Albert Martin

1937 - 2025

Albert Martin
08/02/1937 - 05/21/2025
Dr. Albert Martin ("Al") died on May 21, 2025, at the age of 87 from complications of Parkinson's Disease, with his two daughters, Lauren Martin and Susannah Martin, at his bedside. A man of profound intelligence, compassion, wisdom, and wit, Al will be remembered by his family, many friends, professional colleagues, and former students for his kindness, integrity, deep spirituality, warm sense of humor, and mentorship.
Al was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1937 to Pearl (nee Zerah) and Elie Smadja, the first of three children. He was raised by his mother, a homemaker, and his father, a merchant who had immigrated from the Jewish ghetto in Tunisia. When he was four, his family drove from Texas to California, settling in San Francisco. From hardscrabble roots, Al became the first in his family to graduate from college.
Al was a highly accomplished scholar, physician, and medical professional. He graduated from Stanford University and then Harvard Medical School with honors, including the Maimonides Award. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where he met and married Helene Getter, with whom he had his two daughters. He spent three formative years in the US Public Health Service, half of them in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), where he worked on the efficacy of cholera vaccines. This life-changing experience led to his focus and devotion throughout his career to public health and the effective delivery of health services. Upon returning to the US, Al led the development of neighborhood health centers serving underprivileged urban areas in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Al's interest in improving how patient care was delivered led him to become a medical director at the Harvard Community Health Plan (HCHP), one of the first organized Health Maintenance Organizations in the country.
In 1980, Al and his family returned to San Francisco to assist with the development of a unique primary care internal medicine training program at the University of California, San Francisco. He was a gifted teacher, sharing his knowledge and wisdom with the interns and residents and becoming a mentor to legions of other staff.
Al's innate curiosity and his executive abilities led him to take on the CEO role of an HCHP-sponsored organization, Interpractice Systems, in 1988. Over the course of six years, he created a business that was at the forefront of what is now current medical practice, that of providing care to patients using only automated medical records.
Al became medical director of Blue Shield of California in 1994. While at Blue Shield, he continued to be a champion for all communities and their needs, advocating for coverage of non-traditional and integrative medical practices, such as acupuncture.
After his retirement, he helped design and implement the innovative California Healthcare Foundation Leadership program, which enrolled and coached young healthcare leaders in management skills not taught in their medical schools. That program continues to this date. Al was extremely proud of this program, as he felt that it had provided him with an opportunity to pass on his knowledge to a group of talented and eager young professionals.
A profoundly spiritual man, in retirement Al also found great joy in the natural world and in meditation, traveling, and documenting his many adventures through photography, a life-long passion that he was able to explore in the last decades of his life.
Al is predeceased by his brother Bob and is survived by his wife Diana Richmond; his two daughters, Lauren and Susannah Martin; his stepdaughter Kavana, her husband Matt, and their daughters Emma and Sophia; his sister, Linda Martin; his nephew, Christopher Martin; and his former wife, Helene Martin.
Al Martin's life will be celebrated on June 14, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. at the Tamalpais, 501 Via Casitas, Greenbrae, CA. Donations in his memory may be made to Spirit Rock Meditation Center (www.spiritrock.org) or to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (www.michaeljfox.org).