David Robertson is wearing a moon man on his wrist. It's a tiny astronaut on a bracelet that bobs and bounces as Robertson grows more animated while describing the designer, five-year-old Sage O'Ava Tatem of Allentown. “I want to see her bracelets on everyone's wrists,” Robertson says. His nonprofit foundation, Joshway, is helping to make that happen while also assisting another young artist, Ema, find a wider customer base for the T-shirt she has designed. “It's empowering them to see their art go from canvas to apparel, and then giving them other platforms to express themselves,” Robertson says.
The mission, though, is bigger than bracelets and T-shirts. The idea for Joshway came to Robertson in a dream. He remembers exactly when he had that dream: November 28, 2022. At the time he was mourning the death of his younger brother, Josh, who passed away the previous year. Robertson says Josh was grappling with mental health and substance abuse issues prior to his passing: “He fell to the opioid crisis.” In his dream, Robertson was in the kitchen with his grandfather, who was calling outside to his brother. He used the nickname he often called him: Joshway. That got Robertson thinking, what was Josh's way? “Josh's way was to live his life through all of the arts and music and sports,” he says. “Everything I saw in him as a young kid, that was his Josh way.”
Robertson can recall his brother's athletic prowess on the basketball court and the football field, and he remembers the first time he heard him sing in church, a spiritual number about the Lord's light showing the way even on the darkest of nights. Robertson thought, even though it was too late to save Josh, he might be able to help other young people ensnared in any number of personal or family struggles: “Who is that light? That's Joshway. This is the light that will shine for those kiddos.”
Joshway aims to empower young people in three areas: art, education and technology. The technology part of it is a no-brainer for Robertson, a tech-savvy guy with a tech-intensive job at a giant in the world of fintech (or financial technology). He's been with the Lehigh County-based payment processing company Shift4 for 20 years, coming aboard long before it grew into the publicly traded, multibillion-dollar corporation it is today.
Robertson was born in Houston, Texas, but moved to Oklahoma when he was still a boy. By the time he graduated high school he had grown weary of having a zip code along Tornado Alley, so he packed his bags and headed west to Tucson, Arizona. He got a job working at the help desk of a credit card company. A young entrepreneur named Jared Isaacman and his company, United Bank Card, were among the customers. Robertson eventually joined Isaacman's team and rose in the ranks of the company as it changed names and locations: first, from Tucson to the Boston area (Robertson's reaction to news of that move: “From extreme heat to extreme cold? Sure, why not.”), then from Massachusetts to New Jersey before the final stop in the Lehigh Valley in 2011.
Robertson admits he didn't know much about the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton region before dropping anchor here, but he was pleasantly surprised by what he found: “You got the vibe that you could really raise a family here.” Eventually he'd find out for himself. He got married in 2016. His wife, Danielle Robertson, is a former United Bank Card colleague with whom he reconnected after she left the company. They have two young sons, Luca and Miles.
Another perk of living in Pennsylvania: Robertson is finally closer to his beloved Steelers. “Black and gold has always been part of my childhood, my upbringing,” he says. Robertson isn't bothered that Eagles green would most likely be the more popular hue in Lehigh Valley sports bars; he's too busy trying to get his sons to buy into Steeler Nation.
Robertson's role with Shift4, as of July of 2023, is Principal of International Expansion and Operational Innovation. He calls himself an onboarding specialist. In layman's terms, he's the guy that makes things happen. He describes it like this: Isaacman has an idea, then Robertson is pulled into the mix to figure out a way to bring that idea to fruition. “You're like the string between marketing and finance and sales and ops,” he says. “And you're running the playbook. To be able to pull people together and execute on the vision, I've always found myself part of that experience. That's my strength, that visionary mindset.”
And that mindset served him well while he was building Joshway from scratch in just a few short months. The nonprofit got its 501(c) designation in May of 2023. That's not to say it's been a one-person effort. Robertson says the support from his Shift4 colleagues was swift and strong. Nine current or former employees sit on Joshway's board. “Most of us have worked together for over 15-plus years and helped shape Shift4 in many ways, including going public in 2020,” Robertson says.
The organization plunged into the work soon after its official inception, helping to revive a children's business fair in Upper Macungie Township that was in danger of shutting down. Soon after, Joshway announced a scholarship program with Northampton Community College. “I think higher education is important, and oftentimes, kids coming from troubled backgrounds don't believe they deserve college, but we want to change that,” says Robertson. As of February, the foundation was chipping away at a $25,000 goal to get the scholarship off the ground. The Joshwear store (shop.joshway.org), which sells a variety of branded merchandise, was launched as both a means to raise money for the foundation and a springboard for young artists like Sage and Ema.
Although Joshway recognizes the necessity and life-changing potential of the creative arts, it aims to teach practical skills, too, such as financial literacy, effective communication and mindfulness. There's also an emphasis on substance abuse awareness. “This opioid and fentanyl crisis is knocking out so many family members. We need to educate on it,” says Robertson.
But one thing Joshway is not trying to do is create a new community. Robertson recognizes that the Lehigh Valley is already home to a number of youth-centric nonprofits; he names Valley Youth House, The Kindness Project and The Century Promise as a few examples. Instead, the goal is collaboration: “Let's go to them with an olive branch and say, we believe one plus one is a bigger number. We bring our resources and our experience to you just to help your community to develop those kids.” Robertson sees Joshway as a north star or project manager for the other local groups that share the same goals but not necessarily the same skill sets. “We bring a lot. We know how to build. We know technology. We may not look or sound like a traditional nonprofit, but we want to work with as many communities that will have us.” Robertson's north star throughout the process of bringing the Joshway foundation to life has been its namesake. “I hope [Josh] is proud, because I'm working hard for him. He was such a pure soul. There was power behind that kid's life.”
Published as “Insight” in the May 2024 edition of Lehigh Valley Style magazine.
