Economist picked for WSU Endowed Chair in Small Grains Economics

Economist picked for WSU Endowed Chair in Small Grains Economics

Washington Ag Today January 24, 2011 An economist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been named to the new Washington State University Endowed Chair in Small Grains Economics. Randy Fortenbery will hold the chair funded by the Washington Grain Commission in cooperation with WSU.

Commission vice president Glen Squires, also an economist, was on the search committee. He says it wasn’t easy to get Fortenbery, who currently holds an endowed chair, to come to Washington. Squires says they are looking for this position to address economic issues on the ground for growers.

Squires: “Including such things as just developing kind of rapid response economic models to address issues that need to be addressed in short-term rather than in long three-year studies.”

Squires says Fortenbery is very grower oriented.

Squires: “He has had positions where he was 100% Extension so he really has a sense for growers‘ needs and doing things, whether its risk management or grain marketing, that are grower applicable. That is what is exciting.”

Fortenbery is expected to be in his new post at Washington State University in August of this year. The endowed chair is within the university’s School of Economic Sciences.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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