He is a full professor on the faculty of the University Libraries at Northern Illinois University and as such has worked since his election to promote awareness of the collections and mission of the Leather Archives and Museum within the professional library and archival communities. This first took the form of serving as a speaker on the program " Daring To Save Our History " sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Round Table of the American Library Association at the Association's annual conference in New Orleans on June 28, 1999. He also represented the Archives as a panelist at " The Future of the Queer Past : A Transnational History Conference " at the University of Chicago September 13-17, 2000.

Within the leather community, Rob has been active since the early 1990s, following an hiatus after his coming out into leather in the early 1980s. With his life partner John Schultz, he helped found the Chicago chapter of the Trident International, Trident International Windy City, in 1992, and has served that organization as secretary since that time. At the invitation of the late Tony De Blase, he attended the Living In Leather X and XI conferences in Portland, Oregon in October, 1996 and October, 1997 as faculty on panels dealing with regional leather history and the history of leather publications. He also serves as the official historian of the Mid America Conference of Clubs and has assembled a history of the Trident International as well.

As a writer on gay and lesbian studies , he has contributed pieces to the LAM Newsletter , articles on leather culture and history to Bear Book II and Reader's Guide to Gay and Lesbian Studies, " Children of the Satyrs: Naming Patterns of Leather and Levi Clubs " to the journal NAMES, and an article on the Leather Archives for the December 2002 issue of the Journal of Homosexuality, " Things Visible and Invisible : The Leather Archives and Museum." He served as a judge of the Mr. Ocean State Leather contest in 1997 and has worked as coordinator of the pin collection. Among his writing projects is the collection of gay and lesbian rhetoric, Speaking For Our Lives: Gay and Lesbian Rhetoric, 1892-2000 , where the leather community is represented by Joseph Bean and the poet John Eric Larsen , and “ Negotiating Limits: The Legal Status of S/m in the United States “ in the groundbreaking collection Sadomasochism: Powerful Pleasures ( Haworth, 2006 ) . He also attended the Espoir Grant Conference “ Speaking About the Unspoken “ held at the Leather Archives in February 2009.

From 2001 to 2011 he inventoried and arranged the Anthony F. De Blase Papers, making the collection available for research. He currently serves on the Edward Mogul Visiting Scholar Review Committee and the Academic Committee of the Board of Directors.