[1] After serving in the Navy during World War II, he attended Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo where he earned a degree in vocational agriculture.
[1] His increasing involvement in activist causes prompted him to move to UC Davis in 1970, where he helped to develop its Native American studies program.
Jack D. Forbes (a co-founder of the University) has said, "It was a dream that the late Carl Gorman and I had worked on from 1961-1962, but it was Dave's organizing skill and patience that came to the fore in 1971 when DQU finally acquired flesh and bones."
[2] For about three years in the early 1990s, Risling, Jack D. Forbes, Morrison & Foerster and many others collaborated with filmmaker Jan Crull, Jr. to make a film about the controversy surrounding D-Q University and its turbulent relationship with the U.S. government.
Morrison & Foerster[8] was the first sponsor to withdraw from the project and eventually Crull had to scrap it even though distribution for a completed film was already in place.