Rouan began his career in broadcasting almost by accident: he started as an audio man in sports broadcasting -- one of the "two guys in the broadcasting van outside the stadium." When the cameraman was suddenly taken ill, Rouan had to fill in. He has been in television ever since. "I never went back to audio. Later, I was teaching and pursuing my Ph.D., when layoffs brought me to a technical position at Stanford."

Rouan abandoned his original career goal of university teaching when video streaming was introduced into on-line education at Stanford. "I actually had the chance to help build Stanford Online. I was in on the ground floor when video-streaming technology was first developed right here at Stanford, so I've been able to be on the cutting edge of distance learning technologies from the start." Mike Rouan remains one of the people who keeps Stanford-Online and SCPD's other delivery systems on the cutting edge.