Barry K. Robinson

Guest Author

Barry Robinson, a practicing attorney, recently retired as Chief Counsel for Economic Affairs, U.S. Department of Commerce. He has previously served as Senior Counsel for Corporate Affairs for the Recording Industry Association of America, Inc., the nonprofit trade association representing the United States sound recording industry, and as Senior Counsel for International Investment and Trade in the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. In 2014 he received the Department of Commerce’s Gold Medal Award in recognition of his contribution to the development and timely implementation of the International Trade Data System.

A 1967 graduate of Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts, Mr. Robinson received his law degree from New York University in 1970.

Mr. Robinson served as a captain in the Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps and as a member of the Defense Department Task Force to Investigate Discrimination in the Administration of Military Justice in 1974. He served as president and director of the Washington Foreign Law Society and a member of the Legal Section Committee of the American Society of Association Executives.

Mr. Robinson was the recipient of the Penn State African American Alumni Organizations’ 2018 Outstanding Alumni Award. He received the College of Liberal Arts’ Outstanding Political Science Alumni Award in 2004, and was the recipient of the Liberal Arts Alumni Society’s Service to Penn State Award in 1996.

He is a Trustee Emeritus of the Pennsylvania State University Board of Trustees.

Mr. Robinson and his wife, Francine, have supported the Pediatric Research and Discovery Fund at Penn State Children’s Hospital.