Current Position: White House Trip Director (since January 2009)
Credit: White House / Pete Souza
Why He Matters
Nicholson is the man who made Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign run, and he has had a front-row seat to the last two presidential elections.
A former bartender and golf caddy with no prior political ambitions, Nicholson met Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) while working at a windsurfing shop in Massachusetts and eventually took a job in the senator’s office. Before he met Kerry, he had never voted. A few years later, Nicholson was working as Kerry’s personal aide (or “body man,” as they are sometimes called), with a business card reading “Chief of Stuff,” during the 2004 presidential election.
When Kerry passed on running for president again in 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) hired Nicholson as the campaign’s national trip director, making it his job to ensure that the candidate was in the right place at the right time. Nicholson has the same job in the White House.
At a Glance
Current Position: White House Trip Director (since January 2009)
Career History: Scheduler for Barack Obama 2008 campaign (January 2007 to November 2008); Senate aide to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.); Personal Assistant to Sen. Kerry (D-Mass.), 2004 presidential campaign; Caddy, Augusta National Golf Club
Birthday: N/A
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
Alma Mater: University of Western Ontario
Religion: N/A
Office: N/A
Email N/A
Web site
Path to Power
Nicholson was born to an American mother and a Canadian father. His father died when he was nine years old, leaving his mother to raise him in Toronto and on Vancouver Island. He had thoughts of getting an MBA and working on Bay Street, the center of Toronto’s financial district. Instead, he graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a degree in geography and worked odd jobs — at bars and golf courses — for a few years. “At one point, I was going to be a professional caddy,” Nicholson said. “That was my big life plan.”
In 1998, he left Vancouver and moved to Massachusetts after falling for a woman. “When I got to Boston, if you asked me who the two senators were from Massachusetts, I couldn’t have told you,” Nicholson said. He was working at a windsurfing shop in Cambridge, Mass., when he met Kerry, a regular customer (during his 2004 presidential campaign, Kerry was painted as an elite who always blew with the political wind in part because of his windsurfing habit). The two became friends and Nicholson ended up caddying for Kerry for two summers.
Kerry offered Nicholson an internship, but Nicholson declined so he could take a job caddying at Augusta National Golf Club. But in the fall of 2000, he came to Washington and took a job in Kerry’s office. In 2001, Nicholson became Kerry’s driver, and he joined the Senator’s 2004 presidential campaign as Kerry’s “body man.” 
“My business card reads: ‘Marvin Nicholson, Chief of Stuff,” Nicholson said.He kept Kerry well-stocked with pens, reading glasses and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, ordered the Senator’s breakfast and hung out with him at night.
Nicholson stayed in Kerry’s office after the 2004 election, but when the Massachusetts senator declined to run for president again in 2008, Obama’s campaign came calling. During the 2008 campaign, Nicholson worked not as a body man but as Obama’s national trip director and scheduler. He managed all of the day-to-day and minute-to-minute activities of the grueling, nearly two-year-long campaign and ensured Obama stayed on schedule.
The Issues
Nicholson is one of a half-dozen people who keep the Obama on schedule. In addition to a trip director, Obama has a director of scheduling and advance and a small team of other employees who focus on those issues.
“I can’t help with policy, I don’t do press. When he wants a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I’m ready.” That’s how Nicholson described his job for Kerry in 2004. For Obama, he is paid to be organized and keep Obama organized. But “personally, I’m one of the most disorganized people I’ve ever met,” Nicholson says.
Still, both candidates appreciated having Nicholson’s skills. He acted not only as a scheduler and sandwich chef, but also as a friend and confidante to both Democratic presidential candidates. His No. 1 job during the 2008 presidential campaign was keeping Obama on schedule, but “he [did] it with class, grace and courtesy,” Obama said. “If it hadn’t been for him, we would not be where we are.”
The Network
Nicholson is still good friends with Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). And the former Kerry body man has become very good friends with Obama’s own body man, Reggie Love.
(photos: Pete Souza / White House)
