While most Minnesotans have never heard of Bob Goff, all likely know his work.

Goff’s nearly 50-year career in state government and public relations found him advising mayors, governors and countless corporate clients. He was a quiet force behind efforts to secure funding from the state Legislature for the Metrodome and the Xcel Energy Center.

“Bob was the classic behind-the-scenes guy,” said Norm Coleman, a former St. Paul mayor and Republican U.S. senator who relied on Goff’s counsel throughout his career. “He never wanted to be in the limelight. He was never looking for accolades.”

Goff died Wednesday afternoon at his home in Lowertown at 80 years old. He had recently been diagnosed with cancer, a spokesperson said.

In addition to founding St. Paul-based P.R. firm Goff Public, Goff also served in the administrations of Govs. Rudy Perpich and Karl Rolvaag. A life-long DFLer, he made friends on both sides of the political spectrum and was sought out by officials off all ideological stripes for his insight.

“On the inside of (state and local) politics, Bob was a guy that folks just trusted,” Coleman said. “I think everyone in that circle just felt good about him.”

Despite the demands of his professional schedule Goff was never too busy for his family, taking his seven children on annual vacations to Minnesota’s North Shore, New York City and other destinations.

“It’s always funny for us to hear about all of the things he did because he was always there and very present,” his daughter Emily said. “It was so important for dad that we spend time together — that we have adventures together.”

Born in 1936, Robert Eugene Goff grew up in Staples, Minn. As a teenager, he spent summers working road construction jobs in Iowa. After graduating from St. Cloud State University in 1958, Goff took a job teaching history in Mounds View and also became involved in DFL politics.

Goff got his first taste of government work in 1963 when he was hired as an aide to Gov. Karl Rolvaag, seeing up close how things got done.

At a back table in St. Paul’s long-gone Blue Horse restaurant in 1965, Goff, Rolvaag and a handful of other officials worked out a deal to save Minnesota aviator Charles Lindbergh’s childhood home in Little Falls from the wrecking ball.

But a series of bruising political battles soon drove him into the advertising business.

“We had three or four real good dogfights in a row,” Goff told the Pioneer Press in 1978. “It just chews you up and spits you out and after a while your capacity for that kind of acrimony kind of fills up.”

In 1966, Goff and fellow-DFLer Nick Coleman Sr. — father of St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman (and no relation to Norm Coleman) — founded an advertising firm named Coleman-Goff Inc. Rather than talking their clients into expensive ad campaigns, Goff and Coleman pitched stories about them to local media, inadvertently becoming pioneers in the nascent field of public relations.

“He was kind of like family,” Chris Coleman said of Goff. “He and my dad were not just business partners but the best of friends.”

Goff sold his stake in the company in 1977 to take a job trimming government waste under the administration of Gov. Rudy Perpich, trading in his executive office for a windowless room in the Capitol basement.

After two years as Minnesota’s “Waste Wizard,” as he was dubbed by the press, Goff rejoined his old P.R. firm. There he drew on all of his varied experience to help steer the high-stakes negotiations in the Legislature to fund construction of the Metrodome and the Xcel Energy Center.

“He had ability to read a situation as well as anybody I’ve ever known,” Chris Coleman said. “He really understood that intersection of P.R. and politics and media. He understood that you had to work all three angles to be effective.”

After retiring in 2012, Goff had more time for reading the stacks of books that littered his home and taking the long walks around St. Paul that he loved, Emily Goff said.

A Lowertown resident since 2000, Goff first saw the neighborhood’s potential when he moved his company down there in the mid-1990s.

“You couldn’t get a meal on Sunday when he first moved there and now it’s bustling,” Emily Goff said. “He really was a very forward-looking guy his whole life — politically, socially and commercially. He always knew which way the wind was blowing.”

Goff is survived by his wife, Phyllis, seven children and a dozen grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending.