Ernst Stromsdorfer on studying vocational training in academia, government, and the private sector

Ernst Stromsdorfer, Emeritus Professor of Economics at Washington State University, joins the podcast to discuss his impressive body of research on the impact of labor market programs on different groups of people, and his wide-ranging career across academia, the private sector, and state and federal governments.

In this episode, Stromsdorfer and Ashenfelter discuss: 

• Stromsdorfer’s path from a one-room schoolhouse in the Ozarks to a Ph.D. in economics (after completing a brief stint in the Army and earning degrees in philosophy and industrial organization). “My father was a union man and I thought I was a union man, so I wasn't about to work for a business. So, I went back to Washington U to get a Ph.D. in economics.”
• Stromsdorfer’s extensive work on vocational training, and the ten years he spent at the Department of Employment Security in Washington State after retiring from Washington State University.
• Stromsdorfer’s mentorship at Washington State University of several students from mainland China and the formation of a scholarship and research endowment in Stromsdorfer’s name by the families of two of his students.
• Stromsdorfer’s tenure at the Department of Labor (DOL), including the time he called on Ashenfelter to help him save a “failing” DOL study. “I did the very obvious thing that any rational person would do. I called you up and you said, ‘Well, I think I can help you.’”

Ernst Stromsdorfer earned his Ph.D. in economics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1962. Throughout his career, he worked and taught at several universities including the University of Tennessee, the University of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania State University, Indiana University, and finally Washington State University. He also worked in the private sector at Abt Associates Inc, at the Department of Employment Security in Washington State, and served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor. "The Work Goes On"—a podcast produced as Princeton's Industrial Relations Section (IR Section) celebrates its 100th anniversary—is an oral history of industrial relations and labor economics hosted by Princeton's Orley Ashenfelter.