Shortly after graduating high school, he went to London for a summer course in economics at the Leeds University, where he played basketball, football, and was a member of the track team as a teenager.

[2] During his college years, he was present in the crash of a DC-6 airplane that had been contracted by Yale University to bring students back to school after Christmas break.

[1] Roderick was one of three survivors, whose mother came to the scene of the accident, where she found him crying, dazed, and in a state of shock, while he was identifying his dead classmates.

[3] As a young adventurous individual in need of money to support his growing family, he drove a truck as a Teamster,[7] a member of the international brotherhood that began in the early 1900.

Another of his many accomplishments was Deputy commissioner of State Department of Natural Resources from 1976 to 1978,[1] followed by a position as Alaska Director of US Farmers' Home Administration in 1978.

[2] During the years 1967–68, Jack Roderick lived abroad with his daughters, Libby and Sarah, and his wife Martha, as a Regional Director of the U.S Peace Corps based in India.

[3] The Community Councils proved to be the contribution that made him the must proud,[5] because it gave to each neighborhood a voice in the issues and decisions of the town.

[1] He encouraged local residents to participate in council and assembly meetings, and through civic engagement, he helped to establish Anchorage Trail Systems.

[3][8] After attending Harvard Kennedy School, he became the Alaska State Energy Director, a member of the Oil and Gas Royalty Development Advisory Board in 1984–85.

[9] In 1980–81, he began to research information to write his book Crude Dreams: A Personal History of Oil and Politics in Alaska that was finished and published by Epicenter Press in 1997.