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Robert Franco is a cultural anthropologist (Ph.D. UH Manoa, 1985, East-West Center Population Institute) with a specialization in Samoan diaspora and urban adaptation, specifically in education, employment, health, housing and chiefly status (publications through 1998). His career at Kapi'olani Community College has been roughly evenly split between teaching (1985-2000) and institutional planning, research, and grants development (2000-present). In the prior period, he served as Curriculum Committee, Faculty Senate, and Social Science Chair, Acting Assistant Dean for Tech-Prep, and Coordinator of the Asia-Pacific Emphasis. He has led or supported five comprehensive accreditation reports and garnered multi-millions of dollars in federal (Title III, Corporation for National and Community Service, HUD and NSF) and foundation (Teagle and Keck) grants for the campus and UH system. He oversees the College's Service and Sustainability Learning Program and he directs the College’s newly formed Center for Resilient Neighborhoods (CERENE).

Beyond the campus he has coordinated the college's engagement with the Association of American Colleges and Universities (Greater Expectations Initiative, Liberal Education and America's Promise), American Council on Education (Global Competence Learning Assessment), HUD Office of University Partnerships (Waianae, Palolo and Waikiki), and the Carnegie Foundation Campus-Community Engagement Classification which he helped to create in 2002-2005, The College has received this Carnegie Classification since 2006 and through 2025. Since 1995 to the present, he has been a Senior Faculty Fellow for Community Colleges for National Campus Compact and Hawai'i-Pacific Islands Compact. Since 2008, he has additionally been a Leadership Fellow for NSF's Science and Civic Engagement initiative (SENCER) and SENCER Hawai'i, Hawai'i is the first SENCER Model State. In 2011, he was named one of 20 National "Beacons of Vision, Hope, and Action" by the Community College National Center for Community Engagement. In March 2019, he received the "Advancing the Field-Distinguished Leader Award" from the Western Region Campus Compact Consortium.