Rob Simmons

From dKosopedia

Category: Connecticut Republicans

Robert Ruhl “Rob” Simmons (R) was the congressman from Connecticut’s 2nd District from 2001-2006. The 2nd District includes 65 towns in the eastern half of the state, stretching from the Massachusetts border to Long Island Sound, and including all of the Rhode Island Border with Connecticut. After leaving Congress, he took the job of State Business Advocate, working for Gov. Jodi Rell (R).

Previously, Rob served in the Connecticut General Assembly for ten years representing the 43rd District which includes the towns of Stonington and North Stonington, and the villages of Mystic, Old Mystic and Pawcatuck.

In Congress Rob served on the Armed Services, Transportation and Homeland Security Committees. He chaired the Homeland Security Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment subcommittee. He is on leave from the Veterans' Committee and is past Chairman of the Veterans' Health Subcommittee.

Rob enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1965 as a Private, graduated from Infantry Officer Candidate School in 1967, and spent 19 months in Vietnam, where he earned two Bronze Star Medals. In 1969 he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, working as an Operations Officer for a decade, including five years on assignment overseas in East Asia.

In 1979, Rob left the CIA to join the staff of Senator John H. Chafee (R-Rhode Island). In 1981, he was assigned to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence as Senator Chafee’s Professional Staff Member. He was subsequently named Staff Director of the Senate Intelligence Committee by Chairman Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) – a position he held from November 1981 through February 1985.

Rob has served in the U.S. Army Reserve as a Military Intelligence Officer since 1970, retiring as a Colonel in 2003 with over 37 years of active and reserve service. He is past commander of the 434th Military Intelligence (MI) Detachment (Strategic) in New Haven, CT

Simmons is a 1965 graduate of Haverford College, PA. He earned a Master in Public Administration degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1979, where he was a Littauer Fellow.

From 1988-1992, Rob was a Teaching Assistant and pre-doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Since 1986, he has been an Associate Fellow of Berkeley College at Yale, where he taught courses titled "Congress and the U.S. Intelligence Community" and "The Politics of Intelligence" for a decade.

In 1974, Rob Simmons married Heidi Paffard, also of Stonington. They have a daughter, Jane, 27, and a son, Robert, 21.