The Hidden Story of Mr. Georgia Tech
By: Melissa Fralick | Categories: Tech History
Robert’s entire collection of papers has been catalogued at Emory University, where it will be available to the public beginning with an eight-week exhibition that opened on Sept. 19.
“To officially open the collection, we are putting together an exhibition that details the impact that his career had,” says Jennifer King, director of the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library at Emory University. “It will be in the Rose Library on the 10th floor of the Woodruff Library and open to the public. The materials, the photographs and the records will all provide a wonderful experience for interested.”
Susan Robert, who is married to Chip Robert’s grandson, is working to ensure that his legacy lives on. After going through his massive collection of personal and professional records and correspondence, she was so impressed by what she found that she wrote a book chronicling his life story. She is hopeful that through these efforts, more people will learn about Chip Robert, particularly at the school he loved so much.“He is not in any history book,” Susan Robert says. “And that’s another thing that makes this collection so exciting.”
Chip Robert rambled in to Atlanta in 1903 on a train bound for Cornell University. He made a detour to visit a friend at Georgia Tech and was so impressed by what he saw that he decided to stay and enroll at the Institute.
As a student, Robert was a gifted athlete and a natural leader who helped establish some of the Institute’s long-standing traditions. He served as the captain of the baseball team, track team and football team under legendary coach John Heisman and earned 15 varsity letters during his college career.
After graduation, Robert established a highly successful engineering firm in Atlanta called Robert and Company. On a business trip to New York, Robert reached out to one of his heroes, Gen. Leonard Wood, who was the Army’s Chief of Staff. Wood agreed to meet Robert after learning that he was a fellow Georgia Tech football player.
The two hit it off, and Wood asked Robert to become his civilian aide for the military construction program during WWI. This was the first in a long line of major projects that Robert and Company would complete for U.S. Armed Forces. Through this connection, Robert was also able to ensure that Georgia Tech was one of the first six universities selected by the United States to establish ROTC programs.
He may have graduated, but Robert never truly left Georgia Tech. He was an active alumnus who served on the school’s Board of Trustees and Athletic Board for decades and gave his time and money whenever needed. He also was part of a group that created the co-op program to help make a Tech education more affordable by way of a structure that allowed students to work in their field while attending school—a program still popular at Georgia Tech today.
In 1921, Robert was named the national chairman for Tech’s first capital campaign. Thanks to his efforts personally calling and writing letters to alumni, the campaign exceeded its fundraising goal.
In addition to his devotion to Tech, Robert also held a lifelong passion for politics. Though he never ran for office, he worked for decades behind the scenes and was extremely influential in the Democratic Party. He attended his first Democratic Convention in 1924, and was a delegate at each convention after until his death in 1976.
Robert was an active fundraiser and campaigner for Franklin Delano Roo-sevelt during his 1932 presidential bid. After Roosevelt’s election, he was asked to be part of Roosevelt’s administration as assistant secretary of the treasury. One of his major tasks was to implement Roosevelt’s New Deal and help the nation recover from the ravages of the Great Depression. In 1936, Robert left Washington, D.C., to return to Atlanta and his business at Robert and Company. But he didn’t totally get away from politics—that year, Robert was elected to serve as the secretary of the Democratic National Committee.
In the early 1940s, Robert stepped in to help the nation prepare for battle in the lead-up to America’s official entry into WWII. Because of its long history of successful military building projects, Robert and Company was selected to build the massive Naval Air Training Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, as well as the Bell Bomber Plant in Marietta, Ga.
After WWII, the United States approved an initiative known as the Marshall Plan to help Europe rebuild. Chip Robert was also a close friend and adviser to President Harry Truman, who tapped him to help implement the post-war reconstruction effort in Europe.
He was well-suited for the task: Robert was extremely well-traveled and had extensive knowledge of building and engineering that would be useful in assessing what needed to be done in war-torn areas.
This special combination of skills led him to become an envoy and special delegate to the president. He purchased the first around-the-world ticket offered by Pan American for this inaugural journey in 1947. He went on to fly around the world 17 times, and was likely one of the most widely traveled people of his time. In the 1950s, Robert took his passion for air travel and worked with Atlanta Mayor Bill Hartsfield to bring his vision of an international airport to Atlanta. He was ultimately successful, and Robert and Company drew the plans for what would become the world’s busiest airport.
All the while, Robert stayed involved at Georgia Tech. He was generous in quiet ways—covering tuition for students in need—as well as more public ones, such as a $75,000 gift that was the largest unrestricted donation in the school’s history in 1963. “No matter where he was, in politics, in industry, accomplishing all the things he did, he had Tech in his front pocket the whole time. He loved that school,” says Susan Robert.
