Bozeman-based economist Ray Rasker will lecture about the “The American West in the Global Economy” at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, in the Museum of the Rockies’ Hager Auditorium as the fifth lecturer in the Montana State University College of Letters and Science’s Western Lands and Peoples: Perspectives on the American West Lecture Series.
Rasker’s lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be preceded by a reception at 5:15 p.m. in the museum’s lobby. This lecture is cosponsored by the Jake Jabs College of Business and Entrepreneurship at MSU.
The American West lecture series features experts from around the country discussing the history, literature and culture of the West; issues affecting the wildlife and fisheries of the region; and the West’s geography, geology and resources.
Rasker is the executive director of Headwater Economics, an independent, nonprofit research group based in Bozeman that works on community development and land management issues throughout the West. In his talk, he will discuss changes to the global and national economy, as well as shifting demographic trends, and how they affect the American West and opportunities in Montana.
Rasker has written widely on rural development and the role of environmental quality in economic prosperity, and is well known in policy circles in the U.S. and Canada. He has a doctorate from the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, a master’s degree in agriculture from Colorado State University and a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from the University of Washington.
The Western Lands and Peoples: Perspectives on the American West Lecture Series is cosponsored by the Burton K. Wheeler Center and is part of the college’s Western Lands and Peoples Initiative, a collection of programs and events highlighting interdisciplinary research within the College of Letters and Science that is focused on the places and peoples of the Western United States and Canada. For more information about the series, go to: http://www.montana.edu/lettersandscience/west/.
