Confirmed Speakers
(as of April 5)
Rebecca Blank, Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, Department of Commerce
Rebecca M. Blank was sworn in June 2009 as the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the Department of Commerce. As the Economic Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce and head of the Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA), she has oversight responsibility for the two premier statistical agencies in the United States, the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. She is appointed by the Secretary of Commerce as his Board Representative to the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. Within ESA, she supervises a staff of economists and policy analysts who produce a wide variety of reports and forecasts that help develop and assess domestic and international policy.
Dr. Blank was the Robert S. Kerr Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution from 2008-09. Prior to her arrival at Brookings, she was dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan (UM), where she implemented a major expansion of its faculty and programs. She also served as co-director of UM’s National Poverty Center.
Dr. Blank was previously in government service as one of the three Members of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton from 1997-1999. In this role, she participated in White House decision-making on a host of economic, social, and regulatory policy issues. Prior to this she was Professor of Economics at Northwestern University and Director of the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
Dr. Blank’s research has focused on the interaction between the macro economy, government social policy programs, and the behavior and well-being of low-income families. Her 1997 book, It Takes A Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty, won the Richard A. Lester Prize for the Outstanding Book in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations. Her more recent work includes the books The New World of Welfare (co-edited with Ron Haskins, 2001, Brookings Press), Is the Market Moral? (Co-authored with William McGurn, 2003, Brookings Press), Working and Poor (co-edited with Sheldon Danziger and Robert Schoeni, 2006, Russell Sage Press) and Insufficient Funds: Savings, Assets, Credit, and Banking among Low-Income Families (co-edited with Michael Barr, 2009, Russell Sage Press.)
Dr. Blank is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, and a Lifetime Associate at the National Academies of Science. She has served in a wide variety of advisory and professional roles, including service on the Boards of Directors of MDRC, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Urban Institute. She was a long-time faculty affiliate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Vice-President of the American Economic Association, and President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.
Seth Carpenter, Federal Reserve Board
Michael Chriszt, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Michael Chriszt is the director of International and Regional Analysis in the Latin America Research Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. In addition to directing the work of the LARG, he monitors and reports on economic, financial, and political developments in foreign economies and the states of the Sixth District. He holds degrees in diplomacy and foreign affairs and history, and a master’s degree in political economy from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He joined the bank in 1989.
Richard DeKaser, Woodley Park Research
Angela Delano, US Census Bureau
Ms. Delano began her professional career at the Census Bureau in 1997 where she worked in the Field Division as a Survey Liaison for numerous construction surveys. During this period she gained strong expertise in training, data collection, and survey management procedures for sample surveys. In 2000, Ms. Delano began work in the Manufacturing and Construction Division as a Survey Statistician for the Survey of Construction. During this time she supplemented her survey knowledge with expertise in post data collection review and analysis procedures for sample surveys. In addition, Ms Delano also served on project teams tasked with the redesign of two major areas of the Survey of Construction – redesign of the survey sample and redesign of the survey instrument and processing systems. Starting in 2007, Ms. Delano continued work in the Manufacturing and Construction Division as a Survey Statistician for Construction Indicator Programs Special Projects. Her duties now include special analysis of construction indicator data and overseeing the reconciliation of Census of Construction Industries data to Value Put in Place data.
Her formal education includes a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics and Psychology from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She has also received a Master’s Degree in Survey Methodology from the University of Maryland College Park. In addition Ms Delano has also earned a Masters Certificate in Project Management from the George Washington University.
Ms. Delano looks forward to meeting and working with users of housing and construction data to understand their data needs and provide the data that will meet those needs.
Fay Dorsett, U.S. Census Bureau
Randall Eberts, Upjohn Institute
Robert Fry, DuPont
Robert Fry is Senior Associate Economist at DuPont, a position he has held since 194. Prior to that, he was with the DuPont Pension Fund and the Economist's Office, DuPont Corporate Plans, and the Coordinating & Planning Department at Conoco/DuPont.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of NABE, and has been President of the Wilmington DE Chapter of NABE. He is a member of the Conference of Business Economists, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Charter School of Wilmington. DuPont Economist’s Office (Robert Fry and Bob Shrouds) has been named among the top forecasters by The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Bloomberg. In November 2005, they won the prestigious Lawrence R. Klein Award for Blue Chip Forecast Accuracy, making DuPont the only three-time winner of this award.
He has a BS in Economics from Ohio University, and an AM and PhD in Economics from Harvard.
Pat Getz, US Bureau of Labor Statistics
Scott Gibbons, Department of Labor
Maurine Haver, Haver Analytics
Maurine is President and founder of Haver Analytics Inc., an economic consulting and information services company. Prior to starting Haver Analytics in 1978, she was an economist in the economic forecasting group of General Electric in New York, a member of the International Staff of Companie Bull General Electric in Paris and a consultant in the Foreign Currency Exposure Management Group of the Chase Manhattan Bank in London.
Maurine served as President of the National Association of Business Economists (1994-95). She has served as secretary of the Forecasters Club of New York since 1992. She is a past president of the New York Association for Business Economics (1989-90), the Downtown Economists Club (1993-94) and the Money Marketeers of New York University (1998-99). She chaired the board of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics (COPAFS) during 2001-2003. She currently serves on the board of Mutual of America and is a member of the American Economic Association, the American Statistical Association and the National Economists Club.
Maurine holds a B.S. in Economics and Mathematics from Michigan State University, an M.B.A. from the Stern School of New York University and completed her oral exam for a PhD in International Economics at NYU.
Ben Herzon, Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC
Ben joined Macroeconomic Advisers in June 1998 as a 'Mr.' and was upgraded to a 'Dr.' in May 1999 when he was awarded a Ph.D. in economics from Washington University in St. Louis. Ben's primary responsibilities at Macroeconomic Advisers involve utilizing monthly data to update MA's current-quarter forecast. This involves research into the construction of the National Accounts and modeling of interactions among monthly data series. Ben is a member of the National Association of Business Economics and a former member of the renowned rock group Lunker Buzz. Prior to his current stint with applied macroeconomics, Ben traveled the country in a Ford Econoline 150 with the band playing both known and unknown clubs for unconscionably low sums of money.
Michael Horrigan, Bureau of Labor Statistics
Since March of 2007, Mike Horrigan has served as Associate Commissioner in the Office of Prices and Living Conditions (OPLC) at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This office produces a family of price index measures, including three Principal Federal Economic Indicators of inflation, from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) program, the Producer Price Index (PPI) program, and the International Price Program (IPP). This office also includes the Consumer Expenditure (CE) Survey Program and a research division that conducts frontier research on price index and consumer expenditure issues.
Mike has held a variety of positions throughout his career at BLS including heading up the Producer Price Index Program, leading the office that publishes Occupational Employment Survey data and the biennial BLS long-term projections of industry and occupational employment. Mike has also served as Director of the BLS National Longitudinal Surveys Program and directed the BLS Establishment Surveys of Employer-Provided Training.
Jim Kennedy, Division of Research and Statistics, Federal Reserve Board
Jack Kleinhenz, Kleinhenz and Associates
Jack Kleinhenz, Ph.D. is CEO of Kleinhenz & Associates and Regional Economist, Adjunct Professor of Economics at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management. Kleinhenz & Associates is a business and economic consulting and a wealth management firm based in Cleveland, Ohio. The firm specializes in industry studies, forecasts, regional economic and labor market issues, strategic planning and business plan development.
Jack has 30 years of broad-based experience working with Fortune 500 companies, financial service companies, regulators, planners, universities, airports, manufacturers, chambers of commerce, trade associations, non-profit organizations and state and local government agencies. He is known for translating economics and information into clear explanations and action. Jack speaks on business and regional economic issues and is regularly called upon for his expertise by the local and national media. Formerly with the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Jack recently served as chief economist and consultant to the Greater Cleveland Growth Association, the nation’s largest chamber of commerce. He teaches economics as a faculty member of Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management.
A graduate of John Carroll University, Jack earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Notre Dame. In 1995, Jack was named one of John Carroll University’s Top 50 School of Business Graduates. Previous faculty appointments include the University of Notre Dame and John Carroll University. He was awarded the title of Fellow by National Association for Business Economist (NABE) in October 2008.
Jack is a member of the Governor of Ohio’s Council of Economic Advisors and the Northeast Ohio Council of Economic Policy Advisors, a trustee of Notre Dame College, and a corporate director for Beverage Distributors, Inc, Cleveland, Ohio. He serves on the investment committee of Alpha Sigma Nu, Inc., the Honor Society of Jesuit Institutions of Higher Education. A former NABE board member, he is most recent chairman of the NABE Education Foundation and he is a member of NABE’s statistics committee that meets regularly with policymakers and administrators of United States statistical agencies. Jack is also a contributing economic forecaster to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and a NABE Economic Outlook panelist. Contact Jack at 216 321-9522 or www.kleinhenzassociates.com.
Sherry Konigsberg, Bureau of Labor Statistics
Sherry Konigsberg is an Economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics working with the Business Employment Dynamics Program for the last 10 years. She holds a degree in Economics from American University.
Howard Krakower, Bureau of Economic Analysis
Howard Krakower is chief of the Business Income Section with the National Income and Wealth Division of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). He is responsible for current and annual estimates of corporate profits, nonfarm proprietors’ income, and business transfer payments to persons. Prior to joining BEA in 2006 he was the section chief at the U.S. Census Bureau responsible for the Monthly Wholesale Trade Report. He began his career at Census in 1998 as a survey statistician where he worked on monthly and annual wholesale and retail trade surveys.
Howard received his M.B.A. in management from Johns Hopkins University and his B.S. from the University of Maryland.
Scott Krugman, National Retail Federation
Adolfo Laurenti, Mesirow Financial
Adolfo Laurenti, deputy senior economist and Managing Director at Mesirow Financial, develops ongoing economic research and commentary critical to supporting clients and contacts of Mesirow Financial. Adolfo authors Themes on the Global Markets, a monthly newsletter providing insight into trends, issues and the forecast for the global economy. An expert in world economics and an engaging presenter, Adolfo Laurenti regularly speaks on current economic trends to professional groups and trade associations around the country. He is a frequent guest lecturer at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and has become a new face in demand in the local media.
Prior to joining Mesirow Financial in July 2007, Adolfo served as associate economist at LaSalle Bank/ABN AMRO. There, he was responsible for tracking economic trends in the banking sector.
Adolfo was an Earhart Foundation Fellow in 2002. He received a Washington Society of Investments Analysts Scholarship and a Graduate Scholarship for Excellence in Academia from the Economic Club of Washington D.C.
Adolfo is a graduate of Bocconi University Business School in Milan, Italy. He specialized in industrial organization as a visiting scholar at the Center for Industrial Economics in Copenhagen, Denmark, and concentrated in financial economics at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Adolfo earned his master's of arts degree in economics from George Mason University, where he also pursued doctoral studies.
Adolfo is an active member of the National Association for Business Economics and the Chicago Association for Business Economics. He is also chairman of the Bravo Club, the young professional board of the Chicago Opera Theater.
Andrew Leventis, Federal Housing Finance Agency
Jeff Lowe, Bureau of Economic Analysis
Jeff Lowe is a senior accountant for the BEA’s Balance of Payments Division, which is responsible for preparing and publishing the International Transactions Accounts, the International Investment Position, and International services data. He serves as a division liaison to data suppliers and customers within the BEA, such as the Direct Investment Division and the National Income and Wealth Division.
After a brief stint at a CPA firm, Jeff has been at BEA since 1975--initially as a survey accountant in the International Investment Division and then as a member of the Research Branch. He has a bachelor's degree in accounting from the State University of New York at Binghamton (1974) and a MBA from the University of Maryland (1976).
Jeff has been published in the Survey of Current Business, BEA’s monthly journal. The articles have covered topics such as capital expenditures, financial and operating statistics of multinational companies, direct investment positions, gross product of multinational corporations, and alternative current account frameworks. He has also co-authored a piece for Business Economics on alternative current account frameworks.
In his spare time, he is an avid runner.
Stuart Mackintosh, The Group of Thirty
Stuart Mackintosh is the executive director of the Group of Thirty (G30), a private and international nonprofit organization, composed of very senior representatives of the private and public sectors and academia. Mr. Mackintosh oversees and manages the G30 work program, studies, and meetings in the US and internationally. Current areas of particular research attention include the structure of financial supervision, financial regulatory reform proposals for the United States, and methods of enhancing cooperation and coordination between national supervisors and central banks. He served as a country risk economist with Mitsubishi International Corporation, with particular focus on Eastern European and Central Asian economies. Before locating to the US, Mr. Mackintosh held senior research and management positions in the European Parliament. He serves on the Board of Directors of the National Association for Business Economics. He earned a B.A. from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and an M.Sc. from the University of Edinburgh.
Rosemary Marcuss, Internal Revenue Service
Bob Marske, US Census Bureau
Tim McGee, U.S. Trust
Susan McIntosh, Federal Reserve Board
Duncan Meldrum, IHS Global Insight
Duncan Meldrum is managing director of IHS Global Insight's Center for Forecasting and Modeling Excellence, an in-house center for economic forecasting, modeling and computation aimed at ensuring IHS Global Insight maintains its innovative lead in the field.
Prior to joining IHS Global Insight, Meldrum was chief economist at Air Products and a client of IHS Global Insight for more than 20 years. He was president of National Association of Business Economists (NABE) in 2002-03, where he introduced a series of professional development seminars, and he served an additional six years on the NABE board. He has experience in macroeconomics, country risk, and industry modeling. Meldrum earned a doctorate degree from Lehigh University, a master's in operations research from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy .
Chad Moutray, U.S. Small Business Administration
Tom Nardone, US Bureau of Labor Statistics
Thomas Nardone is Assistant Commissioner for Current Employment Analysis at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Mr. Nardone’s manages 4 major statistical programs--the Current Population Survey (CPS), Local Area Unemployment Statistics, the Mass Layoff Survey, and the American Time Use Survey. These programs provide much of the basic information available about national, state, and local labor market issues. The CPS, for example, is the source of the national unemployment rate.
Each month, Mr. Nardone oversees the preparation of the Employment Situation news release which describes current developments affecting the American work force. Mr. Nardone’s office produces over 60 news releases each year as well as reports, and research articles.
Mr. Nardone received his Bachelor degree from King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and has worked at the BLS for 34 years.
Mike Niemira, International Council of Shopping Centers
Charlotte Oslund, Bureau of Labor Statistics
Ataman Ozyildirim, The Conference Board
Ataman Ozyildirim is an economist and associate director of economic research in the economics program of The Conference Board. He directs The Conference Board Business Cycle Indicators program, which produces the Leading Economic Indicators for the United States and nine other countries/regions. In addition to the indicators, The Conference Board produces the Consumer Confidence Index, and other indicators that have an impact on both business and financial markets.
His range of expertise spans international economics, development economics, and applied macroeconomics. He has specialized in the development of business cycle indicators and in forecasting aggregate economic activity worldwide. Before coming to The Conference Board, Ozyildirim worked for Management Science Associates, Inc. in Pittsburgh. Previously, he was a lecturer in international economics and macroeconomics at Pennsylvania State University.
A native of Istanbul, Turkey, he received his BA in economics from Ithaca College and his Ph.D. in economics from Pennsylvania State University.
Robert Parker, Consultant, formerly with Bureau of Economic Analysis
Robert Parker is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in economic accounting concepts and methods and in U.S. economic statistics. Since retiring from federal service in 2005, he has been consulting with government, non-profit, and business clients. For the Federal government, he served his last 5 years as Chief Statistician of the Government Accountability Office. Previously he spent 30 years at the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) where served as Chief Statistician, Associate Director for National Economic Accounts, and Chief, National Income and Wealth Division.
For the past several years, Mr. Parker has taught a course on national economic accounting for the economics statistics staff at the Census Bureau. He is an author and editor of the “Focus on Statistics” columns in Business Economics, the quarterly journal of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). His most recent article was “Federal Statistics for Health Care Reform.” In 2006, he authored the chapter on the United States for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report Understanding National Accounts.
Mr. Parker serves on the Board of Directors of the Council of Professional Association for Federal Statistics, on which he serves as an NABE representative. He is also a representative of the American Economic Association on the Census Bureau Advisory Committee of Professional Associations.
Mr. Parker was the recipient of the Julius Shiskin Award for Economic Statistics in 1999. He was elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1986.
Keith Phillips, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Dr. Phillips joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in January 1984. His areas of concentration include regional economics and economic forecasting. Dr. Phillips developed business cycle indexes for Texas and its major metro areas, which he uses to analyze business conditions in those regions. He is a contributing member of the Western Blue Chip Economic Forecasting Group, where he has been the most accurate Texas forecaster for eight out of the past thirteen years. His research and analysis have been covered in media such as CNN, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, USA Today, Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, MSNBC and in media throughout Texas.
In August, 1996, Dr. Phillips was transferred to the San Antonio branch in an effort to improve the regional economic coverage of the Dallas office and to better serve the needs of the South Texas community. Dr. Phillips teaches courses in econometrics and forecasting at Trinity, Incarnate Word and St. Mary’s Universities. He also teaches courses in managerial economics in the Executive MBA program at UTSA. He obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Southern Methodist University and holds a B.A. and M.A. in Economics and a Bachelor of Journalism degree in News/Editorial from the University of Missouri at Columbia.
Joel Prakken, Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC
In 1982, Dr. Prakken teamed with Chris Varvares and Laurence Meyer to found the economic consulting firm of Laurence H. Meyer & Associates, Ltd. In June of 1996, when Dr. Meyer assumed a position on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the firm was renamed Macroeconomic Advisers and Dr. Prakken became its new Chairman.
Dr. Prakken completed his undergraduate degree in economics at Princeton University, and he holds a Ph.D. in economics from Washington University in Saint Louis. Prior to founding Macroeconomic Advisers, he held the position of Senior Economist at the World Headquarters of the IBM Corporation and, before that, he served with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He has held positions on the faculties of New York University's Graduate School of Business, the Economics Department of Washington University, and the Olin School of Business at Washington University. He is the past president and a current director of the National Association for Business Economics, the largest non-academic association of professional economists in the United States. He is also past president of the Gateway Association of Business Economists in Saint Louis.
Dr. Prakken has numerous publications to his credit, including papers written for the Council of Economic Advisers, the American Council for Capital Formation, and the Center for the American Study of Business on topics ranging from tax reform, to budget policy, to monetary policy, to the impact of technology on productivity. He has testified frequently on these topics before committees in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. He also participates regularly in the meetings of the Outside Consultants to both the Congressional Budget Office and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Lynn Reaser, NABE President and Chief Economist, Point Loma Nazarene University
As a professional economist Dr. Reaser brings extensive experience in the financial services sector with a keen ability to translate complex economic issues into understandable language with relevant and actionable implications. She is skilled at analyzing economic data, modeling, and forecasting and brings an engaging, personal and practical approach to writing and speaking on economic issues to all audiences with a passion towards using economics as a tool to assist people personally and in their enterprises. In her role as Chief Economist for the Fermanian Business & Economic Institute she will be providing actionable economic counsel to PLNU and its stakeholders, guest lecturing, publishing, consulting and public speaking among many responsibilities.
From 1999 to 2009, she served as the Chief Economist for Bank of America Investment Strategies Group, and provided the global and U.S. economic framework for investment strategy for high net-worth, institutional, and brokerage clients, encompassing over $500 billion under management. In her Bank of America role, she delivered approximately 100 client presentations per year using highly developed quantitative models to analyze data, forecast various economic series, and project the relative performance of various sectors to maximize investment performance. A leading spokesperson for the bank, Dr. Reaser conducted 200-600 media interviews annually, including newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, wire services, and the Internet. She previously served as Barnett Bank’s and First Interstate Bank’s (Wells Fargo Corporation) Chief Economist. In these roles she furnished economic advice for all of the Bank’s various business lines, including consumer finance, commercial real estate, corporate, and wealth management, and built and led an extraordinarily cohesive team of professional economists that advised senior management on tactical and strategic strategies involving all aspects of the corporation.
Dr. Reaser is active in many professional organizations, including serving as the current President of the National Association for Business Economics, an association comprising 2300 of the nation’s leading economists in business, academia, and government. In the past year, she has also been a member of the Boston Economic Club and the American Bankers’ Association’s Economic Advisory Council. Previously, she served on the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors for the State of California; Leadership Florida; was a fiscal advisor to cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco; California’s Economic Strategy Panel; Chairman of the Board of Economic Advisors to the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce; President of the Economic Roundtable of Jacksonville; President of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Association for Business Economics; and member of the Editorial Advisory Board, Contemporary Economic Policy.. She holds a B.A. in Economics (cum laude) and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics, all from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dick Rippe, ISI Group, Inc.
DICK RIPPE is a Managing Director and economist for ISI.
Before joining ISI in 2008, he was a managing director and chief economist at Prudential Equity Group; prior to that he was senior vice president and chief economist at Dean Witter Reynolds. He began his Wall Street career at Baker, Weeks and Co. after teaching at Columbia Business School. Dick is a past president of the of the National Association for Business Economics and a past chairman of the Conference of Business Economists.
Dick graduated from Harvard University in 1966 with an AB and received his PhD, also from Harvard, in 1971.
Dana Saporta, Stone & McCarthy
Dana Saporta is an economist with Stone & McCarthy Research Associates (SMR), an economic and financial markets research firm located in Princeton, NJ. Regular readers of her economic and market commentaries include academics, sell-side traders and salespeople, and buy-side portfolio managers. Her research focuses on US macroeconomic data, the Federal Reserve's monetary policy, and the impact of both on the financial markets.
Ms. Saporta worked at SMR from 1994-2007 and returned in September 2009. During 2007-2009, she was a trading desk economist with Dresdner Kleinwort in NY, then a primary dealer in US securities. At Dresdner, she supported the firm's global sales and trading functions by providing US macroeconomic and fixed income market research.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Saporta was an economist with Citicorp Investment Bank in NY from 1987-1993. There she served as Citibank's Fedwatcher and US Treasury analyst.
Ms. Saporta attained the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in September 2001. She earned a Master's Degree in Economics from New York University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Bachelors' Degrees in both Economics and Spanish from Rutgers University. She resides in Skillman, NJ, with her husband and two sons.
Susan Schechter, US Census Bureau
Susan Schechter returned in the fall of 2006 to the U.S. Census Bureau as Chief of the American Community Survey (ACS) Office. She oversees all aspects of the ACS which is the Nation’s largest Federal household survey, comprising a sample size of 250,000 addresses per month designed to estimate characteristics of the population for small geographic areas. Susan began her Federal service at the U.S. Census Bureau working on corrections and crime statistics. She then worked at the Army Research Laboratory, the National Center for Health Statistics, and for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). At OMB, she focused on the government-wide implementation of OMB’s standards for data on race and ethnicity, and also served as the principal reviewer for all data collections conducted by the Census Bureau, the National Center for Health Statistics, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and NSF’s Division of Science Resources Statistics. Susan has presented at many conferences and authored papers about ways to reduce non-sampling response error through improvements in survey and questionnaire design. She is an ASA Fellow and a member of the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology. Susan holds a MA in Human Development Research from Antioch University and a BA from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Andy Schmidt, Bureau of Economic Analysis
Andrew Schmidt is an economist with the National Income and Wealth Division of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). He is involved in numerous research projects at the BEA, among them exploring the effects of capitalizing research and development in the national income and product accounts (NIPAs), examining various methods to improve the NIPA housing estimates, and developing gross domestic product (GDP) estimates for the U.S. territories. He also currently serves on the team responsible for the review and analysis of quarterly GDP estimates. Prior to being a research economist, he was a farm sector analyst producing NIPA estimates for farm income and product.
Andrew received his M.A. in Economics from George Mason University and his B.S. in Business Management from Norwich University.
John Silvia, Wells Fargo
John Silvia is a managing director and the chief economist for Wells Fargo. Based in Charlotte, N.C., he has held his position since he joined Wachovia in 2002 as the company’s chief economist.
Prior to his current position, John worked on Capitol Hill as senior economist for the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee and chief economist for the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Before that, he was chief economist of Kemper Funds and managing director of Scudder Kemper Investments, Inc. In 2009, John was named one of the Top 10 forecasters for the last four years by Bloomberg News and the No. 2 forecaster by USA Today for 2008.
John holds B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from Northeastern University in Boston and has a master’s degree in economics from Brown University.
John serves as a member of the Blue Chip Panel of Economic Forecasters and also serves on an informal advisory group for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. He serves as chair for the Economic Advisory Committee of both the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Economic Advisory Roundtable. Furthermore, John is chair of the American Bankers Association.
John was a director of the National Association of Business Economics (NABE) and was former president of the Charlotte Economics Club. He has also served on economic advisory committees to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Public Securities Association.
A strong supporter of education and civic affairs, John serves as a member of the Business Advisory Council at the Walker College of Business at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., and on the President’s Council for Charlotte’s Central Piedmont Community College. He has previously served as a board member of the British American Business Council of North Carolina and served on the Economic Development Board for the State of North Carolina, a special appointment by former Governor Mike Easley. He also served on the Business Advisory Committee for the City of Charlotte.
Ken 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.
Charles Steindel, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Charles Steindel is a Senior Vice President in the Macroeconomic and Monetary Studies Function. He oversees the Group's analysis and forecasts of U.S. economic conditions. His research interests include consumer spending and saving and productivity growth. He has served as president of the Money Marketeers of New York University and the Forecasters Club of New York. He received his bachelor's degree from Emory University and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
His fields of interest include: Chain weighting measuring gdp, Consumer behavior, Cycle capital spending balance sheet, Growth and Productivity, Inflation estimates productivity growth, Investment, Manufacturing, Private saving, Productivity growth, Saving, Saving economic growth, Stock market consumption, Tax rebate.
Thomas Kevin Swift, American Chemistry Council
Dr. Swift is the chief economist at the American Chemistry Council (ACC) in Arlington, VA where he is responsible for economic and other analyses dealing with markets, raw materials, trade, tax, energy, and competition and innovation, as well as monitoring business conditions and identifying emerging trends for the domestic and global chemical sector. Dr. Swift disseminates economic and societal contributions of the business of chemistry and general information about the industry to ACC member companies, the media, Wall Street analysts, the academic community and the public in general. Prior to joining the ACC, Mr. Swift held executive and senior level positions at several business information/database companies, directing business research, forecasting, and consulting efforts as well as domestic and international business forecasting services and related on-line databases. He also conducted industrial market research and related projects. Dr. Swift started his career at Dow Chemical USA.
Dr. Swift is a member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) and is a member of NABE's panel of 40 professional forecasters and currently serves on the NABE board of directors. He is also a member of the Harvard Discussion Group of Industrial Economists and is a participant in the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's forecasters' survey. Dr. Swift is also a member of the National Economists Club, the Strategic Management Society, and the Société de Chimie Industrielle.
Mr. Swift has authored articles in such diverse journals as: Business Economics, Chemistry Business, Chimica Oggi, Cost Engineering, and Hydrocarbon Processing and has appeared on Bloomberg TV and Nightly Business Report.
Mr. Swift is a graduate of Ashland University with a BA degree and a graduate of Case Western Reserve University with an MA degree in Economics. He is also a graduate of Anglia Polytechnic University with a doctorate in business administration degree and has completed the Tax Analysis and Revenue Forecasting Program and other studies at Harvard University as well as studies at the University of Oxford.
Dr. Swift is an adjunct professor of business economics for the MBA program at the University of Mary Washington. He is also a member of the Heritage Council of the Chemical Heritage Foundation.
Jeff Werling, Inforum, University of Maryland
Jeff Werling is Executive Director of Inforum, a research unit with in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland College Park. Since its founding 40 years ago, Inforum has been dedicated to improving business planning, government policy analysis, and the general understanding of the economic environment. Inforum pioneered the construction and use of dynamic general equilibrium models for the United States and other countries.
In addition to managing the day-to-day activity at Inforum, Jeff serves as principal investigator for special projects applying Inforum modeling systems. He has completed studies on the economic implications of government stimulus spending, climate and energy policy, immigration, exchange rate fluctuations, and disruptions due to terrorist strikes and natural disasters. Jeff also teaches an undergraduate course in economic development. Previously, he held positions as an international and industry economist with the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), the Manufacturers Alliance (MAPI), and the WEFA Group (now Global Insight). Jeff received a B.S in mineral economics at the Pennsylvania State University in 1981, and a M.A. and PhD in economics from the University of Maryland in 1989 and 1992, respectively.
Jeff is currently a Board member of the National Economists Club and a member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), the National Peace Corps Association, the American Economic Association, and the International Input-Output Association.
Rich Wobbekind, University of Colorado
Richard L. Wobbekind is Associate Dean for MBA and Executive Programs, Associate Professor of Business Economics and Finance, and Executive Director of the Business Research Division at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
As Executive Director of the Business Research Division his responsibilities include developing an annual consensus forecast of the Colorado economy and performing various strategic analyses and economic impact assessments of the Colorado economy. Rich also produces a quarterly economic indicator series for Boulder County and a quarterly Business Leader Confidence Index for the Colorado.
He participates annually in the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank Regional Economic Roundtable, and is a contributor to the Western Blue Chip forecast newsletter and the National Association of Business Economists Economic Policy Survey. Professor Wobbekind was appointed to the board of the National Association for Business Economists in 2006. Rich is a member of the Governor’s Revenue Estimating Advisory Committee, the Boulder Economic Council, the Boulder Redevelopment Authority and the Center for the American West.
For his efforts in community development and outreach, Rich was awarded the University of Colorado Community Outreach Award in 1997. In 2002 he was named a Member of Distinction by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce. In 2006 he received the Robert L. Stearns award for lifetime excellence in research, teaching and service to the University of Colorado. In 2008 he was awarded the Thayne Robsen award from the Association for University Business and Economics Research for career achievement in regional economic analysis. In 2010 he was named Key Contributor by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce.
Richard Wobbekind is a member and active participant in numerous professional organizations at the local, state and national levels. He currently serves as Vice President of the National Association for Business Economics. Other organizations include the Economic Developers Council of Colorado, Association of University Business and Economics Research (past president) , Denver Association of Business Economics (past president) Western Economics Association, and the Western Regional Science Association.
Dr. Wobbekind teaches MBA and executive students in macroeconomics, public policy and entrepreneurship. He has received four awards for teaching excellence from the students of the Leeds School. Dr. Wobbekind received a BA in Economics from Bucknell University and an MA and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.