HIGH PROFILE: Daniel Wayne Robinson invests in people and the community

Bank executive Daniel Robinson always shows up for whatever is asked of him. He invests in people and the community. And he works with civic organizations and nonprofit agencies to make them better.

“There’s a million things out there that show if we help people then we help a lot of people,
generations to come. We live in the greatest and richest country in the world; we can and
should do better.” -Daniel Robinson
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Cary Jenkins)
“There’s a million things out there that show if we help people then we help a lot of people, generations to come. We live in the greatest and richest country in the world; we can and should do better.” -Daniel Robinson (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Cary Jenkins)

Daniel Robinson is a guy who believes in the long play. That isn't much of a revelation considering that, as vice president and senior regional investment officer for Arvest Bank, he advises individuals on how to increase and preserve wealth for the future.

But it's also a view that informs who he is and what matters most. Relationships that stand the test of time are the ones worth keeping, which Robinson does with unfailing loyalty. A moral code spanning generations girders his world-view, one he lives through hard work and gratitude expressed in respect and service to others.

It's a philosophy a lifetime in its refinement, coalesced during the longest summer of his life.

"The summer was about '96 when we were over 100 degrees 43 days in a row, or whatever that record was," he says. "I was doing hard physical labor. That summer happened to be when we decided to fix a main sewer line running into the plant and I'm the guy at the bottom of this 6-foot hole fixing a main sewer line that's been leaking for years. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but somebody had to do it.

"One of the things that my dad had always said, 'You're no better than the guy at the bottom of the hole.' The work has to be done. Hard work matters."

For Robinson, "hard work" has come in many forms. There's the professional side of things and the family side as well. And ever since his days as an undergrad at Hendrix College, there has been the work given to community service and philanthropy, from Riverfest to Wildwood Park with many causes in between.

It has been more than just board seats and golf tournaments, too. Robinson has walked the runway modeling in an Easterseals fashion show, shuffled like MC Hammer as emcee for Dancing With Our Stars benefiting the Children's Tumor Foundation/CTF Arkansas and channeled his inner child on the board for Museum of Discovery in Little Rock.

Granted, it's not man-at-the-bottom-of-the-hole duty, but still, someone has to do it.

"I hope people like seeing me emcee an event because I care about those events," he says. "I might cry onstage but you might be crying in the crowd, too. I mess up and stumble sometimes and to me, that's what endears people to my style. I am one of them.

"Would I prefer to sit in the crowd? Sure, I wouldn't have to do anything. But somebody's got to emcee the event and if I can do it and help raise a little more money because people can feel my passion, then mission accomplished. That extra $10,000 represents real change. And I can't write that check so if I can help someone else to, that's why I do it."

"Daniel has no fear," says Win Rockefeller, a friend since college. "He's just comfortable doing what he's doing. Nothing surprises me, honestly, at least not anymore with Daniel. He knows who he is and that's an incredible strength."

"Even back in college, he was going to be Daniel no matter what, I guess is the best way to put this. It wasn't a bad thing. He was just himself. I liked the very direct, upfront person that he was. He's just a great guy and a really good friend."

WHAT DID WE DO WRONG?

Numbers mean something to Robinson. Annual return on investment, the length of a friendship, dollars raised through a gala all add up to wins and losses in each chapter of one's life. He'll tell you with a shrug that he and his wife, Tiffany, dated for eight years before they married in 2005; waited 11 more before becoming parents. It takes time to build something that lasts.

"My dad said a million times, 'If you can think of one reason not to get married, then you shouldn't. If you can think of one reason to not have a kid, then you're not ready,'" he says. "It's not a fun quote, it doesn't necessarily make people feel good, but it's very good advice. Our society struggles with broken families and I think part of it is people jump into it before they're ready, whether it's marriage or kids."

Robinson has seen vividly the destructiveness and pain that can come with troubled families through his service on the board of Women and Children First Shelter in Little Rock. It's the kind of organization that galvanizes his resolve to raise thousands to help hundreds, even if it saves just one.

"If you divide the number of [domestic violence] survivors into [WCF's] budget, $1,500 saves a life. If I can raise $15,000 that's 10 lives," he says. The equation reminds him of a little boy who, during his board tenure, was killed by his father after he and his mother went back from a stay at the shelter. Would another $1,500 have saved him? Robinson wonders.

"It's a real question. Could we have done something different? We had them, they left their situation, what did we do wrong that made them go back?" he asks the thin air before him. "The national average is, a victim goes back seven times; for us it's two. That's amazing. We should celebrate it. But once is too many."

His work with Baptist Health Foundation has been equally personal. At the end of 2020 he and Tiffany led an effort to buy cameras for the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) to give parents a visual link to their baby too small and fragile to be held, just like their son, Nebby, was back in 2016.

"All the beds that had cameras were the children that were the worst off, where it might be the last time parents get to see their child," he says. "As you progressed out, there were fewer and fewer cameras. Well, we didn't know that at the time and it was devastating that we lost the ability to see our kid. The was the worst part of the NICU.

"Fast forward to December and our goal was to raise enough funds to provide a camera for every bed in the NICU; we needed 12 for Little Rock, five in Fort Smith and that's about $42,000. We'll get there."

When they do, it will be in large part to the video testimonial that Daniel and Tiffany recorded to give a first-person account of what it means to live through such an experience. The emotion they showed was real, unrehearsed and unrestrained to better convey their message.

"Personally, I consider Daniel a great man. He's what I would call a true servant leader," says Asa Cottrell, Arvest sales manager and executive vice president, who has known Robinson for a decade. "Daniel is one of those guys that always shows up. His greatest strength is that he cares about people. He cares about the community. And what's really rare is that he's willing to invest his time. He doesn't just participate on the board; he actually works with the organization to try to make it better."

FAMILY VALUES

The worker gene in Robinson's DNA is easy to pinpoint. His formation in all endeavors began -- and continues today -- by the example of his parents. Darrell and Debbie Robinson met when he was an over-the-road driver and she was pouring coffee at a Minnesota truck stop.

"They're the quintessential American Dream story," Robinson says. "She went on the road with my dad, they drove a semi together. Ultimately wanted to have kids and driving a truck isn't a good industry to have kids in, so they settled in Fort Smith.

"My dad and his two good friends started a little metal company and they did anything anybody needed. If you needed a mailbox, they'd make you a mailbox, a vent-a-hood at a restaurant, that type of stuff. The metal company ultimately did very well and that's where my dad started making his money."

As mailboxes gave way to million-dollar projects for an international clientele, Darrell diversified into real estate, relentlessly pursuing his goal that the family never taste the kind of cold-water poverty in which he was raised. It was a goal he made good on, but at a cost.

"I largely grew up with my dad not around. He worked seven days a week," Robinson says. "The time I spent with him, a lot of it was work-oriented. As I got older, I understood it and appreciate it. You don't get where he did working 40 hours a week."

While never pressured into taking over the family business interests, Robinson knew the iron-clad expectation was to do something productive and well. Even his educational years at Subiaco Academy (Logan County) operated under the Benedictine motto ora et labora ("prayer and work") reinforcing how success comes from initiative, resourcefulness and humility.

"My dad couldn't afford to replace things so you didn't break them to start with. Do it the right way," he says. "I had one bike my entire upbringing because it was, 'Here's your bike. If you break it, it's on you and you don't have a bike.' And it wasn't you'd roll up and throw it on the ground, because that's how you'd end up without a bike."

Darrell still works every day, but his tunnel vision has broadened and Daniel has been the beneficiary of fresh perspectives from his father on what's important in life.

"I asked my dad a couple years ago why he never let me get into the real estate business," Daniel says. "He said, 'I could get you into the real estate business and you could make a lot of money, but you'd miss out on Nebby's upbringing. The money isn't worth that; you need to be with your son.'

"When we worked on things, he was very hard on me, he's very hard on everyone. But he gave up his whole life so we didn't have to go through certain things. In his mind there's a right way and a wrong way and if you're going to do it, do it the right way. At the time it's frustrating and you don't really understand. But I understand now."

GROWING UP

IN ANOTHER WORLD

On many readily apparent levels, Robinson has done the work and has the rewards to show for it. He and Tiffany live a tastefully well-decorated life, she a success in her own right as an entrepreneur and cohort to their many philanthropic activities. Tousled images of 4-year-old Nebby garnishes end tables and bookshelves, capped by a large mosaic of grinning photographs on one wall and a monitor scrolling through digital images on another.

But such trappings don't tell the whole story as much as the world outside thinks they do. They don't tell about Daniel and Tiffany as the kids who knew lean times from their earliest memories. They don't tell of Nebby's entry into the world, born half the size of a small stuffed bunny that now sits on a shelf in his room. And it doesn't tell how ugly people can sometimes be, given the chance.

"I think the big misconception of me and Tiffany is people know us for today and what we have today. Neither one of us grew up in this world," he says. "She and I aren't much different than anybody else. We have a house payment; we have car payments. There's the perception that we have a ton of money, and we don't.

"The first time Tiffany and I were on the cover of a magazine -- this was a long time ago, we were in our 20s-- we got hate mail. It was an eye-opening experience about no matter how good you try to be, there will be people that will hate it or resent it or be jealous. They love to tear you down. If you give to the cancer institute someone will be mad you didn't give to their charity."

Where many would retreat from such sniping, the Robinsons have let it feed their desire to be involved, focusing on the good that can be done while steering clear of petty politics. It's a strategy Robinson calls narrowing priorities and focusing on them, something for which he readily shares credit with his wife.

"There's times that I think I help her because she's the quiet one and I'm not," he says. "But at the end of the day she's a very powerful, independent woman and that's what I like about her most. I wouldn't call her Tiffany Robinson for probably a year after we got married because I didn't want her to lose herself by marrying me. She is amazing in her own right."

"I think Tiffany is a major influencer on a lot of that civic involvement," says Scott Schuldt of North Little Rock, another of Daniel's friends dating back to college. "Back then, most of us were pretty used to doing some level of community service-type stuff as it's kind of expected to have some of that on your college resume. Tiffany really took whatever notion of that might have been within him, and turned it on full-gear."

PAPER TOWELS

AND TOILET PAPER

To look closely at Daniel Robinson is to see the composite in the smallest of details. The artwork in the home, almost exclusively of Arkansas makers, tells of pride of place. A lapel pin from a magician's guild attests to a childlike streak and a hidden talent for sleight of hand. A covid-19 mask embroidered "Robin Hood" honors his unique ability to locate toilet paper to give to the needy even at the height of a pandemic. Nebby's tiny footsteps patter his bliss. He can never be poor again.

What's missing are any sign of accolades for the good he has done in Little Rock. No plaque-lined office, no bank of photos taken with celebrities or dignitaries. In their place crowd memories of the good that has been done, echoed laughter of friends who've endured and the ringing challenges of the future.

"I do think it's going to be a struggle moving forward. There aren't as many young people willing to get involved and I don't necessarily think that it's selfishness," he says. "The younger generations are more about experiences. Trying to sell them a table of 10 doesn't work because going to a black-tie dinner isn't necessarily an experience. It's not what they're hoping to do. We're going to have to figure out how to do it on their terms, because the need will still be there. We're going to still have cancer patients and domestic violence victims and children with disabilities.

"It's not a wealthy person versus poor person problem, it's an every person problem," Robinson continues. "We should just want to do better. I've been down [at the shelter] at Christmas and we gave a lady a laundry basket with detergent and some paper towels and toilet paper and she literally breaks down crying because she hasn't had that in a week. Meanwhile, you go out to dinner and every kid's on an iPhone. How the hell's everyone having a $1,000 phone when not everyone has laundry detergent?

"There's a million things out there that show if we help people then we help a lot of people, generations to come. We live in the greatest and richest country in the world; we can and should do better."

SELF PORTRAIT

Daniel Robinson

• DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: May 1, 1979, Fort Smith

• EDUCATION: Subiaco Academy, Hendrix College, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

• FAMILY: Married to Tiffany; we started dating in 1997 and married in 2005. We have one son, Nebby, born in 2016.

• THE ONE THING I KNOW TO BE ABSOLUTELY TRUE ABOUT ALL PEOPLE IS: We are all unique.

• WHEN I'M NOT WORKING, YOU'RE MOST LIKELY TO FIND ME: Playing with my son, Nebby.

• GROWING UP, I WANTED TO BE: A ninja. I was very into martial arts as a kid; I was a black belt in Taekwondo at a very young age and represented Arkansas in Junior Olympic competition when I was 9. Broke boards, had nunchucks, throwing stars, blow guns, the whole bit.

• MY IDEA OF THE PERFECT ARKANSAS WEEKEND IS: Taking Nebby to Wiggle Worms at the Museum of Discovery on Saturday morning followed by lunch at the Faded Rose. The rest of the weekend would be spent outside with my family, swimming in the pool, riding bikes, playing with stomp rockets, anything.

• WHAT I'VE LEARNED ABOUT BALANCING THE DEMANDS OF CAREER, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY SERVICE IS: There is never enough time. So, narrow your priorities and focus on them.

• MY PROUDEST ACCOMPLISHMENT IS: My family. They always come first.

• THE ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Analytical

“I think the big misconception of me and Tiffany is people know us for today and what we have today. Neither one of us grew up in this world. She and I aren’t much different than anybody else. We have a house payment; we have car payments. There’s the perception that we have a ton of money, and we don’t.” -Daniel Robinson
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Cary Jenkins)
“I think the big misconception of me and Tiffany is people know us for today and what we have today. Neither one of us grew up in this world. She and I aren’t much different than anybody else. We have a house payment; we have car payments. There’s the perception that we have a ton of money, and we don’t.” -Daniel Robinson (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Cary Jenkins)

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