His parents were Col. William Todd Robins, the commander of the 24th Virginia Cavalry in the American Civil War, and Sally Berkeley Nelson.

In 1919, he was sent to the Supply Division of the fledgling Air Service at Wright Field, Ohio, where he spent the next twenty years playing his pivotal role in the development of air-based combat logistics.

In 1935, he was promoted to Brigadier General, one of four in the Army Air Corps at that time, and was given command of the Materiel Division at Wright Field; for the next four years, he would push for increased funding for research and development, as well as key technologies such as B-17s, the Norden bombsight, and the high-octane gasoline that would later power the fighters of World War II in the European and Pacific theaters.

In 1939, he was reassigned to the command of the Air Training division in Texas; however, he died from a heart attack in June of the next year.

Over a year after his death, the Army Air Corps began to make use of Robins's contributions during its actions in World War II.