Rod Gramer
Rod Gramer is an Idaho Native, former journalist, author, and advocate for education.
Rod stepped down as President and CEO of Idaho Business for Education in August 2024 after more than 11 years leading the business group which has two hundred members across the state. IBE’s mission is to improve the education systems in Idaho to set our students up for success in school, work, and life.
Before joining IBE, Rod was a journalist for 38 years. He worked at The Idaho Statesman for 14 years, including serving as political editor, editorial page editor and columnist. He covered eleven sessions of the Idaho Legislature for The Statesman and numerous political campaigns. After leaving The Statesman he was executive news director at KTVB, the NBC station in Boise for ten years and moderated the station’s public affairs program Viewpoint.
Rod spent 13 years as executive news director at KGW, the NBC station in Portland, Oregon and two years as vice president and general manager of two 24-hour news stations in Tampa Bay, Florida before returning home to Idaho to accept the IBE position.
Rod is also the author of three books, co-author of “Fighting the Odds, the Life of Senator Frank Church,” editor of “Lucky: The Wit and Wisdom of Governor Phil Batt,” and a novel, “The Good Assassin,” a political thriller. “Fighting the Odds” won the Evans Prize in Biography from Utah State University.
Over the years Rod has served on many non-profit boards including as a founding board member of City Club of Boise, two terms as president of the Idaho Press Club, and one term on the board of the Discovery Center of Idaho. Last year he finished two terms on the University of Idaho Foundation Board.
Rod currently serves on the Frank Church Institute Board at Boise State University, the board of the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights, the Advisory Board for the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Idaho, and chairs the WWAMI advisory board for the cooperative medical education program between the University of Washington Medical School and the U of I. In November 2025 Rod joined The Cabin Board of Directors.
Rod holds a degree in history and journalism from the University of Idaho. In 2021, Rod received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the University. He has been married to another Idaho native and University of Idaho graduate, Julie Gramer, for 48 years. He has two children, a daughter, Jennifer, who received her doctorate in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a son, Robbie, who covers foreign policy for The Wall Street Journal and is based in the Journal’s Washington, D.C. bureau.
A book that changed Rod’s life is The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.