Jacob “Jake” Brewer, a White House senior policy adviser to the Office of Science and Technology Policy, died Sept. 19 in a collision with a car in Mount Airy, Maryland, while participating in a charity bicycle ride for cancer treatment programs. He was 34.
Many of Brewer’s White House colleagues mourned his death publicly, including President Obama, who released a statement. “I am heartbroken at the tragic loss of one of my advisers, Jake Brewer,” he wrote. “We set out to recruit the best of the best to join their government and help us harness the power of technology and data to innovate new solutions. Simply put, Jake was one of the best.
“Armed with a brilliant mind, a big heart, and an insatiable desire to give back, Jake devoted his life to empowering people and making government work better for them. He worked to give citizens a louder voice in our society. He engaged our striving immigrants. He pushed for more transparency in our democracy. And he sought to expand opportunity for all.”
Brewer was participating in the two-day, 160-mile Ride to Conquer Cancer in support of a close friend who is a cancer patient. According to media reports, he lost control of his bike at a sharp curve, crossing the double yellow line and colliding with an oncoming car.
News of Brewer’s death spread across Twitter and Facebook, where a wide circle of professional contacts and friends expressed their shock and shared their memories. He was referred to as “the epitome of a public servant,” and his optimism and selflessness were mentioned frequently.
Friends and family called him a gentle and doting father, a dedicated son, and a “renaissance man” who aggressively pursued a broad range of passions, including cycling, photography, social technology, hiking and mountain climbing. He was a triathlete. In his professional life, he “thought big” about how to empower people, one longtime friend said.
A native of Columbia, Tennessee, Brewer attended Vanderbilt as a psychology major and was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He also attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. At the time of his death, he was living in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, Mary Katharine Ham, and their 2-year-old daughter, Georgia. Ham is editor-at-large of the political blog Hot Air and a contributor to Fox News, appearing regularly on The O’Reilly Factor with Bill O’Reilly. They were married in 2011, and their second child is due in November.
The day after Brewer’s death, Ham posted a photo of the two of them on Instagram with an extended caption sharing her grief that said, in part, “We lost our Jake yesterday, and I lost part of my heart and the father of my sweet babies. I don’t have to tell most of you how wonderful he was. It was self-evident. His life was his testimony, and it was powerful and tender and fierce, with an ever-present twinkle in his eye.”
Dedicated to his work, Brewer saw technology as a means to widen civic engagement. Before joining the White House staff, he worked as director of external affairs for Change.org, a leading site that encourages and enables civic activism through technology. He also co-founded Define American, an advocacy organization centered on immigration reform, with activist Jose Vargas, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter.
A memorial fund created to help support the education of Brewer’s children reached its $200,000 goal in donations one day after it was launched. Change.org hosted events honoring Brewer at its offices in Washington, D.C., New York and San Francisco.
Brewer is survived by his wife, daughter, parents, stepparents and sisters.
—PHILLIP B. TUCKER