12 People You Need to Know: Rob Marsh

Q&A | Nov. 18

Why You Need to Know Rob: He left the grocery world to take a crack at turning around the flailing Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and its Price Cutter Charity Championship as executive director and CEO. He’s putting to work both his experience as vice president of Pyramid Foods and his knowledge of finance to get the organization back on track. Why? “I have a heart for kids,” he says.
Position: President and CEO, Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, and executive director of PGA/Korn Ferry tournament, the Price Cutter Charity Championship
Age: 52
Education: Studied business administration and management, Missouri State University
Career: Three-decade career in the grocery industry, having started at age 15, unloading watermelon trucks; worked at Smitty’s Grocery and Albertson’s and rose to rank of chief operating officer of Pyramid Foods, the owner of Price Cutter

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Since January, Rob Marsh has been at the helm of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and its signature program, the Price Cutter Charity Championship golf tournament.

As the organization’s president and CEO and the tournament’s executive director, Marsh has had to do hard things, like making sure the entirety of the $740,000 owed to children’s charities from the 2024 tournament was paid in full – done – while also ensuring funds are in place to pay some 40 charities participating in 2025. They are, with a celebration ceremony set for Nov. 18, the same day as his appearance for the 12 People You Need to Know live interview event.

The tournament has been supporting local children’s charities since 1990.

Those items on Marsh’s things-to-do list were accomplished, he says, through careful negotiation with vendors for the 2025 tourney and with generous donors stepping to the fore to fill in the gaps. The MSHOF is also at half the staff it was a year ago, with four full-timers and one part-time accountant.

When Marsh was announced in his new position at a December 2024 news conference, the charities supported by the PCCC tourney had received less than half of the $750,000 in funds promised, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting, with 42 beneficiaries receiving only $325,107. On July 11, Marsh held another news conference, this time announcing all charities would be paid in full.

Marsh says the board anticipated it would take up to two years to pay the charities amid uncertainty on the financial health of the organization.

“That was never my timeline. I knew the clock was ticking,” he says.

Marsh, formerly chief operating officer of Pyramid Foods, says he has a passion for children.

“Obviously on the Price Cutter side, I had already had a good relationship with these charities, and then when I found out that their money was in jeopardy, that was absolutely my driving force,” he says. “I said, ‘I’ve got to go fix this.’”

Marsh, who originally wanted to be an accountant, calls himself a numbers guy.

“I knew I could figure out what it would take to get the financials back in line, so I took a leap of faith,” he says.

Marsh says most days he’s in his office by 3 a.m. and he sleeps only four hours a night.

“I wake up and I have the mentality that I’m not going to lay here in bed and think of a zillion things. I’m just gonna get up and get something done,” he says.

Marsh now faces new challenges. First, the 2026 golf tournament has been canceled because of a conflict between the PGA Tour’s Korn Ferry Tour schedule and Highland Springs Country Club. However, that challenge is also an opportunity, according to Marsh. He says he’s looking at new ways to support local charities, including local sporting events and golf tournaments, and the organization will save about $700,000 in PGA tournament expenses.

“The charities are actually going to make more money,” he says of 2026 plans in the works.

He also has to find new digs for the hall of fame and museum, having recently sold their longtime home adjacent to Highland Springs. That facility first opened its doors in 1994.

The nonprofit will be housed temporarily at 431 W. Walnut St., but it’s looking for a permanent home – ideally an existing building in central Springfield. Fixing problems in the existing building was going to be expensive, Marsh says: The heating and air system alone – original to the building – was going to cost six figures.

He thinks he has found the perfect building for a hall of fame, a museum and a possible third use that he isn’t ready to reveal.

“It’s a secret, but Springfield would welcome it,” he says.

Meanwhile, he says, there’s no hurry to move into a permanent structure.

“We’re the only Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in the state, and we want to do it right,” he says.