Marda Robillard:  

After graduating from Mackenzie I went to work for what was then the Michigan Bell Telephone company and took night courses at Detroit Business College. In July of 1965 I married Bob, my high school sweetheart and classmate. We had two daughters, Lisa (11/17/66) and Lara (4/17/69) and lived in Royal Oak, Birmingham and Rochester Hills. In 1973 we were divorced. In 1975 when my daughters were in school I returned to college as a full-time student earning a degree in Journalism, cum laude from Oakland University in 1978. A few months later I took a job working on my first political campaign and in November of 1978 when he was elected to the United States Senate I went to work in the office of Senator Carl Levin. In the summer of 1980 I made a decision to accept a job in the senator's Washington, D. C. office and my daughters and I moved from Rochester Hills to Arlington, Virginia. I worked for Senator Levin until 1987 and shortly after my younger daughter went off to college I accepted my first chief of staff position in the U.S. House of Representatives for Congressman Howard Wolpe. In late 1992 I became chief of Staff for Congressman John D. Dingell where I spent the next seven years of my career. During that time I took a number of advanced courses including the senior executives in government program at the Kennedy School at Harvard, executive program at the Federal Executive Institute, John C. Stennis Congressional Fellowship, Center for Creative Leadership executive program, and the American Decision Maker Program at the Organization for Tropical Studies in La Selva, Costa Rica. In May of 2000 after working in the U.S. Congress for more than 20 years and reaching the age of 55 I decided to retire from the public sector. Since that time I have worked in government relations for a major for-profit healthcare company, a major state research university, as a consultant for Native American healthcare issues and now as vice president for one of the largest federal relations firms in Washington. I like to say I have flunked retirement three times but the truth is I enjoy working. The biggest changes in my life in the past decade have been the two new titles I have added to my bio: Wife and Grandmother. In 2001 after leaving Capitol Hill I met a truly great guy. Patrick was retired from the military and was working for the National Capitol Planning Commission when we met in May 2001. It took awhile for him to convince me that marriage was a good idea after 29 years of unabashed independence but he relentlessly persevered and we were married on November 9, 2002 in Alexandria, Virginia. On July 4, 2004 my daughter Lisa gave birth to my grandson, Max, named after my later father, in Washington, D.C. These two men have changed my life and I couldn't be happier. Patrick is retired since 2002. In 2018 I joined him in retirement. We decided to move from the home he had lived in for more than 30 years and downsize to a condominium. The process of getting rid of the "stuff" we had each accumulated through the years was brutal and exhausting and moving is stressful but we did it. Since our honeymoon in London in late 2002 we have visited: England, Scotland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Australia, China, Spain, Morocco, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Belgium In Canada we've enjoyed trips to: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto and Niag...Expand for more