"[2] Diridon has also been active in Silicon Valley in leadership on environmental issues, the arts and culture, higher education, community organizations, and philanthropy.

An Italian-American, Rod Diridon Sr. was born on February 8, 1939, in Yreka, California, the son of a railroad brakeman and a piano teacher.

[3] He graduated from San Jose State University in 1961 with a BS in accounting and finance, continuing to earn a Master of Science in business administration with a concentration in statistics in 1963.

[3] After returning from Vietnam, Diridon became a management systems analyst at Lockheed Missile and Space Corporation in Sunnyvale, California.

[7] The papers from Diridon's 24 years in public office are archived at San Jose's Martin Luther King, Jr.

These included the Santa Clara County Rapid Transit Development Project, which created a master plan for transportation for Silicon Valley.

[17] During his tenure as Chair, the California state legislature authorized a ballot measure for bond funding of the high speed rail project, Proposition 1A, which was approved by voters in 2008.

Diridon has served as vice chair of the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) in Brussels, Belgium.

[22] After his retirement at the end of 1994, Diridion became the founding executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI), based at San Jose State University.

[26] Based on these priorities, MTI conducts peer-reviewed research involving teams of academic and professional specialists, distributing the reports via publications, conferences, and the Internet.

[26] MTI research focuses on best practices internationally, through case studies on issues such as transit systems security, transportation financing, and transportation-related land use policies and sustainability.

[26][27] A needs assessment in the early 1990s identified the lack of a master's degree program teaching transportation systems management in the United States.

[28] MTI designed a Master of Science in Transportation Management (MSTM) degree program, which was accepted for accreditation by the California State University Board of Trustees in 1996.

[29] Rod Diridon chairs the board of Lincoln Law School of San Jose, which focuses on educating veterans, moderate-income, and minority students.

[31] Diridon founded CTRC in 1982 to collect and restore historic trolley cars for use on rail lines in San Jose.

[36] He established and funded Diridon Leadership Scholarships at the College of Business and the women's athletic program at San Jose State University.

[30] He chaired capital campaigns and annual fund drives for the San Jose Metropolitan YMCA, the Santa Clara County Music and Arts Foundation, and the California Trolley and Railroad Corporation, and for 11 years, he chaired the annual Jamboree and fund drive for the Santa Clara County Council of the Boy Scouts of America.