Session 12: California and National Outlook for Housing, Construction & Materials
California is often a harbinger for the nation. What’s happening now in the state’s housing market? What does it portend for other states? For construction and construction materials nationwide? Anyone involved with housing finance, real estate, construction, economic forecasting, and domestic economic policy will be interested in this session.
Presentations
Links of Interest
Speakers
Kenneth D. Simonson
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.
Robert Kleinhenz
California Association of Realtors
Robert Kleinhenz is the Deputy Chief Economist for the California Association of REALTORSâ, a statewide trade organization of real estate professionals with 185,000 members. Robert manages C.A.R.’s research and economics department, which gathers and publishes information on the California housing market, and conducts survey research of consumers and C.A.R. members. He is a frequent contributor to media coverage on the housing market and economy.
Dr. Kleinhenz has over twenty years of experience in the field of Regional Economics. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, a Master’s degree and a Doctorate from the University of Southern California, all in Economics. Prior to working at C.A.R, he taught Economics for over 15 years, most recently at California State University, Fullerton. He has spoken to local, state, and national audiences and is a frequent contributor to media coverage on the housing market and economy.
Dr. Kleinhenz is a member of the NABE, a member of the NABE Regional Utility Roundtable, and the 2007-2008 President of the Los Angeles chapter of NABE.
Robert Murray
McGraw-Hill Construction
Robert Murray is vice president of economic affairs for McGraw-Hill Construction, the leading source of project news, product information, industry analysis and editorial coverage for design and construction professionals.
Murray joined McGraw-Hill Construction in 1980 as an economist, with a primary focus on analyzing construction industry trends. In the mid-1980s he directed a team of economists that developed the Construction Market Forecasting Service, providing five-year projections for 22 building types by nine regions of the U.S. This product has subsequently become the pre-eminent forecast of the nation's construction industry, and it serves as the foundation for other construction and real estate forecast products offered by McGraw-Hill Construction Research and Analytics.
Murray is the author of the McGraw-Hill Construction Outlook, and also coordinates the five-year industry forecast and the Construction Market Forecasting Service, which analyzes national and regional trends for building products. He received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University, and holds both an M.B.A. and a Master 's degree in economics from Columbia University.
