User:Jmturner/Sandbox2

John Rodger Koopman was born Johan Rutger Koopman. He's a naturalized US citizen who was born and raised through high school in The Netherland. Rodger is 48, and currently serves on the Raleigh City Council representing District B, Raleigh's largest district. Rodger's bio lists him as a combat veteran and retired Air Force officer, a father, husband, teacher, volunteer coach with the UNC Field Hockey program, and a successful businessman. His current employer is EDSA Micro Corp., a small company that specializes in power analytics and energy management software. Rodger manages software development. He also has about seven years experience teaching Computer Science as an adjunct faculty professor. This includes three years at the University of Maryland, through their overseas campus in Heidelberg, Germany.

Rodger was born on April 27th, 1960 in Willemstad, Curacao and grew up in The Hague ("Den Haag"), Netherlands. His parents barely survived the Holocaust and were liberated by American and Canadian GIs. Rodger's father, Herman Louie Koopman, is briefly mentioned in Anne Frank's diary where on page 5 she refers to him as "filthy-minded." In 1942 the Jews were driven out of the Dutch school system and Rodger's father spent some time in class with, among others, Anne Frank. Eventually most classmates and their families went into hiding. Rodger's uncle Johan--his father's two-year younger brother--was betrayed by a neighbor of the people who were hiding him. Johan was murdered in Auschwitz gas chambers in January 1944. It's for this reason Rodger does not use his first name, "Johan" (anglicized to "John" when Rodger became a naturalized US citizen), because it was given to him in honor of his uncle.

Rodger was raised with an idealistic view of the United States in large part because his parents were liberated by Americans. Rodger immigrated to the US in 1979. Young and poor, like many in the 1980's, Rodger joined the US Air Force in 1983. In part so he could improve himself, and in part to pay back the country that saved his parents and other family members. At the time he had a high school diploma and six college credits. He joined at the lowest enlisted rank of E-1. Through hard work and dedication, three and a half years later Rodger had an Associate's degree, a Bachelor's degree, and a class date to enter the Air Force officer training school.

When Rodger became a 2nd Lieutenant he quickly acquired the nickname 'Smiley' because he tends to smile a lot. He went through the Air Force survival school in Spokane, Washington in 1988 in preparation for flying status as an AWACS Weapons Director. After flying combat and counter-narcotics missions for three years Rodger got involved in software development for large-scale weapons systems, and later transitioned to working on highly classified satellite and communications systems. He was hand-picked to go to DARPA and work on an emergency solution that provided satellite communications between the White House and military commanders in Bosnia.

During his last assignment Rodger was stationed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as the aide and executive officer to the general in charge of the US counter-terrorism program in South-West Asia (comprising all the Arabian countries and the Horn of Africa). Rodger worked with all the US embassies in the region and dealt with highly classified material pertaining to counter-terrorism and regional threat assessments. He also liaised with various intelligence agencies including the CIA.

Rodger obtained two Master's degrees while on active duty. He has a Master's of Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma and a Master's of Science in Information Systems from Boston University. He also taught for eight years as adjunct faculty at several colleges and universities. Rodger is currently a volunteer teacher at the Wade Edwards Learning Lab and a volunteer coach with the UNC Women's Field Hockey program under coach Karen Shelton (UNC is one of the top-rated teams in the country).

In 1998 Rodger took the early retirement program offered by the Air Force (designed to help with force reductions) and moved to Silicon Valley to participate in the modern gold rush known as the Internet boom. He was hired by a small startup software company called Silicon Energy as employee #38 and helped build that company to 220 employees and over $30 Million in annual sales before it was acquired by Itron in 2002. As part of that acquisition Rodger was offered a major leadership opportunity in Itron's Raleigh office. There, he had five managers and 45 software engineers reporting to him. Rodger left Itron in 2007 because of career changes and because of his increasing involvement in local Raleigh politics. As he explains it, traveling 2-3 weeks per month and working 14 hour days was no longer compatible with his desire for a better quality of life and being locally active.

Rodger's wife, M'Liss, is a veterinarian and a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Reserves. M'Liss deployed to Kuwait and Iraq in 2003 and was gone for almost a year. During that time Rodger was a single parent for their son who at the time was only three years old. It was stressful, but because of great neighbors and access to good daycare Rodger was able to manage and keep his job. Rodger and M'Liss met when they were both still on active duty. M'Liss and Rodger are the proud parents of a rambunctious 9-year old son who attends school in the Wake County public school system. Rodger has a 24-year-old daughter from a prior marriage who graduated in 2007 from Brewton Parker College in Georgia. She's working on getting her teaching credentials because she wants to become a teacher for Head Start. Rodger's son-in-law is working on becoming a teacher in the Georgia school system in Darien, GA.