About Rod Gode

A member of Microsoft’s public sector pre-sales engineering team since 1997, Rod is now the Director of Specialist Sales for Microsoft’s US Education sales team. In this capacity, Rod leads 20 technology and solution specialists who work closely with k12 and higher education customers that are evaluating and implementing Microsoft desktop and data center solutions. The Education Specialist Team Unit (STU) that he manages provides deep-dive subject matter technical expertise that spans the breadth of Microsoft’s solutions offerings – from data platform and application development to virtualization and management to cloud computing and school portal solutions. Rod also works to identify and execute education solutions strategy, including translating Microsoft’s business-oriented offerings to education-relevant solutions, and involvement in regular Education webcast and event speaking series. Rod Gode joined Microsoft in 1997 as a Systems Engineer in Sacramento, CA. His experience with Microsoft products dates to 1987 when he worked as a technical instructor for University of California Extension PC and Macintosh training programs. In 1990, Rod joined Infotec Development to design courseware for, and instruct civil engineers on object oriented and embedded systems programming languages. While with Infotec, he also developed Windows-UNIX client/server applications utilizing 4GL and OLTP technology. Rod moved to a field engineering position with DuPont in 1993. There he traveled internationally, installing, configuring and training engineers on the use of an industrial emergency response system. In 1995, Rod became Project Manager for Advanced Microware, which develops supply chain management and integration software. Here he led development and deployment efforts of mission critical software that integrated with ERP systems like SAP, Oracle and PeopleSoft. Rod joined Microsoft and focused on mobile and infrastructure technologies, helping state agencies and education organizations create smarter, collaborative, and more cost-effective work environments. In 2002, Rod was promoted to Technology Specialist Manager for US Education and managed 9 pre-sales engineers across the 28 western-most states that focused exclusively on education solutions. In 2005, Rod was promoted to Specialist Team Unit Director, responsible for US-wide pre-sales engineering efforts as well as product and solution strategy. Rod graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1990 with a degree in Computer Science.

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