About Rob, in his own words:

I was born at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, New York on December 1, 1975. Exactly a year later I became a Vermonter: riding through an ice storm on the lap of my aunt (Anna Kinney Swierad) while my mother (Eileen Kinney Plunkett) drove her Volkswagen Bug on our way to Milton. Four years later, after an excursion to Burlington, we settled on Elm Street in Bennington, where my mother had grown up.

I was taught at Bennington Elementary School, then on to Mount Anthony Junior High School and Mount Anthony Union High School, where I graduated Salutatorian.  At Amherst College I cofounded the direct-action group Amherst Students Acting Politically (ASAP) but focused my studies on political theory instead of politics. After graduation I was convinced by my oldest friend (Scott Ayers) that we should relive our kindergarten days in Oakland, California. He was a rock star and I worked for a private investigator, but as exciting as that sounds, I missed Bennington.

Back home in Bennington for the millennium, I processed international address data at Global-Z International (which really is far more interesting than it sounds). In 2003 I decided to finally follow in the footsteps of my Uncle Charlie (Plunkett) and went to law school, although not at Vermont Law School like him, but at Brooklyn Law School because I thought everyone needs to live in New York City at some point in their lives. (I was wrong.)

I studied mostly criminal law (envisioning myself a future public defender taking on the evil prosecutor) and the burgeoning field that could generally be called “computer law.” I came back to Bennington over the summers and clerked with Tom Jacobs, Lon McClintock, and Justine Scanlon, and was hired as an associate with the firm after I passed the bar exam.

Not too long after, and much to my own surprise, I became… a prosecutor. I have been at the Bennington County State’s Attorney’s Office ever since (but for a brief bounce back to the old firm, then Jacobs, McClintock, and (Amy) Palmer-Ellis).  The State’s Attorney’s Office handles a broad spectrum of cases beyond just prosecuting crimes. They include child neglect, truancy, probate guardianships, defending defense counsel in ineffective assistance of counsel claims, and advising the police on what they should and should not do in all areas, including authorizing action in every unattended death. I have been doing all this for all of Bennington County for 17 years.

Over those years I fell in love, got married, had a son, bought a house, had a daughter, bought my old house on Elm Street, got divorced, and jointly raised our children to pre-teenagedom. Along the way I sat on the MAU School Board through a change in administration at the high school and during the Act 46 merger upheaval. I co-chaired the Bennington Charter Review Committee, and out recommendations were adopted by the Select Board and (mostly) ratified by the Legislature. I now sit on the Board of Directors for the Bennington Rescue Squad.

And I still live in the old house with my two children and, sadly, now only one dog.

I am running as a write-in candidate to be a Democratic nominee for the State Senate for the Bennington Senate District because the Vermont Senate needs to know Bennington, and I know Bennington.