June 1, 2018 by Philip Lewenstein

From Higher-Education Leader to Truck Driver: On the Road with David A. Longanecker

One should aspire to and pursue one’s dreams and goals. Recently, I was pleased to see that David A. Longanecker, one of my top bosses and a national leader in higher education, has achieved his goal of becoming a truck driver, a goal he had articulated for many years.

Last week, the commissioners of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) appointed Longanecker, who had retired in 2016, interim president of the interstate higher-education agency serving 16 states and territories, encompassing a population of 80 million.

Longanecker served as deputy executive director and executive director of the Minnesota Higher Education Coordinating Board, my employer, during the l980s. He came to Minnesota from the Congressional Budget Office, where he was the principal analyst for higher education.

As executive director in Minnesota, Longanecker demonstrated many attributes that enabled him to become a successful state, federal, and regional higher-education leader. Throughout his career, he has had a strong understanding of and passion for public policy, particularly those policies geared to expanding access to and successful completion of higher education for all students.

The 1980s were the golden era of higher-education policy in Minnesota. Longanecker contributed to developing integrated policies to reform state financing of higher education, financial aid, and governance. He also focused on overlapping missions among higher-education entities and the increased development and use of technology. After Longanecker’s departure, some legislators passed legislation to minimize the Coordinating Board’s role in state higher- education policy, preferring a decentralized approach to a centralized one.

Longanecker was a popular, down-to-earth leader (with a sense of humor) who was able to communicate effectively with many external constituencies, including board members, higher- education system leaders, student leaders, legislators and staff, executive-branch officials, the news media, and his staff. He encouraged staff to participate actively, listening to their ideas and concerns. For example, he supported my initiatives to expand information about post-secondary opportunities to students and parents. With Longanecker’s support, a foundation was established for expanded programs and services.

Further, Longanecker developed a structure that included processes to ensure quality for developing and publishing policy papers and other agency reports. The process included internal and external review and consultation, and it valued the role of editing, which my responsibility.

I recall Longanecker discussing his goal of becoming a truck driver. This goal seemed incongruous for the state’s higher-education leader who sat across the table from the chief executives of the University of Minnesota, state colleges and universities, and private colleges. But one should pursue one’s lifelong dreams.

In 1988, Longanecker left Minnesota to become executive director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. Then, in the early 1990s, I recall an FBI agent coming into my office asking questions about Longanecker as part of the vetting process for a federal job. In 1993, Longanecker become assistant secretary for postsecondary education at the U.S. Department of Higher Education under President Bill Clinton.

Six years later, after serving as the nation’s top higher-education official, Longanecker returned to Colorado to become president of WICHE. He served as WICHE’s chief executive officer for 17 years, retiring in 2016. During an interview near the end of his WICHE tenure, Longanecker told a reporter from the Chronicle of Higher Education that he still planned to become a truck driver.

Thus, it was not surprising to learn that Longanecker had returned to higher education as a student, securing a commercial driver’s license from Aims Community College in Greeley, Colorado, and then driving over the road full time for much of 2017, later driving part time.

His return to higher education as a student came many decades after he completed his ED.D. in administration and higher-education policy analysis from Stanford University, his MA in student personnel work from The George Washington University, and his BA in sociology from Washington State University. He earlier served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam.

Longanecker’s entry into truck driving has been timely. A shortage of truck drivers is putting the future of the country’s economy in peril, according to a May 15 report in the Star Tribune.

The shortage is reported to be at a crisis level. While the shortage of over-the-road truckload drivers  nationally is about 52,000, the number could more than quadruple by 2025, according to Thomas Balzer, president and CEO of the Ohio Trucking Association. The nation needs to add almost one million new drivers by 2024 to keep up with demand, according to a recent American Trucking Association report.

With a possible pause in his truck driving, Longanecker will serve as interim president of WICHE while the commission searches for a long-term president. Established by Congress in 1953, WICHE is one of four regional interstate compacts in the United States. WICHE’s programs include the Western Undergraduate  Exchange, which saves more than 40,000 students over $375 million annually in tuition; a report, Knocking at the College Door, the nation’s leading resource for demography projections for college-age students; and WCET, the leading U.S convener for innovation in educational technology.

Longanecker has had a successful career in developing and implementing higher-education policies, and millions of students have benefited from his work over several decades. Now, he also has contributed to the nation’s economy while fulfilling his aspirations of driving a truck. Achieving one’s professional and personal goals do not need to be exclusive endeavors, as Longanecker has effectively shown.