Rollie Cole

Dr. Roland (“Rollie”) Cole is a Senior Fellow and Director of Technology Policy at the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research (SIPR). In this capacity, Rollie assists in developing SIPR programs and projects related to technology policy; identifies ways in which technology policy impacts existing SIPR research projects; and assists SIPR in effectively leveraging technology (via document management, distance collaboration, outreach, etc.). In addition to technology policy, he has expertise in information technology, energy policy, life sciences policy and intellectual property law.

Dr. Cole also does consulting work for other organizations, such as Thomas P. Miller & Associates (TPMA). For instance, he helped lead a TPMA project on community broadband for SW Indiana, and he has worked for private clients large and small in the area of alternative energy through TPMA and other organizations. He is also founder of Fertile Ground for Startups that does work on regional economic development.

He also does writing and speaking for Broadband Communities Magazine. He has been a panel speaker at several of the magazine’s national and regional conferences, and has covered SXSWedu and Smart Cities Connect as a freelance industry analyst, producing analytical articles for the magazine about trends likely to influence the demand for fiber-to-the-home.

From 1992 through 2008, Rollie served as executive director of the Software Patent Institute (SPI), a nonprofit that operates an online database of key documents and offers courses to clients such as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He has also served as an attorney at Shughart Thomson & Kilroy in Kansas City, Missouri, and at Barnes & Thornburg in Indianapolis, where he helped lead the Business and Technology practice. He is a co-founder and was the first president of the International Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG). In addition, Roland has taught at the University of Michigan, Indiana University (Indianapolis), and the University of Washington.

He has co-authored a number of books, including Government Requirements of Small Business (Lexington Heath) and The Containment of Organized Crime (Lexington Heath). His latest is a series on regional economic development in US metropolitan areas – Wholesale Economic Development Volumes I-IV (available as Kindle books through Amazon). In addition, his writing has appeared in The Journal of Public Policy and Management and as chapters in several textbooks, most recently on government use of information technology.

Rollie holds an AB in Economics from Harvard College, where he graduated magna cum laude; a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, a J.D. from Harvard Law School; and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.