Welcome Aboard, New NABE Members!

Please join the NABE Board of Directors and staff in welcoming new members who joined over the last two months.  Since September of 2006,  492 persons have joined NABE. New members are added to the on-line registry at http://www.nabe.com/mem/search.html at the beginning of each month.  The first issue of two IdeaLinks e-mailed to NABE members each month includes a listing of new members.   Here are selections from brief interviews, conducted by e-mail, with two new members:

Tor Borg
Senior Economist
Swedish Housing Finance Corporation, SBAB                                  
Stockholm

What is your current position?
I am senior economist at the Swedish Housing Finance Corporation (SBAB), a Swedish mortgage lender. I’ve only been here for two months. My work involves monitoring, analyzing, and forecasting economic developments in the United States, Europe, and parts of Asia with a special focus on interest rates.

What is the main focus of your company or organization?
The Swedish Housing Finance Corporation (SBAB), is a government-owned company operating on the Swedish residential mortgage market. The owners’ mandate to SBAB is to act to ensure diversity and competition whilst obtaining a return on investment in line with market rates.

What are your career highlights and education--before your current job?
After completing a Bachelors and a Masters degree in economics at the University of Lund (in the south of Sweden), I joined the Swedish central bank, the Riksbank, where I was involved in inflation forecasting and writing the Monetary Policy Report. After this, I spent 10 years at the investment management department of a Swedish insurance company doing macroeconomic and fixed income research and developing tactical asset allocation tools.

Why did you join NABE?
I believe the information, resources, and network provided by NABE will give me an opportunity to get a broader view and a deeper understanding of what is going on in the American economy. I especially appreciate the collegial friendship and the informal setting, which I hope will make it easy to pick up new information and ideas.

What drew you to economics?
Since childhood I´ve always been good at math and really interested in politics, and economics really is a lot about "political mathematics.”  I also like that in economics there is no right or wrong. It’s all a matter of opinion and how good you are at proving your point.

Carlos Martinez
Crescent Securities                                                              
Dallas

What is your current position?
My focus is in the management of pension monies for small business, i.e. defined benefit plans. I have held this position since 2005.

What is the main focus of your company or organization?
Crescent Securities is a small broker/dealer in Dallas that focuses on retail, institutional securities and has an Investment Banking division (ten million or less).     

What are your career highlights and education--before your current job? 
I began my career in the securities industry in May of 1990, just before the first Gulf War, with T.L. Reed Securities. The following year I joined Merrill Lynch.  In 1995, I went to work for Mike Travis, a successful money manager in Dallas.  Mike retired, and from this group Crescent Securities was formed in 2000 with Nick Duren and Stewart McNairy as the principals.  I hold an M.S. degree in applied economics and a B.S. in economics and finance from the University of Texas at Dallas. 

Why did you join NABE?
I want to continue my passion for economics with an organization whose sole purpose is economics, where I can meet and participate in current and relevant discussions about the economy or other topics in economics.  Also, I want to continue my professional education through workshops and seminars.    

What drew you to economics?
My uncle was a businessman in Colombia whose educational background and training was in economics.  I think the years I lived in Colombia allowed me to see first hand how a third world country’s market system differed from ours (USA).  I learned at a young age that rational behavior has different outcomes in other places.  This was very intriguing to me. 
I have made my living in the area of financial economics. However, my passion lies in socio-economics, behavior economics, and corporate innovation (Joseph Schumpeter and creative destruction).