Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Robert began traveling upstate at the age of thirteen, camping, hiking, and working on his photography, as well as his navigational and survival skills. (All the while his parents believed he was with the Boy Scouts). Following his eighteenth birthday, he has been an avid traveler, with over sixty countries stamped in his passport, from Cambodia to Amsterdam. Most recently, he visited Japan for the eighth time, successfully climbing Mount Fuji. He has also climbed most of the 10,000 ft. plus mountains in North America. He gained his PADI dive certification at the age of sixteen, and is now a certified dive master, completing over one thousand dives ranging from the North Atlantic to the South China Sea. In addition, Robert is a licensed private pilot, a champion WMAA black belt, and has experience in saturation diving and research submarines with depths in excess of 1000 feet.