Rob Barto was born July 10, 1949 in Clymer, PA.  He is the son of Michael and Anna Maruschak Barto.  Rob's father was a coal miner until the day he died, April 26, 1971.  He worked in the mines for 48 years and died at the age of 61.  You do the math.  Yes, he entered the mines at age 13, like many others of his generation.  Rob was the youngest of Michael and Anna's six children.  He graduated from Penns Manor High School where he participated in many activities including football and was President of Student Council.  .  He attended the University of Arizona and IUP where he earned three varsity letters in football and a BA in Political Science and History.  He earned a Masters Degree in Public Management from Carnegie Mellon University. 

 

Rob's professional career spans 35 years.  Five of those were spent in the newspaper field.  He began working while in college at the Indiana Evening Gazette, moved to the New York City area immediately after graduation from IUP to pursue a career in the newspaper industry and later was co-publisher and vice president of a start up newspaper in Westmoreland County.   He ended his working career with Kennametal Inc. of Latrobe.  He spend 10 years with Kennametal between 1996 and 2006 in upper management at Kennametal's world headquarters in Latrobe, PA.  Rob's areas of responsibility during that time included Human Resources, Labor Relations, Environmental, Health & Safety and  Operations.  He had position of global responsibility in Human Resources for a number of years and was Manager of North American Operations for Kennametal's Electronics Products division during his last two years. 

 

But, government was always Rob's passion.  From the time he was involved in student government at Penns Manor and through six years of college, he prepared for what would be  the heart of his working career.  Sandwiched between the years spent in the newspaper industry and Kennametal, was 20 years in public service.  Rob worked at the state, county and municipal levels of government during those 20 years.  He worked for Indiana County and Clymer Borough before taking the Manager's job at what is now The City of Latrobe.  While in Clymer between 1975 and 1980, Rob served on Borough Council and the Clymer Municipal Authority.  He also served as Clymer's first and only Manager and Community Development Coordinator.  During that short term he brought several hundred thousand dollars of federal and state aid to Clymer.  Enough to clean and rebuild Clymer's storm sewers, pave Dixon Road and Harrison Street  for the first time ever and bring sewage and water to Harrison.  In addition, housing rehab funds were made available to many homeowners.    Rob's mark in local government was made when he accepted the offer to manage Latrobe.  He spent 15 years at the helm, guiding Latrobe through difficult financial times created by the downturn in the steel industry which was Latrobe's livelihood.   During that time he earned the respect of leaders at all levels of government.  He served as secretary-treasurer of the Westmoreland Boroughs Association and was active in the Pa and International City Managers Association. 

 

Rob returns now to help Clymer make the transition to a Council-Manager form of Government and as he says "give something back to the town that gave me so much".