NACDEP Member Spotlight - May

 

Dave Shideler Trumpets Collaboration and Solutions at Oklahoma State


“Every day offers new opportunities for projects, whether it’s departmental colleagues asking for help applying or contextualizing their research, colleagues from different fields seeking assistance, or communities and community leaders contacting me with questions and seeking solutions,” explained Dave Shideler, when asked about the best part of working at Oklahoma State University as an Associate Professor in the department of Agricultural Economics.

Dave’s research interests are economic modeling, entrepreneurship, local and regional food systems, rural infrastructure, and social interaction, networks, and capital.  His paper, “Measuring Schumpeterian activity using a composite indicator” was published in the Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy and the editors judged it “Outstanding Paper in 2015”.

Currently Dave is collaborating with colleagues at Colorado State in a NIFA funded project, developing benchmarks and other tools for local food enterprises to use in documenting their economic effect on their communities.  “The project dovetails with a project USDA-AMS is funding to standardize the methodology used in generating these impact statements,” he said.  “We are generating representative benchmark values that one could use in lieu of collecting local data and/or to determine how a particular business’ performance compares with the benchmark values.”  Their work will be presented at a joint pre-conference workshop for the Food Distribution Research Society’s annual meeting in New Orleans in late September.

OklahomaStCommunityDevelopmentHe sees new funding for Extension becoming available from familiar entities, however, now they’ll be involved in project funding.  “More NIFA grants are requiring research and extension components.  Also, state and local organizations are seeking assistance with planning, visioning, and strategic organization and are willing to pay for it,” he said.

Dave enjoys folk rock music citing artists David Wilcox and Eddy from Ohio as some examples.  Surprisingly, Wilcox is from Ohio, however, Eddy, nor his band, hail from Ohio.  Dave also enjoys visiting family and friends out of town, hiking and backpacking, and playing board games and cards with family and friends.

And Dave does play the trumpet, however he joked, “I would like to learn how to play guitar – it’s more acceptable to play in groups and throughout the day.”

Dave is looking forward to NACDEP’s Annual Conference in Burlington, Vermont as the group continues to support his professional development and networking as an Extension professional.