Prior to his first military assignment, Rob completed Airborne School at Fort Benning (now Fort Moore) in Georgia, and Flight School at Fort Rucker (now Fort Novosel) in Alabama. At flight school, he met a woman through a mutual friend, and they married at Fort Rucker.

 

In late 1989, Rob headed to Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos) in Texas for a three-year tour. Although he was flying the Black Hawk helicopters, he was pleased when he was placed in the Apache gun ship unit, as he didn’t want to be a "bus driver” pilot. There, he learned the tactics of attack aviation, which later set him up to go into Scouts and serve as a Cobra Company Commander. Rob welcomed his first two children—both boys—while he was stationed at Fort Hood. The family had a permanent change of station (PCS) to Fort Rucker. There, Rob completed his Advanced Course, also commonly known as the "Captain’s Course,” which prepared him for a company command and as a battalion staff officer.

 

From there, Rob PCSed to Hawaii and lived at Schofield Barracks. The hangars were housed at the Wheeler Army Airfield adjacent to Schofield. As part of the aviation brigade, he served as the Assistant Brigade S-3 for a few months before moving to become the S-2 in the 1st Battalion (Attack) 25th Aviation Regiment as part of a Cobra gunship unit for another year. Finally, he was selected for command of A Company, 1-25th (a Cobra Gunship Company). He commanded for 22 months. As part of his role, he also flew Scouts and Huey helicopters. During his tour in Hawaii, his daughter was born at Tripler Hospital.

 

Although he was offered a second company command (Headquarters Company), he declined. Rob had been accepted into the Army’s fully-funded civil education program. He applied to and was accepted into the MBA program at the University of Florida Warrington College of Business. He spent 22 months in Gainesville to complete the program. He was excited to grow his hair out and have a goatee. His only obligation to the Army was to take a PT test every six months.

 

After completing graduate school, Rob was selected to join the staff and faculty at West Point as the "Soldier” Admissions Officer for three years. He was responsible for traveling around the world to identify soldiers under the age of 22 who might be good candidates to enter West Point. He also helped to determine if students would be better suited to spend a year at USMAPS before heading to West Point. Those selected for West Point had to be strong leaders with recommendations from their chain of command and the mental acuity to handle the rigorous curriculum.

 

After this role, Rob transitioned to an Army Functional Area 45 comptroller position in Washington DC. Because he already had already earned his MBA, he was able to skip the Comptroller School in Syracuse. He worked in the Army Budget Office and the Army Reserve Budget Office from 2001-2005, running the Operations Maintenance Budget. In 2002, his family welcomed another son.

 

Rob was accepted for a Congressional Fellowship in 2005, which meant he worked on Capitol Hill with a representative of Congress who was a member of the House Appropriations Committee. They handled military affairs which included sorting the money earmarked for buildings, the defense budget, personnel pay, maintenance pay, and acquisition costs. Rob also organized meetings with military contractors, and then briefed the Congressman with the relevant information.

 

Once the fellowship was complete, Rob became the Chief of Legislative Affairs for the Army Reserve. He was responsible for serving as the liaison between the Army Reserve and Capitol Hill. For example, if the military needed to build a new facility or buy helicopters, Rob would present these needs to Congress. During his time in this position, Rob’s family grew with another daughter.

 

 

Rob was deployed in Iraq from 2008-2009, where he worked with the Office of Provincial Affairs. In connection with the State Department, Rob oversaw the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) to establish the water, sewer, trash pickup, and infrastructure for government in the regions. He was tasked with traveling to areas around the country including Fallujah, Ramadi, Saqlawiyah, Basrah, Sadr City, and Mosul to meet with the local leaders. As part of his observations, Rob provided recommendations for the PRTs, which allowed them the ability to evaluate, refine, and tweak their operations. During his deployment, he was able to communicate with his five children back home through Skype. Unfortunately, Rob and his wife separated when he returned stateside.

 

After a promotion to Colonel, Rob headed to Fort Dix in New Jersey. He served as the legislative liaison to the Northeastern states, commuting back on weekends to see his children. After one year, he was transferred back to the DC region, taking over as the Chief Legislative Liaison. Rob finished his career in this role in 2014 after 27 years of service.

 

 

Soon after his Army retirement, Rob jumped into his own business as a strategist and lobbyist. He continued this until 2020 when the COVID pandemic forced the shutdown of the usual order of business.

 

Today, Rob makes the most of his retirement by boating, flying, riding motorcycles, and traveling. He recently had an opportunity to take a multi-country trip around Europe and looks forward to exploring more places around the world. Eventually, Rob hopes to participate in the famous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and the Oshkosh Fly-In Convention, which is like the "Sturgis of airplanes.” As Rob already has his commercial license as a helicopter pilot, he would also like to obtain his commercial license as a fixed-wing pilot to grow his flight skill set.

 

• Rob’s childhood city of Marlton was known for the Old Marlton Pike Transit Route from New York to Philadelphia in the 1700s, as travelers stopped here for the stone-built inns and villages.
• All four of Rob’s older siblings were born within six years of each other. However, Rob’s birth came seven years after his last brother. Despite this age gap, Rob is still quite close with his brother.
• Rob’s father served in the Navy during WWII. He attended college at St. Joe’s using his GI Bill, later meeting Rob’s mother at a church dance for singles. His father took a job in Texas, which is where all four of Rob’s siblings were born. The family moved north while his mother was pregnant with Rob.
• When Rob was a child, the farmers would pay the local children $1 for each blackbird they could kill with their BB guns. However, one day Rob shot a beautiful red cardinal on accident, which marked the end of his desire to partake in the blackbird hunt.

• Rob’s brother also attended the United States Military Academy in 1976. Rob’s fond memories of visiting his brother made him excited to attend USMA himself.
• During high school, Rob played defense on the football team. He also had a really great year at USMAPS, making several touchdowns. However, during tryouts at West Point, the defensive positions on the team were full, so they asked him to play the tight end position. Rob performed better than the other tight end recruits, so that become his role on the team. Although Rob was a bit disappointed about the change, as he really liked playing defense, he still had a great time playing on the West Point football team.
• One of the knowledge games from the Bugle Notes required the plebes to articulate how much milk was left on each table during breakfast. The cadets would be asked, "How is the Cow?” They had to reply, "She walks, she talks, she's full of chalk, the lacteal fluid extracted from the female of the bovine species is highly prolific to the nth degree.” (The "nth degree” would describe the number of glasses of milk remaining in the container.)

• As his family lived only 2 ½ hours away from West Point, Rob would bring friends home during the breaks. His mom would welcome them into the family, cooking the group some delicious meals.
• During his junior year, Rob participated in the West Point tradition of creating a ranked wish list for the branches and assignments he most wanted. These positions are later assigned based on the class ranks in school and available positions. Fortunately, his class rank was high enough to choose Aviation as his branch. Flight school used a similar process, as class rank during flight school evaluations was used as a determination for selecting aircraft the pilots would fly. As Rob ranked well in his flight training, he was able to choose Black Hawk helicopters as his primary aircraft and selected his assignment at Fort Hood.
• There are many traditions at the West Point graduation ceremony. All graduates salute the president. They also throw their hats in the air, which the local children attending the ceremony—many of whom come from military families—run to retrieve. Graduates are also expected to give a silver dollar to the first person they salute; many of the graduates will give the honor to their tactical NCO.
• When stationed in Hawai’i, Rob was asked to take part in two sails on Navy aircraft carriers: the USS Tarawa (LHA 1) and the USS Essex (LHD 2). There was a Marine Cobra unit out of Kaneohe that would normally have provided gun ship cover for the Navy’s CH-53 and CH-46 helicopters, but the Marines were deployed at the time. Rob was part of the first units that trained by landing on the aircraft carriers completely "lights-out” using night vision goggles.
• Once Rob was a military advisor on Capitol Hill, he was expected to wear a suit and tie rather than his Army uniform for official business. Rob still has two close friends who attended kindergarten through high school classes with him. They regularly visited Rob at his duty stations as he moved around the country.