Dr. Don E. Ethridge: Lifetime achievement award

Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Aug 2002

* Instructor, Department of Economics, North Carolina State University, 1969-1970

* Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Missouri-Rolla, 1970-1973; Head of Economics, 1972-1973

* Senior Economic Analyst, Office of Economic Research, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC, 1973-1975

* Economist and Senior Representative, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1975-1981

* Associate Professor and Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas Tech University, 1981-1997

* Associate of the International Center for Arid and Semi-Arid Land Studies, Texas Tech University, 1981-present

* Professor and Chair, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Texas Tech University, 1997-present

* Director, Cotton Economics Research Institute, Texas Tech University, 1998-present

Don Ethridge's multifaceted professional career includes experience, contributions, and leadership in research, teaching, service, and administration. He received his B.S. (1965) and M.S. (1967) degrees in Agricultural Economics from Texas Technological College and his Ph.D. (1970) in Economics from North Carolina State University. His Ph.D. work at North Carolina State University constituted some of the early research in environmental economics, identifying water pollution responses to price incentives. This line of research continued while he was at the University of Missouri, where he also taught economics and worked at the Water Resource Center. In 1973, he moved to Washington, DC, as an economic analyst with the Office of Economic Research at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he conducted research and policy analysis on global food, agriculture, and energy issues, including administering contract research on global grain trade models. It was during this period that he "really learned how to work with professionals from other disciplines." He then joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service and moved to Texas to lead a new field office that was responsible for research and policy support on fibers and oil crops through the south-central and western United States. In that capacity, he organized a successful and productive research group and built alliances with other groups throughout the region, including the USDA Agricultural Research Service and Agricultural Marketing Service, several universities, and a number of cotton industry groups and organizations. That program led him to conduct research on all cotton industry segments and formed the foundation for his recognition as an authority on cotton economics in the United States and globally.

On joining the faculty at Texas Tech in 1981, Dr. Ethridge again assumed teaching responsibilities for the first time since leaving Missouri, teaching a range of undergraduate and graduate subject matter courses thereafter. He also established two widely recognized research programs in cotton economics and rangeland economics and became involved in an extensive group of service and administrative activities and functions.

Dr. Ethridge has taught courses in macroand microeconomic principles, macro- and microeconomic intermediate theory, production economics, natural resource economics, price analysis, international economics, food and agricultural policy analysis, and research methodology in economics. He published a widely adopted graduate-level textbook on research methodology in 1995 after years of teaching and study of that subject matter. His desire to freely give of himself to the benefit of his students has also established him as a superior teacher. Dr. Ethridge is respected among his peers as an educator, not only because of his teaching abilities, but also because of the encouragement, guidance, and advice he gives to students and because of his contributions to the lives and professional development of students. His leadership in teaching activities is well exemplified by his contributions to more than 80 graduate student theses and dissertations.

Dr. Ethridge's research activities have also varied through time and covered a broad range of types of research and subject matter. Some of his early work in environmental and water research economics was published in outlets such as the Journal of Political Economy and the Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science. His research in international economics and his global research at the CIA was all classified and written for government policy members; it had no disciplinary exposure or impact, but it made contributions to public policy. He has continued his international work with research and publishing, teaching, and work assignments in other countries. He has conducted economic research and published work on all components of the cotton and textile industries, including extensive research and publications on cotton-pricing structures and cotton market pricing behavior. Through price analysis research on cotton, Dr. Ethridge has made disciplinary contributions to the body of hedonic price theory and hedonic analytical procedures. Overall, he has more than 320 professional publications and presentations to his credit.