In addition to shepherding the School of Business as interim dean, John Cochran has other skills. He holds a third-degree black belt in Chinese Kenpo karate and he's showed 10 champion Chinese shar peis.

What is the difference then between managing dogs in the ring and managing the School of Business?

"The dogs are more predictable."

Cochran came to Metro in 1977 to finish his baccalaurate degree. An engineering major at the University of Arizona, Cochran studied economics at Metro, graduating in 1978 with an "econ" major and mathematics minor. From Metro he went to the University of Colorado where he earned a Ph.D. in economics, and as luck would have it, as he began casting around for jobs in 1981, Metro needed a full-time economics teacher.

During his years at Metro, Cochran has taught many of the general economics courses including History of Economic Thought, Economic History of Europe and Principles of Economics – Macro and Micro. He is much published; he is the co-author of "The Hayek-Keynes Debate – Lessons for Current Business Cycle Research" published in 1999, and most recently co-authored a piece with a Metro student, Noah Yetter, that will appear in the "Indian Journal of Economics and Business." (Yetter has since graduated and is starting a Ph.D. program in economics at George Mason University in Virginia.) And last year, Cochran served as a faculty member at the Young America Foundation's The Reagan Ranch Program and presented "The Road to Freedom: A Friedrich Hayek Seminar."

Though his teaching time is limited, Cochran is team teaching an experimental honor's class this fall with Steve Call and Trey Fleisher called, "A Citizen's Guide to the Economy," in the hope of encouraging economics literacy among non majors. If the course is successful, it will become a central offering for fall 2005.