By Pat Caraher, retired editor of Washington State Magazine and WSU HillTopics
Winter 2017 issue of WSURA (WSU Retirees Association) News newsletter
Ken Casavant provided to PULLMAN :: Cup of the Palouse
caption information about the photos in the Winter 2017 issue of WSURA News:
--“After
retiring in June (2017), Dorothy and I spent two months in Ireland, separating
from the busy life of Pullman and traditional time demands. The picture of us
on the bench is of Kylemore Abbey which also has a massive Victorian walled
garden—took four hours to see it and all its history. It includes a Gothic Church and a lot of very
green countryside. We had toured the Abbey and were relaxing out on the sun
while contemplating our next Guinness. “
--Taken
on “Aran Islands, specifically the island of Inishmore; note all the rock wall
fences, which were richly attractive. As
the Irish cleared the ground, they had to have some place to put the rocks
while delineating ownership; hence, a multi-tasking use of all that stone. We, along with my hiking sticks, hiked all
over the island.”
Casavant’s Motto:
Don’t Do Anything Unless it’s Fun
By Pat Caraher, retired editor of Washington State Magazine and WSU HillTopics
Winter 2017 issue of WSURA (WSU Retirees Association) News newsletter
Winter 2017 issue of WSURA (WSU Retirees Association) News newsletter
Growing up on in rural North Dakota, eight miles from
Rolette (pop. 120), Ken Casavant learned a thing or two about farming from his
father. “We raised wheat, cattle, pigs,
chickens – anything we hoped to make a dollar from,” he said.
But Casavant was drawn to business side of agriculture,
rather than production. He went on to earn B.A. and M.S. degrees in
agricultural economics at North Dakota State. He completed his Ph.D. in 1971 at
Washington State University, focusing on transportation economics. That specialty
would drive a 50-year career in teaching and research at WSU. Professor James
C. Nelson, considered by many in the field as the “Father of Transportation Economics,” became his valued mentor.
Early on Casavant addressed, among other things, the
operating cost of moving farm crops to market by truck. For example farmers in
areas of his home state were paying $1.60 per mile to move grain to market,
while farmers in eastern Washington were trucking wheat at 50 cents a
mile. “I wanted to know why?” Casavant
said.
Nelson proved to be a national leader in the free market economics.
He didn’t like regulations. “He was a
good technician,” Casavant said.” He showed us what the real costs were and how
they compared to rates being charged. Then we could evaluate equity and
efficiency.”
At WSU Casavant divided his time equally between teaching and research, plus advising
students and outreach activities.
“The university is a great learning environment. It is a joy to work with students and see the
light go on,” he said. “I believe in economics and they came to believe in
economics, too.”
Eric Jessup, one of his former Ph.D. students, now is co-director (with a
retired Casavant) of the Freight Policy Transportation Institute at WSU. Over the years, the two spent considerable
time seeking ways to lower transportation costs. Every dollar saved in transportation goes into
the farmer’s pocket.
For example, he looked at transporting Palouse wheat by
truck and rail to Kalama, a major exporter on the Columbia River. Their
research showed barging grain out of Almota on the Snake River and Columbia was
more economical than the other options. They also investigated the wear and
tear on roads resulting from freight movement by trucks, particularly with the
declining number of rural railroad lines.
In one study students were hired to track trucks at 40
different sites statewide over a 24-hour period.
That
study was repeated three more times during the changing seasons. “We stopped a total of 30,000 trucks that
year,” Casavant said. Prior to the study, he said , “we’d see a truck go by and
we didn’t know what was in it, where it came from, or where it was going? Were the trucks just “passing through” from
Canada, Idaho or Oregon, or were they strictly in-state pickups and
deliveries? Who was “consuming the
pavement. And who was paying state highway taxes?
The methods Casavant and his colleagues used
to collect data were accepted nationally.
Over the years WSU has received more than $11 million in federal and
state grants for transportation economics.
Additionally, his research and consulting work
has taken him to 51 countries. He designed a physical distribution system for
limestone in Portugal. His involvement in a wheat transportation project took
him to Timbuktu, Africa.
His teaching efforts have not been without personal
recognition at the university, state and national levels. He’s received teaching
awards from the College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Resource Sciences,
from the Western Agricultural Economics Association and from the National Association
of Teachers of Agriculture. In 1982 his WSU peers chose him to deliver the
prestigious all-University Distinguished Faculty Address.
When he retired this summer, Casavant ended an 18-year run
as WSU’s Faculty Athletic Representative for the Pac-12 Conference. In that
capacity, he said he was privledged to work under three athletic directors (Rick
Dickson, Jim Sterk and Bill Moos) and four presidents ( Sam Smith, Lane
Rawlins, Elson Floyd and Kirk Schulz). He found the opportunity to “work with
and protect the student-athlete rewarding.” He salutes retired Associate
Athletic Director Marcia Saneholtz’s efforts to significantly increase funding
for women athletes.
Through his ties with athletics, Casavant visited
approximately 35 college campuses, many for athletic events. “There’s a lot of respect out there for WSU,”
he said, “even though we sometimes had the smallest budget and fewer wins.”
Casavant’s far-reaching contributions and service to WSU
include serving as interim vice provost for academic affairs and interim vice
provost for research. He also chaired university wide committees and task
forces, and served as president of the WSU Faculty Senate in the late 80s. He
also is a past president of the Pullman Chamber of Commerce and served a four-year
term on the Pullman City Council.
His wife of 51 years,
Dorothy, spent 25 years at WSU, retiring
as fiscal specialist in the Department of Sociology.
They have two daughters. Collette, (Ed.D., Seattle University) is academic coordinator in WSU’s College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Sciences. Michelle (Ph.D., American Studies, University of Kansas), now directs the College of Education’s Multicultural Center at KU. They also have two grandsons.
They have two daughters. Collette, (Ed.D., Seattle University) is academic coordinator in WSU’s College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Sciences. Michelle (Ph.D., American Studies, University of Kansas), now directs the College of Education’s Multicultural Center at KU. They also have two grandsons.
Casavant attributes his success, in part, to usually being
able to get things done that people ask him to do. He finds that a sense of
humor makes life easier. When he was younger, he said, he had a motto: “Don’t
do anything unless it’s fun” and the second part of that is “Make it fun.”
“That saved me some
long days and long nights.”
His hobbies? For 20 years he was a winemaker. He no longer
is. He remains active in partisan politics and reads. He’s completed a couple
of chapters on the history of Notre Dame Academy (1906-1968), a French speaking
boarding school, where he and Dorothy once were classmates.
“Retirement doesn’t mean you’re not busy,” he says. “You still
have to order your activities. We’re working on it.”
::::::::::
--“After retiring in June (2017), Dorothy and I spent two months in Ireland, separating from the busy life of Pullman and traditional time demands. The picture of us on the bench is of Kylemore Abbey which also has a massive Victorian walled garden—took four hours to see it and all its history. It includes a Gothic Church and a lot of very green countryside. We had toured the Abbey and were relaxing out on the sun while contemplating our next Guinness. “
--Taken on “Aran Islands, specifically the island of Inishmore; note all the rock wall fences, which were richly attractive. As the Irish cleared the ground, they had to have some place to put the rocks while delineating ownership; hence, a multi-tasking use of all that stone. We, along with my hiking sticks, hiked all over the island.”
::::::::::
Ken Casavant provided to PULLMAN :: Cup of the Palouse caption information about the photos in the Winter 2017 issue of WSURA News:
--“After retiring in June (2017), Dorothy and I spent two months in Ireland, separating from the busy life of Pullman and traditional time demands. The picture of us on the bench is of Kylemore Abbey which also has a massive Victorian walled garden—took four hours to see it and all its history. It includes a Gothic Church and a lot of very green countryside. We had toured the Abbey and were relaxing out on the sun while contemplating our next Guinness. “
--Taken on “Aran Islands, specifically the island of Inishmore; note all the rock wall fences, which were richly attractive. As the Irish cleared the ground, they had to have some place to put the rocks while delineating ownership; hence, a multi-tasking use of all that stone. We, along with my hiking sticks, hiked all over the island.”