Rod practiced clinical Internal medicine and infectious diseases for 15 years (5 years IM and 10 years ID) before moving to HIV vaccine development for the US Army in Thailand in 1992. In Thailand Rod managed a multi-national (US and Thai), multi-disciplinary (MDs, PhDs), multi-agency (US Army, CDC, Thai Army, WHO) team of over 40 people to establish a clinical research center and conduct the Army's first HIV vaccine study in Thai civilians and one of the first HIV vaccine studies outside of the US. He helped lay the groundwork for further cooperation and collaboration that ultimately resulted in a Phase 3 study of an HIV candidate vacccine in 16,000+ Thai volunteers that showed 30% to 40% efficacy.In 1996 Rod moved back to the United States where for 7 years he helped lead and invigorate basic and applied research in two of the premier research programs (Infectious Diseases and Combat Casualty Care) conducted by the US Army and Navy. For the last 8 years of his Army career, Rod led 3 multi-disciplinary product development teams in efforts to develop improved blood products for use on the battlefield, DMSO cryopreserved platelets; Extended shelf-life RBCs; and freeze-dried plasma.
Listed skills include Management Of Complex Teams, Project Management, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Blood Products For Casualty Care, and 20 others.