Larry Wolfe
Technically a Detroit native, John Robinson lived in Michigan for two years before his family moved to Hopkinsville, Ky., where he played baseball and football and was a weightlifter for the Tigers. After his sophomore year, the family relocated to Mesa where John graduated from Mesa High. It was quite a change for John, since his graduating class in Mesa was larger than the entire school in Hopkinsville.
He then graduated from Mesa Community College and attended ASU for a year before taking a job as an IT consultant. He said he received an offer “too good to refuse,” so he left school to pursue his career in information technology. John worked for Hughes Aircraft for a few years before starting his own company, Microservices Communications and Data Systems. The company provided IT services primarily to large engineering and insurance companies. He ran that company for about 20 years before he said he “burned out” and decided to do something different. He then formed Robinson General Contracting, a company that specialized in building and installing servers. After 10 years, he “phased out” that company and semi-retired about five years ago at the tender age of 52. Since then, he’s worked part time as fleet vehicles buyer for Robson Communities.
John and his wife Paula have a blended family of eight children and 20 grandchildren. (That makes for a lot of birthday and Christmas presents!) Three of the families live in the Phoenix area, but others live in California, Florida, Utah, and Okinawa, Japan, so there are plenty of places to visit. Paula is still working full time for Robson Communities; she’s been with the company for over 30 years.
In addition to visiting all 50 states, the Robinsons are “world travelers.” They’ve been to nearly every European country, including several in Eastern Europe. They’ve also visited Japan and Taiwan and usually vacation in Hawaii a couple times per year. That’s Paula’s favorite getaway place. John says his favorite is probably Germany. He especially enjoyed driving through the countryside of Bavaria and visiting smaller medieval villages such as Rothenburg.
Genealogy is another of John’s interests. He’s traced his family history back to pre-Revolutionary War days (an ancestor actually fought in that war). He also learned that his maternal grandfather was a business agent for Jimmy Hoffa! John did most of the research himself, going through old census books, vital stats records of births and deaths, and cemetery records. His ancestry is about half Armenian and half English.
John played on softball teams from his late 20s to mid-40s. He then restarted in our league about three years ago. He’s a strong-armed third baseman, who usually hits around .600 and is a “rah-rah” type player, always urging his teammates on.
More than their business-related accomplishments, John maintains that his and Paula’s greatest achievement has been parenting their eight children to become successful adults and parents themselves.