Update on Rock Valley College
Robert (Bob) Trojan was elected to the Rock Valley Board in April 2015 and in 2021 was appointed to fill a two-year unexpired term. During these years, Bob serves as the Finance Board liaison with the Administration, is Secretary and Board liaison with the RVC Foundation attending their board meetings.
Since his election, he has been a part of RVC’s investments in the NIU/RVC Engineering program, a new Health Sciences Building in 2/6/23, 7:49 PM Fwd: Re: Bio 2/2 partnership with OSF, new Aviation Maintenance facility and curriculum, and new Advanced Technology Center. At the same time, we kept driving down tax rates, maintaining balanced budgets and recently refinanced outstanding bonds saving $7.7 million and shortening the repayment schedule by 6 years.
Bob graduated from Chicago Vocational High School, served in the U.S. Marines; completed his BS in Mechanical Engineering from U of Illinois and an MBA from Northwestern U. He has spent his life working and managing manufacturing companies, domestic and international. He came to the Rockford area in 1990 as President of Hydroline, Inc. In 2002, he started Rockford Linear Actuation, Inc.
Community service includes serving on boards of the Rockford Chamber of Commerce, Growth Dimensions, Abilities Center, Rockford Area Ventures, Community Foundation, Discovery Center, several committees involved with manufacturing, and a member of several voter referendums in Rockford and Boone County. He was a Community Member of the Rockford Register Star Editorial Board and served on 6 President Search Committees (Abilities Center, Rockford Chamber, and Rock Valley College). He has been an Award recipient of the Chamber’s Manzullo Individual Catalyst (2007), People You Should Know (2011) and the Robotics (R2OC) Make It Loud Award (2013). He was nominated for the Illinois Community College Trustee Association’s Trustee Achievement Award (2022). He is still active with the R2OC Robotics program.
Bob and late wife Norma’s family includes three sons, one daughter-in-law, five grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Bob will give us an update about what has been happening at RVC and what some of the future plans will include. This will be an informative program about one of the educational gems of our community. It will be a chance to invite a guest or prospective member to join us in person at Memorial Hall or via Zoom.
Linda Johnson will introduce our presenter and act as Rotary host.