I Discovered College Because of V. Lane Rawlins

David Knowles graduated with three degrees from WSU: political science in 1969, economics in 1972, and a doctorate in economics in 1977. The year before receiving his doctorate, Knowles worked for the U.S. Justice Department’s anti-trust division in Chicago, culminating in a case of a covert meeting in the middle of Iowa cornfields between two corporations conspiring on the bidding of a government poverty food program and its product, whey. In 1978, Knowles began a 20-year teaching career at Seattle University, as well as serving as an economic consultant for almost 40 years. Knowles and his wife, Patti, served on the WSU Libraries’ Council for several years and are longtime donors to the libraries.

I am that guy. That guy that should never have been sitting in a graduate school classroom listening to smart people talking about a weird subject matter.

I am that guy that should never have been looking at 40 graduate students or undergraduate students and telling them there is a test next week.

I am that guy that should never have started something called a consulting firm. Lunching with serious people called attorneys and looking up at a judge who is actually listening to my testimony.

How does a 2.3 GPA high school graduate wind up being overeducated? It was because of WSU’s Department of Economics, now the School of Economic Sciences.

Oh, yes, there was that short minute of time when I was going to play football. I came or was allowed to come to WSU because of that relationship. I was not that good at football, and I was a lousy student in high school and in college. When football went south, I was off to partying and staying away from the draft by maintaining a 2.0 GPA.

That all changed in my junior year, the year I met my future wife, and the year I met Lane Rawlins.

As a pre-law, political science major, someone told me that I had to take an economics class beyond the micro- and macroeconomics I took earlier. Labor economics was late in the morning and sounded good. I signed up.

He was tall. He was gangly. He wore weird shoes (those half boots where there was no place for a cuff). His glasses were so tinted, you rarely saw his eyes. But his style was conversational. No, he did all the talking, but it still appeared as if he was in a conversation with you. Lane Rawlins changed my life, right there.

For the first time in my life, I listened while in the classroom. I settled into a mindset that was comfortable. I left the classroom with a desire to come back. But more importantly, I discovered college. I found that economics had some sense to it. It was solid, containing questions that I wanted to answer. It was not easy, but it became so because the subject matter and the teachers of such were believable.

But this was late in my undergraduate life. I had so many other things to worry about. The Vietnam War. The riots. Political unrest, including assassinations. What I started learning in that class in 1967 was set aside.

I got married. I got drafted. It was 1969.

The normal basic training and advanced infantry training were on my forced agenda. Officer Candidate School and then Helicopter Flight School came next. In the summer of 1971, I left my wife and new child for South Vietnam.

In March of 1972, I was laying on the top bunkbed in our hootch in Pleiku. I was alone in the room. My roommate had just left to return home. I stared up to the weathered boards. I knew it was time to decide. The plan in our family was for me to return and get out of the service as quickly as possible. I had a job waiting as Shell Oil salesman in Spokane, my wife’s hometown, and a Chevrolet Biscayne, for heaven’s sakes. I could do sales.

But I thought about that classroom on the third floor of Todd Hall five years before. I remembered that gangly character. But more importantly, I remembered that tiny spark that was lit. The spark lit by Lane Rawlins and by the field of economics. It created a need to learn, to learn more.

I was not ready for the real world. Thanks to those last two years in college, I knew I had to return. And I knew I had to learn more of what I had started late in my undergraduate life.

I nearly had to start all over. The first year back, I took 30 hours of credit, 24 in economics and the other six in math. There was no way I would stop. I stayed in college an additional five years, and Dr. Rawlins gave me my doctorate. There were no more classes to take—or I would have continued in school.

After a stint in Chicago with the U.S. Justice Department, I became an assistant professor teaching in the Albers School of Business at Seattle University in 1978. I taught microeconomics and labor economics to undergraduates and MBA students. I walked into a classroom every day for decades until 2003.

In addition, in 1980, I started a consulting business in Seattle. Within a few years, I handled over 200 cases a year, testifying in 15 states and in two foreign countries. My value was testifying as if I were talking to my students back in school. I had “conversations” with the jury. It worked. I consulted until 2016.

And now, here I am.

This school pulled me out of the spiral of the mundane. I learned to learn. I learned to wait. I learned to think. I learned to dream. I learned to hope. And I learned about my potential.

I thank WSU. I thank the School of Economic Sciences, and I thank the professors at this school, especially V. Lane Rawlins. I only hope that I have given back a small portion of what was given to me.