He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1904 and was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers.

As such, he oversaw construction of the Bonneville Lock and Dam and developed plans for the Willamette Valley flood control project.

Like the rest of the top ten graduates in his class, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers; his classmate Lesley J. McNair, ranked eleventh, went into the Field Artillery.

[3] Robins reverted to his substantive rank of major on 6 October 1919 and became district engineer in Providence, Rhode Island.

He served in the office of the Chief of Engineers from 7 January 1921 to 1 July 1922 and attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth from 1 September 1922 to 22 June 1923, when he graduated.

He then attended the Army War College from 15 August 1925 to 30 June 1926, and on graduation returned to the office of the Chief of Engineers on 1 July.

[10] Major projects undertaken by Robins in the Pacific Northwest included the Bonneville Lock and Dam.

[11][12] Robins oversaw the hiring of key division and district personnel and external contractors, and was involved in the most controversial and politically sensitive decisions of the project, the marketing of electricity, the passage of spawning fish, and inland navigation.

[13] He opposed proposals for a common wholesale electricity tariff, which he contended would be too high to attract industries to the region.

In 1931, Robins had submitted a report to Congress that dismissed the need for flood control in the Willamette Valley, but by 1937 he had changed his mind because Congress had since instructed the Corps of Engineers to give primary concern to the economic impact of floods rather than merely their effect on navigation and power generation.

During the changeover he worked closely with the head of the Construction Division of the Quartermaster Corps, Brigadier General Brehon B.

[19] Robins became responsible not just for Air Corps construction, but for designing and building airports for the Civil Aeronautics Authority.

[21] Along with Somervell, he arranged for restrictions to be lifted to give the officers in the field the authority to deviate from standard plans.

[22] With the prospect of mobilizing and training an enormous army fast approaching, Robins became involved in preparations for the construction of the necessary cantonments.

[23] It had been the practice of the Air Corps to accept tracts of land donated by communities, but many of these sites were often poor and challenging from a construction point of view.

[22] Robins also headed a panel that drastically reduced the standard cost-plus contract fees for construction and engineer-architect work.

Styer became Somervell's chief of staff, and Colonel Leslie R. Groves, who had headed the Robins's Operations Branch, became his deputy.