- Alumnus; On Location
In the month leading up to Thanksgiving 2010, Don Dodge '84 set foot in Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Russia and the Czech Republic. His travels culminated a year in which he flew 200,000 miles to 15 countries and spent more than 180 nights in hotel rooms.
Such is the life of a self-described "technology evangelist" for Google, the Internet-search giant. A 25-year high-tech veteran, Dodge is a developer advocate who helps companies around the world build applications using such Google technologies as Gmail, Google Apps, Google Maps and the Android mobile operating system.
"The more applications that are built using Google technology, the more valuable the Google platform is," Dodge says.
Dodge launched his career by earning his M.B.A. part-time in the evenings at SNHU in 1984. After graduating, he spent 11 years with Digital Equipment Corp. in Nashua, N.H., before moving to California's Silicon Valley and working for three startup firms – Forte Software, AltaVista and Napster. He returned to New Hampshire in 2000 and worked for two more startups – Bowstreet and Groove Networks – before joining software king Microsoft in 2004. Google hired Dodge in 2009.
When he's not traveling, Dodge works from his Hampton, N.H., home. And despite working for one of the world's biggest technology players, he is still engaged in the startup scene, introducing some of the 400 to 500 new companies he encounters annually to Google Ventures, his employer's venture-capital arm, for potential funding.
Dodge credits his SNHU M.B.A. for making his technology career possible.
"It's great preparation for doing anything in business," he says. "I took a more technical route, but having the analytical skills and business thinking that comes from an M.B.A really prepared me to do everything I've done."
