Andrew Rodger has spent a career navigating complex systems — global markets, engineering teams and college classrooms — but some of his most enduring work began decades ago at home, making up bedtime stories for his three children.
Those tales have now resurfaced in print, giving the Manning School of Business adjunct professor a new way to connect imagination, experience and teaching.
Rodger, who joined UMass Lowell in 2019, recently self-published the first two books in what he calls the “Ole Luc and the Luciverse” series, a collection of whimsical, nautical children’s stories. The first title, “Ole Luc and the Jelly Bean Jar,” came out as an ebook last August; “Ole Luc and the Marblehead Halloween Regatta” followed in November in paperback. They are available on Amazon.
Long encouraged by his family, Rodger finally began writing about Ole Luc the sea captain in the summer of 2025.
“My children were pushing me because my grandchildren have heard the stories as well, and they've all just been enthralled,” says Rodger, who has partnered with illustrator Elizabeth Bradley on the books.
The Luciverse project reflects Rodger’s wide-ranging professional and academic background. Born and raised in England, Rodger earned degrees in economics, English and meteorology at London University, later becoming a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.
His professional career took him around the world — and to the United States in 1986 — with senior sales, marketing and communications roles for companies such as Bosch, IBM and Dassault Systèmes.
After retiring from industry in 2018, Rodger took a part-time retail job at Target, an experience he describes as humbling and instructive.
“It taught me bottom-up marketing,” he says. “How people move through a store, how placement matters, how much psychology is involved.”
Bored with retirement, Rodger turned to a career consultant, who suggested he try teaching. He had led a course while earning a master’s degree in communications management at Simmons University in the early 1990s, and he enjoyed being in front of students. After conversations at several institutions, a meeting at UMass Lowell sealed the decision.
In the Manning School, Rodger teaches courses in marketing, entrepreneurship and innovation, drawing on real-world examples from mergers, acquisitions, startups and global operations.
Rodger, who lives in Marblehead, spends a lot of time on the water, so the nautical language in the Ole Luc stories “comes fairly naturally to me.”
He hopes to use the Luciverse project as a potential interdisciplinary learning opportunity on campus. He has discussed hosting a session that would bring together students from business, education, marketing and art to examine storytelling, illustration, independent publishing and the role of creativity in professional work.
“There are students who think they're not creative,” Rodger says. “I want them to understand that actually, they are. I want to try to nurture that.”