or you don’t look black. Traynham, that doesn’t sound black? I would joke sometimes and say, well, here I am. I don’t know what you’re expecting, but this is me. I would try to make light of it. But if somebody was to say that today, I think I would say – let’s pause and let’s talk about your prejudices, because I don’t know what your definition of sounding black is, but it’s not okay. That’s not okay. The one thing that I learned at Facebook is two things that I would, you know, impart to you, and also to your listeners and viewers, and that is, be your authentic self, show up the way you choose to show up in terms of what that looks like for you. The second thing is that I’ve learned is, and I learned this kind of the hard way. The moment you feel as though someone is disrespecting you, check that person in the moment. Don’t wait. And the reason why you shouldn’t wait in my view, is because memories fade, and when you bring it up at another moment, people may have a different interpretation of what you said. They get a little defensive, and they may think that you’re festering, or you’re bringing up something from the past. But when you bring it up in the moment, say hey, hey! Let’s pause. You just said that I don’t act feminine. That’s not okay.  Yeah. I think that’s probably better to address it in the moment as opposed to waiting in my view.

CHOUDHARY: It’s kind of hard to think about that early on in the career. But I feel like, as you start to build a little bit more respect, and of a reputation, that’s part of being the first, is that you have to say that because once you’ve said – “it’s not right for you to say you don’t sound feminine” – they’ll never say that to another gay person again, or “it’s not right of you to say that you don’t sound black” – they’ll never say that again. So I think, you know people like you in that way, are trailblazers because for the rest of us, you’re laying down those rules that, hey – that’s not okay.

TRAYNHAM: I was going to say, to your point, you raised something I didn’t think about. That is, the more seasoned you become in your career, the more secure you become with yourself, whatever you want to call that, the more bold you become by checking someone, and I think you raise a really good point that the more junior you are in your career, I think for some people the more, hesitant they are. They feel uncomfortable addressing, especially if it’s someone that is of a higher authority, because you’re afraid of your job right? You raise a really good point there.

CHOUDHARY:  Yeah, but I’m waiting for the day, and I’m bold to myself. But I can’t wait to be bold with everybody else. Okay. So a piece of advice that I often hear from people in the public sector is to wait until later on into your career to join the private sector. Get your public sector experience first. What are your thoughts on that, particularly considering the pay discrepancy. Government salaries are so low, and you could make 2 to 3 times that amount of money in a private sector role. How do you reconcile that? Given that you’ve had experience in both?

TRAYNHAM: This is an excellent question. In full disclosure, I’m a million percent biased, because I am one of those people that believe that public service working in government is still an honorable and noble profession, either at the elected level or even at the you know, working at the staff level. But I’m one of those people, raise my hand. I’m one of those people that when I graduated from college, I went straight to Capitol Hill, and I made $18,000 a year starting off, and then eighteen-five, and then $22,000, and I did it for 10 years. I did it for two things: one, the experience, the contacts, the ability to multitask, the ability to really think through deductive reasoning, looking at the nuance of policy, has been the foundation of everything that I’ve done so far in my career. So I believe that when you’re younger: when you can eat, you know oodles of noodles, and may not have kids, don’t have a lot of bills – work in government. Because to your point you don’t make a lot of money, but that’s not the goal. I strongly strongly suggest people to do, especially Capitol Hill, and to my second point, and this is a byproduct, I didn’t think this would happen in the moment, but 20 years later, this is completely the case. All of my contacts, for the most part in DC, in some way, shape or form, either I worked with them on Capitol Hill, or we crossed paths on Capitol Hill in some way, shape or form. And I would say 20% of my contacts are now members of Congress themselves that we were staffers together, another 20% are senior bureaucratic staffers, and it in a good way – Chiefs of Staff, working in the administration, and 30% have left Capitol Hill and are now lobbyists, and Vice President of organizations. So  it’s interesting because I firmly, firmly believe in public service – and, by the way, I did it for ten years. You don’t have to do it for ten years, two years, three years, four years. But I believe strongly that that type of service will just not only financially, but reap just wonderful experiences for you from a professional standpoint for years and years to come.

CHOUDHARY: Yeah, absolutely. It just lays the right foundation. So kind of in a similar vein – when you’ve been in the private sector, which is, you know, like you mentioned, came later on in your career. Have you ever had to represent any views, and this could be in the public sector, too, as a communication professional, that you didn’t necessarily agree with? How do you reconcile that? How does it maybe give you perspective on how you’re representing people?

TRAYNHAM: Yeah, that’s a good question. I would say, from a value standpoint. I have that, to my knowledge, I’ve never said anything publicly, meaning since I was a Press Secretary and public spokesperson, I’ve never said anything that I didn’t agree with. That’s a bright red line for me.  I would also say, and this is probably I mean the elephant in the room here is that I worked for a member of Congress. For ten years, I was his Deputy Chief of Staff and Communications Director where he was a Republican from Pennsylvania, Senator, where he was, and still is,l very much is, adamantly against gay marriage. I’m gay. So I was out to him years and years ago, and I said, listen, I cannot and I will not, I will not, say that I am for a  constitutional amendment to to ban gay marriage. And what I tried to do unsuccessfully, by the way. What I tried to do behind the scenes was to change his opinion. I tried to work within the system, and what I think I did, with the benefit of hindsight, I think I moved the needle a half an inch. Not a whole inch, but a half an inch. So I just use this as an example of trying to work within the system to try to change someone’s position that I didn’t agree with. I would say that when I worked for Walmart – so, I’m the son of a blue collar postal worker. And so I will always have a soft spot for anyone living paycheck to paycheck, someone that’s a member of the union, and so forth. And so when I worked for Walmart, that was a little bit of a challenge for me. Because Walmart, at the time, was anti-union, and at the time, wasn’t pushing for a higher minimum wage. And so I worked there for a year, meaning in the corporate office. And you know honestly Sneha, I said to myself. This is not what I want to do. This is not who I am. I admire the company in many ways, from a logistical standpoint from their perspective of offering low prices to people like my parents who live in the urban or suburban areas that are living paycheck to paycheck. I get it. Walmart is a very large company that wants to push low prices to the consumer. I get that. But from a worker standpoint, I was not 100% aligned with what their thinking was. And so I said, I’m not doing this, I said. There’s no way that I can change this company. This is a value of theirs and a value of mine. We are oceans apart, so I left. So that’s probably a good example. I think two good examples of one, me trying to change the system from within, and I wasn’t successful in changing the system. So I left.

CHOUDHARY: Yeah. You know what you said about trying to change the system from within is really interesting to me, because a lot of times I feel like when people have strongly held views against something, a lot of times it’s because they’ve never really been exposed to it. They never really been exposed to that kind of point of view, or that kind of person. So I think that there’s something admirable about saying like I agree with this person on so many other points, I think if I can at least have conversations with them, and even for you to say half an inch, you know, I think that’s still a lot of progress for somebody who has strongly held views against any type of identity or ideal.

TRAYNHAM: Thank you. The Senator that I mentioned, I don’t want to share private conversations that I’ve had with him. But I think I can say this with a straight face, is that he is more tolerant and more moderate of his views around gay marriage and around LGBTQ. I would never say it’s because of me. I think that’s too presumptuous. I will say that I think I had a little hand in that. And look to your point, is that progress, I’ll let others decide. I’ll let others make that decision.

CHOUDHARY:  Yeah, I think it also goes back to your point from earlier in the conversation of looking at every role with what are you leaving behind. And even if it’s incremental progress, I still call that a win, in my opinion. So let’s get into one of our last couple of questions. I know you do a lot of service work in your free time, which for the record, you don’t really have a lot of free time. You are working full time. You are a professor, full time, I would say you probably have 5 hours of free time a week, and within that you are a big brother in the Big Brother Big Sisters program. You serve on boards for nonprofits and universities, and on top of that, you’re also a professor who is always mentoring students. There’s never been a time that I’ve emailed you and said, hey, Professor, can we please hop on the phone, and you’ve said no. You are always so solid and there for your people. Why is service important to you? And in some ways have you ever felt when you were in the private sector, that this complements your private sector work? And how? What role does service play in your life?

TRAYNHAM: Huge. And that is because I think at the end of the day, you know I’m in my 40s, so I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon. But you know, 40, 50 years from now, when I’m no longer on this earth. I hope, my sincere hope is that it’s not really about the bank account. It’s not really about the materialistic things. My hope is that I was able to change one, two people’s hearts. Maybe try to influence one to two people’s brains. Try to nurture, help one or two people that look like me that perhaps, and I was fortunate to have a two-parent household, but perhaps, maybe someone that didn’t have that if I could be a big brother to them or uncle or father, whatever you want to call it, father figure, and helping them think through their resume helping them think through – hey, I think you may want to wear a suit and tie to this interview today. To me, that’s so much more important.  That’s so much more of a bigger legacy, and it goes back to my true values, Sneha, around – it doesn’t really matter about the public accolades at the end of the day. What really matters is the quiet work to change someone’s mind to influence someone’s thinking to kind of nudge them a little bit – to put on a tie for this interview when no one else is looking. That that to me is the most most important thing.

CHOUDHARY: Yeah, again. And it comes right back into how you lead in, which is, like, you know, doing the quiet work.  It will make a bigger difference than maybe having like this loud persona that is like I did this, and I did this, so I think it takes volumes to your personality, because that’s exactly how I see you as your student. So the last question that I have for you today, and this is a question that I ask everybody that comes on my podcast, and I may have honestly asked you this before, because I love asking people this question: what is one thing that you know now that you wish you knew in the beginning of your career? 

TRAYNHAM: Patience. I should tell you one of my biggest flaws, but also, I think, one of my biggest strengths, and this is something I struggle with every single day is patience. I don’t have a lot of patience. My fourth grade teacher wrote on my report card: Robert is a young man in a hurry, and that’s true. So I don’t have a lot of patience for intolerance. I don’t have a lot of patience for pettiness. I don’t have a lot of patience for that stuff. However, the flip side of that is, I need to slow down. And I’m constantly reminding myself of this. Some days I’m guilty of not slowing down, and some days, if I had to tell my 18,19, 20 year old self on Capitol Hill that was so ambitious, to make sure that I was doing a good job, and then make sure that I was making an impact – slow down. Just slow down, because in the grand scheme of things, if you play the long game, oftentimes that is going to be your best friend.

CHOUDHARY: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s so beautifully said. There is almost nothing to follow that up with. And we have definitely talked about that in class before about how early on it can feel so frustrating to feel like I want to do so many things. I have the energy to do so many things. But I’m not getting those opportunities yet, and that was one of the big pieces of advice you gave us. Just wait, and it’ll come. Do the work, and then, after that the things that you deserve will come from it. So thank you for this conversation today, Professor. I feel we’ve gotten to talk about things today that we hadn’t even talked about before personally, but that I’ve always wondered about. So I appreciate you being open and honest with me.

TRAYNHAM:  Of course. Thank you very much for having me on. And let me just say two things: one, excellent excellent questions. Thank you so very much for showing up as a student and as a mentor and friend to me. In many ways. I really do view this as a reciprocal relationship, where your questions, you know, through your aura, and how you showed up in class obviously was a gift. So thank you. Thank you very much.

CHOUDHARY:  Thank you, Professor. Enjoy the rest of your trip. Enjoy sunny New England, and hopefully, I’ll get to see you again in DC soon. Thank you.