Utahn returns from Iraq with new focus

Even now, one year after returning to the United States, Robert Gross closely follows all news coming out of Iraq. Having served six months there with the U.S. Department of Defense, he is familiar with the area and issues, and is personally vested in the ongoing efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation.

Gross, former executive director of the state Department of Workforce Services, knows firsthand the danger of working in Iraq — the daily rocket attacks and threats lurking outside the secure area known as the "Green Zone." He talks about traveling outside the secured area several times a week, each time in armored cars with highly trained bodyguards at his side.

"Every one of those trips out was a very dangerous proposition," he says.

Gross lost friends and staff members to the violence, including Washington attorney Fern Holland, who was killed after a February 2004 tour of a women's shelter in al Hillah, and a Kurdish team member who was caught in a March ambush outside Mosul.

Still, Gross looks back at his time in Iraq with pride and credits the experience with bringing him back to his roots — private practice with one of Salt Lake's oldest law firms, Jones Waldo Holbrook & McDonough.

Among Gross' responsibilities as senior adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs was writing legal code relating to social institutions in the country. The work reactivated his dormant legal skills, leading Gross to know what he wanted to do when he returned to Utah.

"It reinvigorated me in terms of my own love and respect for the American rule of law," he said. "It had a very direct impact on me getting back into the practice of law and re-establishing myself as an attorney."

Gross came home in June 2004, and, after a short period of readjustment, began talks with Jones Waldo, a law firm he had worked with during his tenure as general counsel and president of First Interstate Bank of Utah. Now a member of the firm, he specializes in providing legal counsel in matters of government affairs, both locally and on a national level, and works with financial service companies, which have been under increased pressure since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Gross left First Interstate after its acquisition by Wells Fargo to work for former Gov. Mike Leavitt as the first-ever director of the Department of Workforce Services. At the same time, he served as president of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies and worked with other national organizations.

"All of those activities put me in a position where I spent a lot of time in Washington," he says. "I guess somewhere along that line, someone noticed me."