A Northern California native, Rob moved to Nashville in 1992 and joined Blue Highway as a founding member in 1994. He is recognized as one of the most innovative Dobro players on the scene, contributing signature technique and greatly expanding the boundaries of the instrument's sonic and stylistic territory. He won The International Bluegrass Music Association's Dobro Player of the Year award for a record-setting twelfth time in 2010; IBMA notes that he is the most awarded instrumentalist in the history of the IBMA awards.
In 2010, he was awarded the United States Artists Cummings Fellowship. The youngest dobro player on The Great Dobro Sessions (Jerry Douglas and Tut Taylor, producers), which won the 1994 Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, he was also on the Alison Krauss & The Cox Family album, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, which won the 1994 Grammy for Best Southern Gospel. His most recent solo CD, Road Song (ResoRevolution 2009) is a dobro-jazz collaboration with jazz pianist Michael Alvey and vocalist Robinella. Rob has released eight albums with Blue Highway; four acclaimed solo albums on Rounder; and a self-titled CD on Earwave Records with Three Ring Circle, comprising Rob, Andy Leftwich and Dave Pomeroy. An active session player in Nashville, Rob has performed or recorded with a wide range of artists, including Merle Haggard, Alison Krauss, Tony Rice, Charlie Haden, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, David Lee Roth, Toby Keith, Reba McEntire, Ricky Skaggs, Patty Loveless, Earl Scruggs, Steve Wariner, Marty Stuart, David Grisman, Peter Rowan, Marty Raybon, Jeannie Kendall, The Oak Ridge Boys, Claire Lynch, Lynn Morris, John Cowan, Harley Allen, The Cox Family, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. His work with Merle Haggard includes Haggard's 2007 release, The Bluegrass Sessions (McCoury Music).