Home

Name: William M. Robins

Occupation: Administrator and municipal clerk for Dunellen

Address: Dunellen

Family: Married 13 years to Elizabeth. They live with their two daughters: Gwendolyn, 13, and Madolyn, 10. Two sisters: Fran Robins Liben, a lawyer and mother of five, married to Daniel Liben, rabbi of Temple Israel in Natick, Mass.; Kathie Veloric, a lawyer and mother of two college-aged children, married to Steve Veloric and living in New Providence. Brother Richard is a lawyer married to Cheryl, a periodontist. They live in Short Hills with three young children. Parents: Mother, Henriann Robins who lives in Westfield; father Dr. Bernard Robins and stepmother Nancy H. Robins who live in Lebanon. Community activities: Past president and member since 1993 of the Dunellen-Green Brook Rotary Club. Treasurer of DREAMS -- Dunellen Resources to Educate, Advocate, and Mediate for Special Education. Member of the Regional Family Support Planning Council No. 5 (an advisory group that reports to the N.J. Division of Developmental Disabilities on budget and policy matters affecting the disabled community). A member of Temple Sholom Scotch Plains and its Men's Club.

Hobbies: "I enjoy reading historical novels based in the Age of Sail. I've also just taken up golf after not playing since high school."

Self-portrait: "Organized and outgoing. My daughter, Gwendolyn, was born with cerebral palsy and severe cognitive impairment. I had to learn a new language and a new way of looking at family and friends, and maybe I've acquired a certain appreciation for the small kindnesses that really can make all the difference."

Motto: "You can say 'yes' or you can say 'no.' I think 'yes' is better."

Greatest accomplishment: "I recently published 'Stanley Elkin: A Comprehensive Bibliography' (Scarecrow Press, 2009). Elkin was the subject of my doctoral dissertation. He was a major Jewish-American novelist who never received the popular recognition of similar writers such as Phillip Roth, Bernard Malamud, or Saul Bellow."

Bad habits: "I'm a little obsessive/compulsive. I worked on the Elkin manuscript for 36 years trying to locate, describe, and annotate everything he wrote and everything useful to scholars, collectors, and fans."

Favorite TV Show: "The original 'Star Trek,' 'Picket Fences,' and now I enjoy '24' and 'Leverage'."

Best childhood memories: "Doing carpentry and woodworking projects with my father. We worked together, improving unfinished wooden units to become the built furniture for our playroom. My great-grandfather built many houses in Newark and I have tools that must be 90 years old."

People don't know that I... "Wanted to be an astronaut during the Sputnik-Mercury era, when I was a boy."

Last book I read: "The Magic Kingdom" by Stanley Elkin. "It's about a dream vacation to Disney World taken by seven terminally ill children. It's an amazing novel combining a love story with musings on the ironies and tragedies of ordinary life, written in the best prose since Henry James."

The biggest asset in the local Jewish communities: "The energy and enthusiasm of Temple Sholom's Rabbi Joel Abraham, Educational Director Michelle Shapiro Abraham, and President Steve Saltzman. I envy their energy."

The biggest problem in the local Jewish communities: "That it takes so much effort to encourage and, yes, drag the rest of us into action."

If I had more time, I would... "There is always time to do what is really important."