Lawyer Helped Lead AIDS Foundation

Michael J. Calhoun, 61, 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 of cancer of the thymus at his home in Mill Valley, Calif.

Mr. Calhoun arrived in Washington in the mid-1970s and was an associate lawyer with the firm of Covington & Burling. From 1976 to 1979, he worked on Capitol Hill as assistant minority counsel for international trade of the House Ways and Means Committee.

In 1979, he was named vice chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency that provides information on trade to Congress and the White House. From 1984 to 1989, he was a partner with the law firms of Laxalt, Washington, Perito & Dubuc and later Finley, Kumble, Wagner.

In 1989, Mr. Calhoun 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. "Calhoun, in addition to pulling together a formerly fractious HHS team, also gave Sullivan a piece of time-honored advice: lead with your strengths. He helped him home in to take a stand on public health issues such as prevention, nutrition and smoking."

In 1991, Mr. Calhoun left the government to accept 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.

Mr. Calhoun 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 chief operating officer of Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation in San Francisco.

Michael Jeffrey Calhoun was born in Columbia, S.C. He attended the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado before graduating from Princeton University in 1970. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1974 and studied at the London School of Economics before coming to Washington.

He was a trustee of Princeton University and the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was also a member of the Sigma Pi Phi honorary fraternity.

Survivors include his wife of 17 years, Kathy J. Williams, and their two children, Jordan Calhoun and McCall Calhoun, all of Mill Valley; his parents, Leon and Aileen Calhoun of Hampton, Va.; and a brother.

-- Matt Schudel