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After graduating from SHHS in June 1966, Rob worked for his father's microchip factory in Torrance, CA and enrolled at UC Irvine. After two years of study, he transfered to UC Berkeley, where he graduated in 1970 with a degree in history. 

Fascinated since childhood with railroads, he held jobs with American railroad companies. Around age 30, he learned of an unique railroad in the Union of South Africa that was the only remaining one of its type in the world. He applied for a position with this railroad company and was hired. He only intended to stay there a year or so, but he's lived there ever since.

Later, he began working for the Gallo music company he talks about in these videos: no relation to Gallo Wine. He became their archivist, meaning he keeps and maintains a catalogue -- like a library --  of all their published music and who owns the rights to it; and describe it; communicates with disc jockeys, scholars and others interested in the music; tours to see, listen to and interview musicians, singers and groups; and writes and speaks extensively about African music, also as a critic.

He met and married a women of Dutch Boer ancestry, and they have three or four children. Twelve years ago I went to the Fullerton Train Station Festival, where I bought $125 worth of authentic  train whistles, train models, and train company T shirts and work shirts, and sent them all to Rob. He wrote me back with great appreciation and said his kids loved the whistles and just would not stop playing them!

Many of you remember Rob has also been a fanatical music lover since childhood, and by his SHHS years, had amassed a collection of several thousand early American jazz records, mostly 78 RPM and dating from the 1920s through the 1940s. It's natural and fitting for him, then, to choose a career in music, musical scholarship and criticism. 

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