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Session 15: Commercial Construction Outlook: Information Gathering, Processing, and Dissemination
The session will focus on the construction, methodology, and results of forecasting commercial construction from three distinctly different approaches and data sources.
Sponsor: Manufacturing Roundtable
Presentations
Links of Interest
CB Richard Ellis Research Center
Real Estate Center at Texas A&M
Associated General Contractors of America
Speakers
Lloyd Nace
Strategic Business Analyst
American Standard
Ward Caswell
U.S.Director of Research
CB Richard Ellis
Ward oversees CBRE Research in the United States. CB Richard Ellis is the global leader in real estate services with more than 350 offices in 50 countries. CBRE Research in the US is represented by over 190 staff focusing on property market research, mapping, demographics, and the creation of industry leading publications.
Ward brings to the position extensive commercial real estate market knowledge and management information system (MIS) experience.
As Director of Research, Ward established a national property database, launched new national and global publications, created the Retail Site Selection and Data Integrity Group departments, and improved the quality and timeliness of CBRE Research data, publications, mapping, service, and vision.
Previously, Ward served as the Vice President and Manager of Research Systems at Torto Wheaton Research - a CB Richard Ellis Company based in Boston.
Prior to joining Torto Wheaton, Ward served as the VP of Sales and Operations for The Omnia Group in Tampa, Florida. He also founded and managed a computer consulting company which provided custom software solutions, small business management and 24/7 support.
He has an MA and B.S. in Electrical Engineering fromTufts University. Graduated May 1988. Ward and his wife Stacy live in Needham MA with their three school aged children. Together they enjoy traveling, camping, fishing, sports, woodworking, entertaining, and reading. Ward is a board member of the Frank Stanley Beveridge Foundation, Stanley Park, Beveridge Family Foundation, and Needham Education Foundation.
Mark G. Dotzour
Chief Economist & Director of Research
Real Estate Center at Texas A&M
Dr. Mark G. Dotzour is the Chief Economist and Director of Research for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. He earned his Ph.D. in the Department of Finance at the University of Texas at Austin in 1987 and served as Associate Professor of Real Estate and Finance at Wichita State University for 10 years.
Dotzour taught Land Economics in Slovakia in 1993 and also served as a visiting research scholar at Lincoln University in Christchurch , New Zealand in 1993. He has presented his research findings to audiences Europe, Australia and New Zealand. He recently made a presentation to real estate professionals in Tianjin, China’s third largest city.
Prior to his academic career, he was president of Gleneagles Development, Inc., developing residential subdivisions in Wichita, Kansas. He also served as president of Dotzour Inc., Realtors, which was a residential brokerage firm in Wichita, Kansas, earning his CRB designation in 1982.
He has been at the Real Estate Center since August, 1997. Since then, he has published 54 articles and given over 600 presentations. His research findings and comments have been published in the Wall Street Journal , USA Today , Business Week and newspapers throughout Texas. As Chief Economist, he is currently doing market research to monitor how global and national trends are likely to impact residential and commercial real estate markets. The son of a former golf professional, he currently plays to a 15 handicap.
Kenneth D. Simonson
Chief Economist,
Associated General Contractors of America
Ken Simonson joined AGC of America on September 10, 2001. Ever since Day Two he has been provided insight into what was happening to the economy and what it implied for construction and related industries.
Ken’s weekly one-page email newsletter for AGC, The Data DIGest, provides 6000 readers with the latest economic news relevant to construction. He also sends out a variety of state-specific and tax news. He is interviewed and quoted almost daily by local and national media, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Business Week, and CNBC. In addition, he has written eight booklets explaining tax provisions in plain English, and he contributes frequently to a variety of business and professional publications and conferences, including columns for Fleet Owner, a trucking magazine, and The Electrical Distributor.
Ken has 30 years of experience analyzing, advocating and communicating about economic and tax issues. Before joining AGC, he was senior economic advisor in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy and 13 years. Earlier, he was vice president and chief economist for the American Trucking Associations. He also worked with the President’s Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and an economic consulting firm.
Ken is a board member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) and author of “Digging into Construction Data,” published in NABE’s journal, Business Economics. Since 1982, he has co-chaired the Tax Economists Forum, a professional meeting group he co-founded for leading researchers and policy makers among tax economists. He is vice president of Community Tax Aid, an organization that prepares returns for free for low-income taxpayers. He was one of the principal subjects of The Lobbyists, a bestseller by Jeffrey Birnbaum, now a writer for the Washington Post.
Ken has a BA in economics from the University of Chicago, an MA in economics from Northwestern University, and he has taken advanced graduate economics courses at the Universite de Paris, Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University.
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