Rod Larson graduated from the University of North Dakota with a B.S. degree in public administration. After college, he joined the family supermarket business and continued in the business for 17 years.
In 1982, he was elected to the North Dakota House of Representative where he served five two-year terms representing the 13th District. He served on the House Health and Human Services Committee and served as vice-chair for two terms and chair of the committee in 1991.
Upon his retirement from the legislature, he became the assistant vice president of government relations for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota where he represented the company on legislative issues on the state and federal level. In 2000, Rod joined the American Academy of Neurology as the chief health policy officer until he retired in June of 2016. In this role, he oversaw the Center for Health Policy and its current staff of 28. The Center was responsible for all state and federal legislative and regulatory advocacy, clinical practice guideline development, quality improvement and quality measure development, practice management issues, coding and reimbursement, and the Axon Clinical Data Registry.
Rod is married to Jan. They have two daughters and four grandsons. Rod's mother Donna Larson lived with Parkinson's disease for several years until she passed away in 2012.