2009 Business Forecast

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Single ticket: $50
Student tickets: $25
Entire table (10 seats): $600
(Tables have priority seating over individual tickets)

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PREVIOUS FORECASTS

The Fifteenth Annual Business Forecast Luncheon will be held on Friday, January 23, 2009 at the John Q. Hammons Convention Center in Rogers, Arkansas.

David Rader is executive vice president and CFO for Frito-Lay North America. He is responsible for finance, strategic sourcing, supply chain productivity, strategy control and transformation. Previously, he was senior vice president for finance and purchasing for PepsiCo Food Systems Worldwide. Mr. Rader joined PepsiCo in 1975. He moved to Taco Bell in 1978 as director of business planning and marketing, and subsequently held the position of vice president and controller. Prior to his time at PepsiCo, Mr. Rader was with Chrysler Corporation. Mr. Rader holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and an MBA in marketing, both from Ohio State University.

Mack McLarty is president of McLarty Associates. He served on the National Council on Environmental Quality under President George H.W. Bush, and served on the St. Louis Federal Reserve Board until joining the Clinton Administration in 1992 where he served in several key positions: Chief of Staff, Counselor to the President and Special Envoy for the Americas. He worked with President Carter as a member of the Democratic National Committee and was appointed to the National Petroleum Council.While serving in the White House he was the recipient of the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal and the Center for the Study of the Presidency Distinguished Service Award. Currently, he serves on the boards of Union Pacific, the Acxiom Corporation, the Bush Clinton Katrina Fund, the Council of the Americas, the Inter-American Dialogue, Ford’s Theatre, and the Center for the Study of the Presidency. In addition, he is senior counselor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Senior International Fellow at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds a B.S.B.A. from the University of Arkansas.

Ross DeVol is Director of Regional Economics and the Center for Health Economics at the Milken Institute. He oversees the Institute's research on the dynamics of comparative regional growth performance and is an appointee to the California State Controller's Council of Economic Advisors. DeVol has put his group in the national limelight with groundbreaking research on technology and its impact on regional and national economies. He is an expert on the new intangible economy and how regions can prepare themselves to compete. He examines the effects of technology, research and development activities, international trade, human capital and labor-force skills training, entrepreneurship, early-stage financing and quality-of-place issues on the geographic distribution of economic activity. He is ranked among the "Super Stars" of Think Tank Scholars by International Economy magazine and receivd his M.A., Economics from Ohio University.

State and Local Outlook

Kathy Deck is the Director of the Center for Business and Economic Research in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. Her research interests include local economic development, industry market structure, and education and health care economics.In providing applied economic research as part of the outreach mission of the Walton College, Deck has managed studies for a variety of clients including: Arvest Bank Group, Southwestern Energy, and the cities of Fayetteville, Bentonville and Lowell. Deck also acts as a media resource for economic analysis of current events and trends.Deck earned a B.A. in economics from the College of William and Mary and a M.S. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before joining the Center for Business and Economic Research, Deck was the antitrust economist for the Arizona Attorney General.