Welcome to our series, #WHYoming
We are highlighting people from around our communities and asking them a few questions. We want to learn a little about them and see why they chose this great state to raise their families, start their businesses, or simply to ask — Why Wyoming?
This month, we talked to Green River’s Robb Slaughter, a Sweetwater County Commissioner and the county’s longtime former treasurer, about golf, family and why he’s never wanted to live anywhere but here.
Tell us a little about yourself
I was born in Rock Springs and raised in Green River. I graduated from Green River High School in 1978, then went on to the University of Wyoming, where I played golf on a scholarship. I graduated in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in general business management administration.
Right out of college I took over as the head golf professional at the Laramie Country Club. After a year there, I got the call to come back to Green River, which was my home course, and become head golf professional at Rolling Green Country Club. That had always been my goal, and it happened a lot sooner than I expected.
I did that job for five years, through 1988, when I took a job as chief deputy in the Sweetwater County Treasurer’s Office. I was actually offered the position in December of 1988, and after a lot of prayer and thought, I decided to take it. It meant working 9 to 5 with weekends off and a good benefit package, and it gave me the chance to spend time with my family, which had become really important to me.
I worked as chief deputy under Treasurer Betsy Sue Beverly until she retired in early 1993. The board of county commissioners appointed me to fill the remainder of her term, and I went on to run for election seven more times after that. I served as treasurer for 28 and a half years, and worked in that office for 33 years total before retiring in 2021.
What made you want to run for county commission?
Honestly, I didn’t have any plans to get back into politics when I left the treasurer’s office. But about a year and a half after I retired, several people came to me and asked if I’d consider running for a commission seat. There seemed to be some discord on the commission at the time. My wife and I thought about it and decided it would be a good fit, so I ran and won a seat in November 2022.
How has the treasurer’s office changed since you started?
Pretty dramatically. When I first started, the county had about $200,000 in cash reserves, so investing wasn’t a big part of the job. Over the years we built that portfolio up, and by the time I left it had become one of the major parts of the position. The county now brings in millions of dollars a year in interest on roughly $40 million in reserves.
The whole operation has changed, too. We did everything by hand when I started, we had IBM Selectric typewriters and the office has gone through three different software systems since then. Motor vehicle registration used to be handled county by county; now the state has a system where you can look up registrations statewide.
Personnel changed a lot as well. We always kept a fairly small staff in the treasurer’s office, and people tended to stay. Our average longevity was over 17 years. My chief deputy worked for the county for 46 years before she retired. One of the best changes I’ve seen recently is the new treasurer, Mark Cowan, opening an office in Rock Springs so people can do full transactions there a couple days a week, not just license plate renewals.
What are your hobbies, and what are your retirement plans?
I still golf, though not nearly as much as I’d like. I go about once a week with a regular group of guys. Golf is something you really have to practice to be good at, so at this point it’s more about enjoying the time with friends than my score.
This time, retirement is going to be full retirement, which is what I thought it would be the first time around. My wife and I are getting older, and we have a very large family spread across several states. A daughter in Texas, a son in New Mexico. She’s done a lot of driving by herself to go visit the kids because the commission job hasn’t really been part-time in practice, and I don’t like the idea of her out on the road alone. Going forward, I want to be traveling with her.
We also have a really nice yard, and we do a lot of gardening and yard work that I enjoy. Mostly, it’ll be about being able to do what we want, when we want.
What made you want to stay in Green River?
Wyoming has everything I want. I’m a big outdoors person. I love hunting, camping in the fall, and traveling. But really, it comes down to the people. Green River feels like one big town. I can run into someone I haven’t seen in 10 years and we’re still friends. Your neighbors aren’t just neighbors, they’re friends. Every winter I plow a few of my elderly neighbors’ driveways with my side-by-side.
We did think at one point about getting a second place somewhere south for the winters. During the year and a half I was out of the office, we actually tried spending three weeks away. We decided pretty quickly that Green River is always going to be home.
“Wyoming just feels like a big, one big town, really”
Robb Slaughter
My wife, Mariella, and I have six kids, 18 grandkids and four great-grandkids, so there’s rarely a quiet week, it’s not uncommon to have two or three birthdays going on at once. That family side of things is really the biggest reason behind stepping back now and not running again. We have a close family, and we enjoy every bit of it.
If you’d like us to interview you or someone you know for #WHYoming, please send suggestions to [email protected]
