Odd Strand was a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 civil servant.

He was born in Aure

Aure, Norway

Aure is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the region of Nordmøre. The administrative centre is the village of Aure. Other villages include Stemshaug, Todalen, and Tjeldbergodden. Aure has one of the largest wooden churches in Norway.The municipality includes many...

, but grew up in Trondheim

Trondheim

Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...

. During the German occupation of Norway he was a member of Milorg

Milorg

Milorg was the main Norwegian resistance movement in World War II....

. He later studied at the University of Oslo

University of Oslo

The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...

, graduating as cand.philol. and later magister

Magister (degree)

Magister is an academic degree used in various systems of higher education.-Argentina:...

 in political science

Political science

Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

 in 1953.

He started a career in government ministries and agencies

Norwegian government agencies

The Government agencies of Norway are state controlled organizations that act independently to carry out the policies of the Government of Norway. The Government Ministries are relatively small and merely policy-making organizations, allowed to control agencies by policy decisions but not by direct...

, and was appointed director of the Norwegian Central Information Service upon its creation in 1965. He remained director until 1993, when he reached the age limit. He was succeeded by Arne Simonsen

Arne Simonsen

Arne Simonsen is a Norwegian civil servant.He was born in Haugesund, and graduated as cand.mag. from the University of Bergen. He worked as a civil servant in Bergen municipality, the Norwegian Central Information Service, the Ministry of Church and Education, and the Norwegian Directorate of...

. Statens Informasjonstjeneste no longer exists, as it was merged into Statskonsult

Statskonsult

Statskonsult AS is a defunct Norwegian government-owned company that provided management consulting services related to government restructuring and reform. It was created in 1947 as the Rationalisation Office , later the Directorate of Rationalisation. The name Statskonsult was taken into use in...

in 2001.