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Dr. Laszlo Valko (1907-1982) served as a Professor of Agricultural Economics at Washington State University from 1950 to 1972. Valko was born on June 18, 1907 in Budapest, Hungary. He earned doctoral degrees in law, political science, and economics at Budapest University. After completing his education in 1938, he entered government service, and directed the official social work in Hungarian agriculture until 1944. Valko left civil service and joined the Hungarian Resistance when Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Hungary in 1944. Following World War II, Valko was appointed to lead the Office of Social Administration in Hungary's Ministry of Social Welfare, but stepped down as Soviet influence spread throughout the country in late 1945. In 1946, he served as the director for the Central Institute of Farmers' Co-operatives, and also taught at the University of Szeged. In 1848, after the Hungarian Communist Party took control of Hungary's co-operatives, Valko and his wife, Helena, escaped to Switzerland. They immigrated to the United States a year later.

After a brief tenure at Iowa State University, Valko joined the Washington State University faculty in 1950, and remained a member of the Agricultural Economics Department at WSU until his retirement in 1972. Widely published, translated, and traveled, Valko represented the United States at many co-operative farming conferences worldwide throughout the 1950s and 1960s. After his retirement from WSU, he frequently delivered guest lectures at the invitation of numerous foreign governments.