Richard A. Robbins keeps coming back to campus

At the end of a career seminar at American International University-Bangladesh in 2019, the faculty asked the visiting Therap team to assemble for a photograph. They called it a family portrait. Richard A. Robbins, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, had come with colleagues to meet potential recruits. More than 30 AIUB alumni already worked at Therap. In this particular family, there was the agreeable possibility of further additions.

The photograph offers a place to begin his story. It puts a chief executive among the people around the business: engineers, university representatives and colleagues whose work would be difficult to squeeze onto one name badge. Robbins had been discussing what Therap looked for in applicants and how students could prepare for their careers. The occasion ended with questions and tokens of appreciation. A company was introducing itself to people who might eventually help make it.

That encounter belongs to a much longer sequence. Robbins appears in university events in Bangladesh in 2009, 2010, 2018, 2019 and 2024. Between those appearances come company conferences, an information-sharing patent and product presentations. The campus visits give his working life a recurring setting. Each graduating class brings the conversation back to its beginning: what can you do, what would you like to learn, and where might the two meet?

An economist enters the software business

Robbins’s education began some distance from a software development department. He studied economics at Brandeis University, then earned an MBA at Harvard Business School. His early career included investment banking at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Later work encompassed financial advice, investment and the founding and management of businesses dependent on secure, reliable technical systems. Money and information both require people to agree on what a record means. His career would give him reasons to think about both.

In 1990, he founded the Connecticut management company Community Options with James Kelly. Therap followed in 2003, incorporated that January. Kelly became a fellow co-founder and vice-chairman. Their earlier association adds depth to the chronology: the partnership preceded the software company. A founding date can make a business look as though it arrived fully assembled. Here, at least one of the working relationships was already more than a decade old.

By 2019, Therap’s description of its leadership placed Robbins alongside chief operating officer Justin Brockie and Kelly. It linked Robbins’s entrepreneurial background to the company’s emphasis on providing useful services at an economical cost. Brockie’s responsibilities covered development, technical work, customer support and training; Kelly remained involved in daily oversight and implementation. The picture is of connected responsibilities. Software reaches a customer through a succession of decisions, including quite a few made outside the code.

Bangladesh was a place to know people

Therap’s Bangladesh operation dates to 2004. When Robbins explained the choice in 2011, he spoke about trusted relationships, the university system and the availability of skilled professionals. American and Bangladeshi citizens were represented in the company’s board and senior management. He also wanted a presence in a region where the business intended to work. The explanation gives the decision a human scale. Before there could be a growing team, there had to be people with whom to begin.

“We envision ourselves as a global company.”

Richard Robbins, 2011

The word global can do a remarkable amount of work in a company introduction. Robbins’s university appearances supply some of the local detail behind it. At BRAC University on August 3, 2009, he and four team members met 25 students from engineering and computer science. The discussion covered recruitment, grades, soft skills and attitude. Twenty-five is a pleasantly comprehensible number. It describes a conversation in which a student could reasonably expect to ask a question and hear the answer.

The subjects were practical because the occasion was practical. Students were considering the transition from study to employment. Therap was explaining the criteria by which it recruited. A transcript of grand promises would tell us less about that meeting than its agenda does. Academic performance mattered enough to discuss, and so did the less easily tabulated business of working with other people. The CEO was there with colleagues to have that conversation in person.

A comic book makes the technical agenda

A year later, another BRAC University event offered an unexpected detail. At the September 26, 2010 technical seminar, the work discussed included software manuals designed in a creative comic book style. University alumni were already working on documentation and software development at Therap. It is a charming intrusion into the usual vocabulary of a technical presentation. The software required an explanation, and somebody had considered giving that explanation a little visual life.

Robbins spoke alongside employees including Jahangir Alam, Tanjima Ali and Chowdhury Zaigam Murshed. The event also touched on mobile platforms and data mining. At its close, there was discussion with Professor Mumit Khan about internships and future collaboration. The agenda brought several possible points of entry into view: making the application, explaining its use, exploring new technical areas and finding a place for students to start. A company could offer more than one kind of work.

The illustrated manual is worth lingering over because it concerns the moment when a product meets its user. Someone must explain where to click, what to enter and what happens next. Those instructions can determine whether the clever part of an application becomes useful in practice. In Robbins’s campus story, documentation appears alongside development rather than disappearing into the small print. Even a technical system must eventually introduce itself in a language its audience can follow.

“We make it a point to listen to our users”

Richard Robbins, on Therap’s software releases, 2011

The business of permission

Robbins’s name also appears in the technical record. Richard Allen Robbins is one of the named inventors on US Patent 8,281,370, granted on October 2, 2012 and assigned to Therap Services. Its subject is managing secure sharing of private information across security domains. The full name joins the initial in the executive biography to a particular piece of work. It also places him among collaborators, including Kelly, Brockie and technology colleagues, rather than alone beneath an inventor’s spotlight.

The underlying problem is familiar enough outside software: a person in one organization wants access to information held in another. A system has to establish whether that access is authorized. The patent describes receiving and logging a request, determining permission and providing appropriate access when authorization exists. It is an orderly answer to an awkward question. Having information and being entitled to see it are separate matters; an application has to keep track of the distinction.

A conference becomes a recurring appointment

In April 2017, Robbins spoke at Therap’s first national conference in Bangladesh, held at the RAOWA Convention Hall. His subject included the company’s plans in Asia. Colleagues Jeff Case and Maureen Noonan also took part. The following April, the second Dhaka conference returned to the same venue. Robbins again discussed the regional business and continuing collaboration with participating organizations. A first conference announces an intention. A second puts another date in the diary and asks people to come back.

By March 2019, the Dhaka gathering was in its third year, with around 120 participants. Robbins spoke about Therap Global, while colleagues from the US also attended. The sequence matters more than any single platform appearance: the company was making a recurring occasion for people to meet. In 2023, his national conference assignment in the US was more directly about a product. Listed as chief executive, he was scheduled to introduce Therap Connect. The founder remained part of the presentation.

Fifteen years later, another class

The university thread continued alongside those company events. On November 6, 2018, Robbins visited BRAC University to talk with final-year students about skills required in the job market. In December 2024, he appeared at its TechConnect engineering and computer science career fair. More than 40 organizations participated in that fair. His special session concerned opportunities at Therap, graduate skills and the company’s growth prospects. Fifteen years after the small information session, there was another class preparing to begin.

The questions in these meetings have an ordinary durability. Students want to understand the work before accepting it. An employer wants to explain what a new colleague will need to contribute. Each year changes the people asking, while the conversation retains its purpose. Robbins’s repeated presence gives this part of his biography continuity. A relationship with a university has to make sense to the next cohort, whose members were absent when the earlier introductions took place.

Back at AIUB in 2019, those introductions had already produced a visible connection: more than 30 alumni on Therap’s staff. Robbins’s visiting group included software, database and training colleagues. The students could hear about applying, then see some of the work represented by the people in the room. At the end, everyone gathered for the photograph. The faculty’s description was affectionate, but it was also nicely chosen. Here was an established acquaintance making room for the possibility of new colleagues.