Rod presently serves as the Children’s and Family Minister for the Church In The Falls. He also serves as worship leader for the congregation, plays acoustic guitar in our Prelude Coffee House band, and co-administers our Upward Basketball program, a Christ-centered league and summer camp for children in grades K-6.
Before coming to the Falls in 1977, Rod served for nine years as an officer in the United States Air Force which included six years of flying duty as a navigator and three years as an Air Force ROTC instructor at Kent State University. He earned his B.S. in Science Education from The Ohio State University (OSU) prior to entering the Air Force and earned his M.A. in Educational Systems Management from Chapman College in Orange, California (1977).
After moving back to Ohio to serve at Kent State, Rod left the Air Force in 1980 to join the staff at the church and become their full-time Campus Minister to The University of Akron. He also began a doctoral program at the university and earned his Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) degree in 1985. During that same year Rod became the youth minister at the Falls and served in that capacity until 2002.
Rod met his wife, Cinda, in 1970 when they were both students at OSU. She currently serves as a Biology Teacher at Hudson High School where she has taught for 27 years. They have two grown children, Cinnamon and Cory. Cinnamon is married to John Leonard and is a stay-at-home mom. They have a 3-year-old adopted daughter from China and are expecting to travel soon to Vietnam to bring home their adopted son, Liam. Cory works with an agency as a visual communications designer and free lances as a videographer and animator. Rod and Cinda currently live in Streetsboro, Ohio with their dog “Peanut” and cat “Pepper.”