Today I had the honor of recognizing Rob O’Donnell of Lackawanna County as our Guest Chaplain in Harrisburg, as he led off our session with a beautiful prayer.
Rob was born and raised in New York City and began his career as a NYC Police Officer in 1992, later promoted to Detective and worked for the departments Organized Crime Control Bureau, Precinct Detective Squad, retiring out of one of the departments Homicide task forces. During his career Rob had been involved with the 93 World Trade Center Bombing, the response/recovery on September 11th.
After retiring due to injuries sustained in the line of duty to Northeast Pennsylvania in 2004. Rob was also involved with the investigation of the Fort Dix terror plot suspects in 2007, and in November 2020 was called by his Son for guidance, that was in the midst of an ongoing active shooter situation at Naval Air Station Pensacola where he was assigned, making Rob the only First Responder in America involved with four domestic terrorist incidents.
Today Rob hosts the afternoon drive news/talk radio show in northeast Pennsylvania, the Rob O’Donnell Show on locally on WILK a Audacy station.
Rob is married to Lisette for 30 years next month, and has three grown children; Gavin, a United States Naval Academy graduate and a Navy Strike Naval Aviator, Kayle, a graduate of a Pennsylvania State University and pediatric Psychiatric Nurse, and Madison, who is the only woman in Northeast Pennsylvania to be accepted to all three Service Academies, Air Force Academy, West Point, and the Naval Academy in which she graduated as a United States Marine 2nd Lieutenant currently in the pilot pipeline.