Seminar Earns High Marks in West Coast Debut

NABE’s 2007 Professional Development Seminar won high appraisal ratings in its West Coast debut, April 22-24, in San Diego.   The theme was “Using Economic Statistics to Understanding Business Cycles.”

Always a draw for new members, this year’s PDS attracted 47 new members or somewhat more than half of the total attendance of 83.   About half of those attending were from the East, one-third form the West Coast, and the others from the Midwest.

“Based on appraisals received so far, the 2007 PDS tied our first PDS (2004 in Orlando) as the best in terms of value for time and expense (4.5 on a 5.0 scale),” said Duncan Meldrum, former NABE president and founder of the PDS.  He is chief economist of Air Products in Allentown, Pa.

“We received many positive comments about the quality of the speakers, the topics covered, the accessibility of the speakers, and the relatively low cost,” Meldrum said.  He added that, as is always the case, “a few attendees wanted more detail and more advanced topics, while a few others thought we went into too much depth - but by far the majority were extremely pleased with the overall seminar.”

Plans Evolving for 2008

Meldrum also reported that seminar organizers received “very favorable comments to the business cycle theme.”   It’s not clear at this early stage of planning whether next year’s PDS will repeat that theme or have a different general topic.

“We are exploring working with a Federal Reserve Bank in a southern location and are preliminarily targeting the May time frame.  We will be spending a great deal of time reviewing the feedback we received from all the seminars in an attempt to make the 2008 seminar even better than its predecessors,” Meldrum said.

Other members of the organizing committee for the 2007 PDS were:  Rosemary Marcuss, Bureau of Economic Analysis; Maurine Haver, Haver Analytics, Inc.; and Chris Swann, Bureau of Economic Analysis.