With over 37 years of experience, the R.C. Thomas Company has emerged as the #1 Seed Sales Training & Consulting Firm in North America.   In April 1994, Rod Osthus formed the R.C. Thomas Company, a sales and marketing consulting firm named after his son Thomas, who was only 13 years old at the time.  Since then the R.C. Thomas Company has conducted training sessions all across the United States, Canada and South America. The firm currently works primarily in the areas of marketing, sales training, program development and strategic consulting.

  Rod Osthus was born and raised on a farm near Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  He received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Agronomy from SDSU in 1972, prior to joining the Research Team at Trojan Seed Company. During his five years at Trojan, Rod worked as a Plant Breeder, Agronomist, conducted research in Brazil, and became Research Station Director for Trojan in Maui, Hawaii. Rod also became a Registered Seed Technologist in 1972 after passing his international exam.

  In 1977, Rod became the first employee of the newly formed Keltgen Seed Company, where he worked as a District Sales Manager, Region Manager and in 1984 was named VP/Sales. Later, Keltgen Seed Company became a member of the Dow/Elanco Team where Rod continued his tenure of orchestrating 17 consecutive years of sales increases.

 Although Rod's primary focus has been in the seed industry, the demand for his talents and abilities have taken him into other areas as well..  He has experience in training people in crop insurance, retail selling, direct sales, farm marketing, health and fitness, human resources, the food and fuel industry and additional agricultural sectors.   Rod has helped start new companies, positioned businesses for sale and facilitated mergers. He has also developed numerous successful new product introduction strategies and created ways to add new life to current product lines by repositioning them in the marketplace. Rod's unique training style makes him an extremely popular sales trainer, advisor and key note speaker. Rod and his wife Sharon currently live in Olivia, MN, and have three grown children.