Leadership Insights - A View from the Helm: Robert J. Grubb
Bob has invested his professional efforts as a lifelong builder of people and organizations that grow and innovate. He considers himself a student of liberty and works with people to help them remove their self-imposed, preconceived limits. Bob is Managing Director of Mt. Audubon Associates, a private holding company he and his wife Julie started in 1999. From late 2020 to 2023, Bob served as President of RecordsOnline, a start-up data and information company which indexes and organizes public filings for utilization by the property title insurance industry, the legal profession, lenders, energy industry and right of way customers.
Bob has founded three companies and built one from modest beginnings. Bob was a co-founder of Alliant National Title Insurance Company where he led the executive team from its inception as an idea in 2005, until 2020. Bob and his team grew Alliant National into the 8th largest title insurer in the industry licensed in about 35 states with revenue of $230 million.
Alliant National was known as an innovator under Bob’s leadership. Bob was instrumental in creating a reinsurance structure for US based Title insurers in the Lloyd’s of London markets, it is the only insurer with an SSAE-18 Type II independent audit and certification of its oversight of its Insurance Agents internal controls, the only insurer with more than 10 years of data demonstrating its Agent’s improving internal controls and the only insurer with the rigorous ISO-27001 Audit and certification for data security, maintained since 2013. It has been certified as a Great Place to Work since 2014.
Prior to 2000, Bob was a division President of Flex, a global contract manufacturing company based in Singapore with responsibility for manufacturing sites in Colorado, Mexico, China and Hungry. Bob’s division had more than $200 million of the $1.3 billion of revenue at the time he left Flex. Bob merged his company, DTM Products, Inc. with Flex in 1997.
Bob built DTM Products, from a local company in 1986, into a global leader in engineering and high precision manufacturing of plastic injection molded components and mechanical sub-assemblies for OEM customers in electronics, medical devices and telecom; from Singapore to Germany, supported by manufacturing operations in Colorado and Mexico. In addition, he started and spun off two other companies; Peak Industries a contracting manufacturing company and AIM Interactive, an interactive video-based training company.
Under Bob’s leadership, DTM became a supplier to global OEM’s, recognized for technological leadership in engineering and manufacturing, innovation in employee development systems, innovation in quality management and in product development. Recognition for DTM’s Quality Management systems and its Human Development systems came from The Blue Chip Enterprise Initiative, The University of Colorado Graduate School of Business, Inc. Magazine, Hewlett Packard, Apple Computer, and the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ program where he was a finalist in 1995.
Bob has served as a director on numerous corporate and non-profit Boards. He currently serves as a Trustee, Chair of the Advancement Committee, and member of the Executive committee of Northwood University (2013 to present). He serves on the Advisory Board for the Arbinger Institute and on the Board of Directors of the Boulder Chapter of Young Presidents Organization.
Bob graduated from Northwood University with a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree and Associates of Arts Degree in Monetary Theory; an Associates of Arts in Automotive Marketing in 1980. He studied for his MBA at Babson College where he received the Graduate Student Service Award in 1984 for his contribution to the re-development of the undergraduate economics curriculum. He received his honorary Doctor of Laws from Northwood University in May 2008. He is a 1978 graduate of the Colorado Outward Bound School wilderness survival course and a Certified Facilitator for the Arbinger Institute.
Bob’s professional expertise is best described as seeing the interplay of systems which either help sustain or harm organizations. His expertise includes establishing mission, values with ethical boundaries, guiding principles, corporate strategy, developing cultures of customer focus and personal responsibility, team member development all as catalysts to drive collaboration and innovation. Bob and his wife Julie have been married over 30 years, have three grown children and six grandchildren. They reside in Niwot, Colorado. Their Christian faith is the cornerstone influence guiding their life.