Annual Report of President Ellen Hughes-Cromwick

My term as your elected president is coming to a close, and I would like to extend my appreciation to you for allowing me this outstanding opportunity to serve you over these past months.   I do hope you will agree that your professional organization has undertaken another year of outstanding activities and service that advance our mission of providing leadership in the use and understanding of economics. 

Through the many touch points for our organization—from our conferences to visits to chapters, meetings with policymakers, emails with members, board meetings, teleconferences, media interviews, as well as progressing the education initiative for you—I  trust you will be pleased with the list of accomplishments that I will summarize in this report.  If the speaker roster for the upcoming 50th annual meeting is a litmus test, then I believe, together we have done so.  The experts that we are bringing together speak highly of the outstanding reputation your organization has within the broader economics profession.

Let me also say that you have NABE staff, Susan Doolittle and Colette Brissett, who work efficiently and tirelessly, to bring you the best quality in products and services.  Please join me in thanking each of them because they execute our mission with outstanding professionalism and economy.

Let me start the report to you by saying that one of the board members' mantra has been:  “Seize the opportunity.”  There has been top-notch intellectual energy and time applied to a range of issues handled by the board and staff.  We all thirst for feedback, develop action plans to address any deficiencies we uncover, and move forward with a strong intent to keep your organization sustainable for the long run.  I know you will share with me a word of thanks to all the board members who apply such professionalism and action on behalf of NABE in seeking only intangible remuneration!

As we reach the 50-year milestone, it is also time to reflect on how to sustain and lock in a thriving organization that serves you in our modern days.  You can rest assured that your new president, Chris Varvares, along with Lynn Reaser as vice president, will provide the leadership and plan to work vigorously toward that goal.  I am hopeful you view your professional organization as taking some exciting steps to expand our mission around the use and understanding of economics. 

Education Initiative

Last year, Carl Tannenbaum reported to you that we began an effort to reach those who have moved into more applied areas of economics.  To do so, we reached out to two associations that provide services for these professionals, the CFA Institute and the Risk Management Association.  We solidified a partnership with the CFA Institute through a visit to its offices in Charlottesville.  You will see that our conferences now qualify as “continuing credits” for CFA members. 

On another track, we introduced an education initiative this year whereby we will begin to develop certificates of training and career development tools to expand professional capabilities of business economists.  In order to do this effectively, the board has approved a proposal to develop a plan of action with the assistance of an educational professional. 

NABE Annual Meeting and Policy Conference

Many of you who attend our NABE-sponsored conferences can attest to the significant effort that is applied to putting together the best sessions with the best experts.  The annual meeting last September in San Francisco, led by Catherine Mann, Lynn Reaser, Gene Huang, and Chris Varvares, was a success, with 178 attendees and outstanding sessions on a range of topics, including the emerging credit crisis.  The March Policy Conference was co-chaired by Ken Simonson and Robert Fry, also a huge success. 

Economic Debate

Who better than NABE to sponsor an economic debate among the top economic advisors of presidential candidates?  We hosted just such a debate at the National Press Club in November 2007.  Judy Woodruff from the NewsHour and David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal served as co-moderators.  Our format subsequently appeared as a model for news networks (NewsHour) and organizations (NFIB, NEC) to present campaign issues.  We held another debate at our March policy conference and will close out with the final debate at our October annual meeting.

Chapters

One of the most exciting activities is the interaction with our chapters.  Over the course of the year, I was fortunate to be invited to speak at Richmond, Hawaii, San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., Dallas, and San Antonio.  In addition, Gene Huang and I gave presentations in Shanghai and Beijing with chapters soon to be started in these locations.  I also visited the University of Michigan to give a presentation to their Economics Society.

Chapter activity is vibrant and chapter presidents held quarterly teleconferences led by Chris Swann, chair of the board’s Committee on Chapters.  Several chapters were rejuvenated under new leadership or newly organized this year:  San Francisco, Pittsburgh Business Economic Society (student chapter), and Southeast Florida.

Skills Seminars

Thanks to Oral Capps, our NABE instructor, two skills seminars were offered this year:  Advanced Statistical Techniques for Economic Forecasting at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta in October 2007 and Econometrics for the Business Analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in August 2008.  In addition, several skills sessions were hosted at our annual meeting and policy conference on topics ranging from communicating more effectively to financial engineering.

NABE Foundation

Under the capable leadership of Jack Kleinhenz, the NABE Foundation sponsored several activities, including the media seminar for journalists who cover economic data releases and issues.  Stuart Hoffman chaired the program that covered economic statistics including price indexes, employment data, and international statistics.

We also conducted our fourth professional development seminar (PDS) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, thanks to the gracious offer from Harvey Rosenblum.  Program chair Chris Swann, along with the team of NABE leaders Rosemary Marcuss, Maurine Haver, Duncan Meldrum, and John Silvia, developed a successful the program; and planning has already begun for next year's offering.  The Foundation provided eleven scholarships for entry-level and mid-career business economists to attend the PDS.  The Foundation also provided matching funds for a scholarship in conjunction with the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter and its student essay competition.

Membership

Our membership is down about 2 percent over the last year and is a source of challenge for the NABE leadership.  While we attracted over 500 new members this year, we have slipped in terms of retention rates.  The board members are now developing a more systematic strategy to address this concern.

Get Connected

Created by board member Chris Swann, the Get Connected (GC) initiative was designed and launched to engage more young professionals.  Already exceeding 60 members, the GC community has created a series of programs, including an online professional network through LinkedIn.  Developing an online community will stimulate reaching out to new and prospective members, allow members to get to know their colleagues, and facilitate communications between Get Connected teams and the group at large.

Surveys

Ten surveys of the NABE membership were conducted this year.  These surveys have gained in stature this year with expanded media coverage and NABE visibility as a professional association with a great reputation for collecting and reporting on economic, policy, and industry assessments.  For example, the May 2008 NABE Outlook Survey received a tremendous amount of media coverage on its release date of May 19, and continues to be mentioned in a variety of media reports, including articles on such topics as GDP growth, recession fears, and commodity prices.  Broadcast outlets that covered the survey through interviews with the NABE Outlook team include television—CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Nightly Business Report, Bloomberg TV’s On the Economy, the Neil Cavuto program on FOX Business Channel and radio—BBC World Service, National Public Radio, CNN Radio, AP Radio, Wall Street Journal Radio Network, Bloomberg Radio, Voice of America’s Asian Broadcast Radio Service and English Language Broadcast Service, ABC News Radio, KTRH Radio (Houston), and CBS Radio (Baltimore affiliate). Original reports of the survey appeared in dozens of outlets around the world.

Moreover, in addition to the extensive television and radio coverage, among the print and wire service outlets that published articles on the April 2008 Industry Survey were the Associated Press, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Thomson Financial, AHN, US News & World Report, The Edge Daily (Malaysia), the Detroit News, Editoweb Magazine (France), the Nashua Telegraph, the Rocky Mountain News, Haaretz Daily (Israel), the Financial Express (India), and Newsday.

NABE Board members and staff work vigorously to design and implement these surveys: the Industry Survey, under Ken Simonson's leadership, the NABE Outlook Survey led by Lynn Reaser, and the Policy Survey led by Catherine Mann.  Survey team members include Sara Johnson, Bill Strauss, Paul Thomas, Robert Fry, Charles Steindel, Rich Brown, Doug Duncan, and Rich Wobbekind.

Also this year, Bill Strauss chaired the implementation of our NABE Salary Survey.  It shows that economists' median salary increased 10 percent to $120,000 from the 2006 survey.

Statistics Committee

Maurine Haver, as chair of our Statistics Committee, convened three meetings with NABE members and the heads to the federal statistical agencies.  She also led initiatives to raise the level of awareness regarding federal government statistics budgets that have been under pressure during the Congressional appropriations process.  As many of you know, the timeliness and quality of economic statistics is the only issue for which NABE as a professional association, takes on an advocacy role.  Maurine and Bob Parker wrote articles for NABE News and Business Economics.  Maurine reported on data agency budget shortfalls and how they might affect the quality of  key economic statistics.  Bob wrote about the regional economic data from federal statistical agencies and about the 2007 Economic Census and the upcoming 2009 release of detailed industry, product, and geographic data from the 2007.  NABE News editor Pam Ginsbach, in addition to writing several articles about Federal economic issues throughout the past year, introduced a new column, Data Points, that reports bi-monthly on new sources for data users.  This joins NABE’s online Economic Links in providing NABE members with timely economic statistics sources and updates.

Allied Social Science Association (ASSA) Meeting, New Orleans

Kevin Kliesen coordinated NABE's participation in the ASSA meetings this year.  We sponsored two relevant and timely sessions:  “Accounting for Stock Options in the National Income Accounts” and “Recent and Prospective Developments in Monetary Policy Transparency and Communications: A Global Perspective.”  Central bankers from the United States, Japan, and Europe participated in the latter.

NABE Publications and Communications

As you know, our offerings have breadth and depth, from our quarterly flagship publication Business Economics, with Bob Crow as editor, to NABE News, Pam Ginsbach serving as editor.  Along with our press officer Melissa Golding and webmaster Bruce Kratofil, we have been fortunate to excel in bringing NABE members and the media great content and real time access to valuation analysis and information.

Financial Report

Our Finance Committee chair, Chris Varvares, has led the preparation of quarterly budget and investment reports for NABE and the Foundation.  We will report these results to you at the upcoming business meeting held at our annual meeting in October.  Our financial condition is in outstanding condition, with proper governance and auditing conducted on an annual basis.  The 2007 audit report states that NABE and the Foundation financial statements fairly represent the financial position of the association.   Thanks to Mary Ann Greenwood who serves as chair of the Audit Committee.

Roundtables Host 20 Teleconferences

Thanks to the energy and time of roundtable chairs and Rich Brown, NABE hosted over 20 teleconferences this year with hundreds of NABE-member attendees.  We continued breaking new ground with general teleconferences on hot topics: Fed policy, fiscal stimulus, and the emerging credit crisis.

In closing, I would like to express special thanks to the guidance and wisdom provided by the NABE past presidents, particularly Frank Schott who has spared his time to offer excellent suggestions and input to advance NABE's educational mission.  As well, this organization has benefited from a tireless board of directors, particularly Chris Varvares, our vice president.  Chris has a "success" mindset and his advice and counsel this year have been invaluable. 

You will be in good hands next year with both Chris and Lynn as your leaders.  I am confident that NABE will start the next 50 years with a mission to remain successful and sustainable.  Thank you for giving me such a great opportunity to represent NABE and extend our organization's success.

Ellen Hughes-Cromwick
NABE President