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Session 6: Immigration
" The Business Perspective on Immigration Reform"
"The Economic and Financial Consequences of Illegal Latino Immigrants in the Southeast"
"Immigration Puts Lexington Nebraska on a New Growth Path: Are There Lessons for Other Rural Communities?"
Sponsor: AUBER and the NABE Regional Utility Roundtable
Presentations
Angelo Amador's slide show (PDF)
Douglas Woodward's slide show (PDF)
Links of Interest
Speakers
Richard L. Wobbekind
Associate Dean
Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado,
Dr. Richard L. Wobbekind is Director of the Business Research Division and Associate Dean for External Relations at the University of Colorado at Boulder .
As Director of the Business Research Division his responsibilities include developing an annual consensus forecast of the Colorado economy and performing various economic impact assessments of the Colorado economy. Currently he is involved in several market research and strategic planning projects with public and private entities throughout Colorado . Richard also produces a quarterly economic indicator series for Boulder County. He participates annually in the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank Regional Economic Roundtable and is a contributor to the Western BlueChip forecast newsletter.
Richard teaches senior undergraduate and M.B.A. students in macroeconomics, public policy, and managerial economics. He has received three awards for teaching excellence from the students of the Leeds School and was awarded the 1997 University of Colorado Bank One Community Outreach Award.
Richard has lived in Colorado for 25 years and has spent much of his time studying the development of the Colorado and regional economies. He received a B.A. in economics from Bucknell University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Angelo Amador
Director of Immigration
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Angelo I. Amador is Director of Immigration Policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber is the world’s largest business federation, representing more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region. As Director of Immigration Policy, Mr. Amador is responsible for working with members of the business community to develop the Chamber’s position on comprehensive immigration reform, legalization issues, border security concerns, visa-processing issues, and guestworker programs. He also advocates on behalf of the Chamber and its members before the U.S. Congress and various administrative agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and the Department of Labor. Mr. Amador also chairs the Americans for Better Borders (ABB) coalition, which unites regional business organizations, companies and trade associations, in manufacturing, hospitality, tourism, transportation, recreation, and other industry sectors, to work ensuring the efficient flow of goods and people across our borders while addressing national security concerns.
Mr. Amador is a graduate of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and obtained a Master of Arts in International Transactions from George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. He graduated cum laude from his Juris Doctor at George Mason University School of Law and with distinction from his Master of Laws in International and Comparative Law from the Georgetown University Law Center where he received the Thomas Bradbury Chetwood Award for graduating with the highest academic ranking in his program.
Prior to coming to the U.S. Chamber, Mr. Amador was in private practice. He also served as Law Clerk to the Honorable David T. Stitt, Judge of the 19th Judicial Circuit of Virginia. Prior to his clerkship with Judge Stitt, he had worked in Washington, D.C. for the office of the Governor of Puerto Rico as Assistant Director/Legislative Counsel in the Intergovernmental Affairs Division, and as staff attorney in the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Mr. Amador is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the George Mason University School of Law. He also serves on the faculty of the Virginia Beach Law Enforcement Training Academy. He is fluent in German, Spanish, English and Portuguese and is a member of both the Virginia State Bar and the District of Columbia Bar.
Douglas Woodward
Director, Division of Research
University of South Carolina
Dr. Douglas P. Woodward is the Director of Division of Research and Professor of Economics at The Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Texas in 1986. Dr. Woodward's primary research interests are industry location, economic development, and foreign direct investment.
He has published articles on these and other topics in economics and regional science journals. Dr. Woodward is co-author of a book on foreign direct investment in the United States, The New Competitors, ranked as one of the “top ten business and economics books” by Business Week and listed by Fortune as one of the books “CEOs are reading.” Recent articles include academic papers on industry location in the Journal of Urban Economics, The Journal of Regional Science and the Review of Economics and Statistics. Sponsored research includes economic impact analyses of BMW and Coca-Cola in the United States, China, Morocco, South Africa, Kenya, and elsewhere. Among other projects at the state and national level, Dr. Woodward is currently engaged in extensive research on economic and business development in sub-Saharan Africa. He is also serving as research director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Travel and Tourism Industry Center. Over his career, Dr. Woodward has received numerous grants and awards. He has testified before local, state, and national government committees and has presented his research at many conferences around the world, including the prestigious World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Dr. Woodward has been quoted frequently in the national press and has often appeared on television and radio programs discussing economic development and related topics.
Education: Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin, 1986; M.A., New York University, 1981; B.A., State University of New York, Purchase, 1978
Eric Thompson
Director, Bureau of Business Research
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Dr. Eric C. Thompson is the Director of the Bureau of Business Research and an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dr. Thompson’s research on the Nebraska and national economy examines competitive factors affecting state and local economic growth, the impact of highways and other infrastructure on the economy, and economic development. His research has appeared in the Journal of Regional Science, Regional Science and Economics, the Journal of Cultural Economics, and the Economic Review of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Dr. Thompson served as the Co-Editor of the journal Growth and Change: A Journal of Urban and Regional Policy in 2003 and 2004.
