February 28, 2002
Autographs with a purpose: UW staffer meets President, helps charities
For a number of years now, Michael Reagan, the UW’s director of trademarks and licensing, has been hanging out with celebrities. No, he’s not one of those groupies hoping for just a glimpse of the adored-one’s face. In fact, he’s already been looking at their faces for a long time. What he’s interested in is their signatures, and not for the usual reasons.
Reagan is an artist on his own time who’s decided to use his skills to benefit others. He paints portraits of famous people, then makes prints and asks the celebrities to sign them. These he donates to charities to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Over the years he’s managed to meet sports stars and rock stars, movie stars and business stars. But his biggest thrill has been getting the signatures of U.S. Presidents. In fact, he recently bagged President number six when he met George W. Bush in Alaska.
As Reagan tells the tale, he had earlier been asked by the state’s Republican Party to do portraits of then-Governor Bush during his presidential campaign, and after the election, to do one of George W and his father together. He decided on his own to also do a portrait of the President’s wife, Laura. He was invited to Alaska for a formal presentation of these portraits during a stop the President was making there.
“I was as nervous as I’ve ever been,” Reagan confides. “I’d brought along my best suit to wear, but it was snowing heavily and I worried that I’d look terrible by the time I met the President.”
But Reagan had a larger worry, too. The original artwork was already in Alaska for the presentation, but he’d brought along some prints in hopes that the President and First Lady would sign them.
“Everybody told me it would never happen,” Reagan said. “They said there was no time. They said security would never even let me bring them to the presentation.”
But they were wrong. At the staging area where everyone boarded a bus for the site where the presentation would be held, a politician in front of Reagan was denied the right to take his briefcase. Reagan, however, was permitted to board with his portfolio. At the site itself there was more security. Reagan opened his portfolio and told the Secret Service what it was. They waved him on.
The final triumph, however, was meeting Bush.
“When the President entered the room he walked right over to me and shook my hand,” Reagan said. “We exchanged some pleasantries. After a short conversation I asked him if he would mind signing the prints and he said ‘of course.’ So we walked over to where they were and he signed all of them.”
By this time Laura Bush had entered the room and the President called her over. Reagan asked her if she would sign her prints, and she too complied.
But there was more. After the autographing was complete, Bush told Reagan that he particularly liked the picture of Laura. He also asked if he could have some copies of the prints. Reagan, of course, agreed. A White House official later told him that the President intended to hang the portrait of Laura in the White House, perhaps in the Oval Office.
Reagan says the policy of this White House is to not sell the President’s signature while the President is in office.
“Once he’s no longer President we can start,” he says. “It’s my understanding that at that time the new prints (of father and son) will be signed by both Presidents and then sent to help various charities around the country.”
They’ll only augment what Reagan has already done. He’s painted about 1,600 celebrity portraits and raised more than $1 million for local charities alone. Says Reagan, “I’m having a great time.”
