Robert is the director-at-large and registered agent of the Adai Caddo Indian Nation. He assists the chief and the tribal council on special projects and assignments including government relations and regulatory compliance. At council meetings, he also serves as parliamentarian.
With over 20 years of experience as a corporate executive and board member, he has served as CEO, President, and Managing Partner of multiple publicly traded and privately-held companies in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Italy, and France in industries ranging from aerospace and defense to venture capital. NASA, IEEE, the Department of Defense, and multiple Fortune 500 companies have presented him with awards for innovation, engineering, and leadership. His accomplishments have been in articles for NASDAQ News, Yahoo Finance, and MarketWatch. He was on the cover of the Dallas Business Journal, and in 2023, featured in the Top 100 Innovators & Entrepreneurs Magazine.
He is a regular speaker at international conferences, trade shows and university panels.
Recognized as a lifelong advocate for diversity and inclusion in the workplace, Robert served as co-chair of the Texas Instruments Diversity Council, was an early sponsor of the Veterans Job Mission which hired over 560,000 veterans at that time, chairman of the Raytheon Diversity Council Asian Initiative, and a judge and selection committee member for multiple scholarship programs. The VA and Bank of America named him as one of the Top Angel Investors that Support Veterans and Veteran-owned Businesses.
Robert graduated with high honors with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering with a minor in Economics and Military Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He earned an MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas. He is a credentialed Project Management Professional from the Project Management Institute, and he is a graduate of the Executive Leadership Program from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.
Robert completed postgraduate work and professional executive courses in Finance, Law, and Leadership at Cornell University and Southern Methodist University. While in academia, he published several technical papers and served as an adjunct professor and lecturer.
Robert is proud of his Adai Native American and colonial Louisiana heritage. He grew up hiking, fishing, and hunting the ancestral lands of the Adai from Toledo Bend to the Red River. He is happiest there when the bass are spawning and the whitetails are in rut. Now, he is accompanied by his toddler son Tristan forging his bond with the land just as his father lovingly did for him.
As an amateur archaeologist and historian, Robert participated in excavations of Civil War and Native American sites across CENLA. The Louisiana Archaeological Survey and Antiquities Commission published, “a number of colonial European families can boast of Caddoan ancestors: Grappes, Brevelles, Balthazars…”. His family has been recognized as one of the First Families of Louisiana by the Genealogical & Historical Society. While managing companies in Europe, he worked with the Araldica Italiana Roma and Vatican Apostolic Library to trace his French ancestry and coat of arms to 1300s Normandy.
Robert is a life member of the following organizations: National Guard Association, Association of the US Army, Order of the Engineer, Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, Association of Old Crows, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Leesville High School Century Club, National Rifle Association, and a founding sponsor of the National Museum of the US Army. He is a member of Intertel, the International High IQ Society, Mensa, and Christ the King Catholic Church.
