Susan Gail Robertson

Susan Gail Robertson (Gail to those who knew her) died on August 24, 2024. She was born in Lubbock, Texas on June 25, 1953, the oldest of three children. Her father was an Airman at Reese AFB when he met her mother who was at Texas Tech University getting her degree in education. When Gail was about 5 years old, they moved to Arizona for her dad’s job, spending 3 years before moving back to Lubbock. His work took them to Amarillo, Texas where Gail graduated from High School. While Gail started at Texas Tech, her family moved to Joplin, Missouri, later returning to Lubbock where he bought and grew a successful agricultural chemical supply warehouse business. Her mom was an elementary school teacher, the only one of seven children to graduate from college.

She is survived by her spouse, Eugene A. Shooter, Jr. and her two younger brothers, Grady M. Robertson and Glen C. Robertson, are both successful entrepreneurs, having owned multiple businesses between them. They still live in Lubbock. Gail also has 6 nephews (Jason, Jeremy, Jared, Kirby, Justin, Jeffery), one niece (Jaime), three great-nephews (Cash, Case and Cole) and three great-nieces (Maci, Zoe, and Sloan) and another one on the way. There is a set of twins in both of those generations.

She has been married to Gene Shooter since 1985. He and Gail met while he was a probation officer and she was a prosecutor. She mostly put Gene through his Ph.D. in psychology at Texas Tech. They moved to Hawaii for his pre-doctoral internship, and to Washington, DC 10 years later when Gail was appointed as a Presidential Management Fellow at the US State Department. Gene currently is a mostly-retired psychologist, currently seeing a few clients in private practice. Prior to retirement, Gene worked in community mental health, providing behavioral health consultation and services to nursing homes and assisted living, and for two Department of Defense agencies while maintaining a part-time private practice. In Hawaii, he worked in community mental health.

Gail graduated from Texas Tech University the first time with a BA in journalism in 1975. She worked as a news producer for a TV station in Lubbock, Texas and later as a reporter and features writer for the local newspaper, the Lubbock Avalanche Journal. She went with a friend to take the LSAT and was accepted at Texas Tech University School of Law, receiving her second degree from Tech in 1980. She worked as an assistant district attorney and the Misdemeanor Division Chief for Lubbock County District Attorney’s Office. She tried more than 100 cases and second chaired a capitol murder trial. She left the DA’s office and handled bankruptcy cases for the Small Business Administration.

Upon moving to Hawaii she worked for a private practice that focused on condominium law, also handling criminal cases of their clients. She left that practice and worked for the criminal justice division of the Hawaii Attorney General’s office, later the State Ethics Commission, State House of Representatives Minority Office, and the State Office on Aging. It was while she was at the Office on Aging that she received her third college degree, a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Hawaii in 1997.

With the MPA degree she was awarded a Presidential Management Fellowship at the US State Department in 1997 where she later served as a Program Analyst, Senior Program Analyst, Foreign Affairs Officer, a Supervisory Foreign Affairs Officer, Senior Advisor and Office director. She left the State Department in 2011 to become the Senior Advisor for International Affairs for the National Transportation Safety Board, retiring from federal service in 2017. Her personal interest as well as her jobs in Hawaii and DC allowed her to engage in her favorite hobby – travel. She (often with her husband Gene tagging along) was able to travel to many states in the USA as well as Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Austria, Germany, England, France, Spain, Italy, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Quatar, UAE, Haiti, New Zealand, Japan, and too many more to note in what is supposed to be a brief obituary. She won many performance awards in her various positions.

During her professional career she belonged to and did volunteer work for the Lubbock County Bar Association, the Texas Woman’s Bar Association, the and the Hawaii Women’s Legal Foundation. After retirement and until her death, Gail did volunteer work for the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria.

In lieu of flowers, Gail would like donations to your local chapters of Planned Parenthood, Animal Shelters, and animal rescue organizations.