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North Fulton Business Radio

Georgia's Economic Outlook, with Dr. Jerry Parrish, Metro Atlanta Chamber

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Georgia’s Economic Outlook, with Dr. Jerry Parrish, Metro Atlanta Chamber (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 809)

In this episode of North Fulton Business Radio, John Ray hosts Dr. Jerry Parrish, Chief Economist at the Metro Atlanta Chamber, who discusses Georgia’s economic outlook. Dr. Parrish details recent trends, including Georgia’s impressive job growth post-COVID, innovations in tech, and significant projects reshaping the Metro Atlanta regions. Challenges he points to include the impact of Hurricane Helene, the Longshoremen’s strike affecting Georgia’s ports, and the lack of adequate workforce housing. Dr. Parrish explores the implications of political uncertainty on business investment as well as discussing the importance of fostering a positive business climate in Georgia.

Note: Subsequent to the recording of this episode, the longshoremen’s strike that began on October 3, 2024, was suspended and work resumed, following a tentative agreement reached between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX).

John Ray is the host of North Fulton Business Radio. The show is recorded and produced by the North Fulton affiliate of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Dr. Jerry Parrish, Chief Economist, Metro Atlanta Chamber

**Dr. Jerry Parrish, Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce**

Jerry D. Parrish, Ph.D., is the Chief Economist at the Metro Atlanta Chamber. Dr. Parrish was previously the Director of State and Local Policy Analysis at the Florida Institute of Government at Florida State University. Dr. Parrish was also on the faculty in the Masters of Applied Economics Program at Florida State University for twelve years.

Jerry was previously the Chief Economist and Director of Research for the Florida Chamber Foundation. Prior to that position, Dr. Parrish was the Chief Economist and Director of the Center for Competitive Florida at Florida TaxWatch. Prior to that position, he served as the Associate Director of the Center for Economic Forecasting & Analysis (CEFA) at Florida State University. He has many years of experience in the private sector in management roles at international manufacturing companies.

Jerry earned a B.S. in Agricultural Business and Economics from Auburn University, an M.B.A. from Bellarmine University, an M.S. in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Auburn University.

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Metro Atlanta Chamber

The Metro Atlanta Chamber (MAC) is a privately funded 164-year-old organization representing businesses, colleges and universities, and nonprofits across the 29-county region that makes up the nation’s eighth-largest market.

MAC member companies represent 1+ million employees in the region. Our businesses invest in the work we do to attract and retain business, ensure a business-friendly climate through public policy and market the region as a place to live, work and play.

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Topics Discussed in this Episode

00:00 Introduction and Welcome to North Fulton Business Radio
01:55 Guest Introduction: Dr. Jerry Parrish
03:39 Economic Overview of Georgia and Georgia’s Economic Outlook
06:26 Impact of Port Strike
10:36 Hurricane Helene’s Economic Impact
13:40 Interest Rates and Election Impact
19:21 Innovation and Tech in Georgia
22:18 New Leadership at Metro Atlanta Chamber
26:35 Closing Remarks and Additional Information

Renasant Bank supports North Fulton Business Radio

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions, with over $17 billion in assets and more than 180 banking, lending, wealth management, and financial services offices throughout the region. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

Renasant Bank supports the Georgia Alliance for Breast Cancer

Georgia Alliance for Breast Cancer (formerly It’s The Journey) is a registered 501c3 non-profit that strives to support Georgia’s breast cancer community by raising funds to support breast health and breast cancer programs throughout the state of Georgia.

GAABC’s mission is to engage with Georgia’s breast cancer community to increase access to care and reduce disparities in cancer outcomes.

Randi Passoff, a breast cancer survivor, founded GAABC in 2002. She created “the kinder and gentler breast cancer walk” based off the Avon 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk. Instead of a 3-day walk of 60 miles over 3 days and sleeping in a tent, the Georgia 2-Day Walk covers 30 miles over 2 days, and participants sleep in a hotel. Most importantly, what’s raised in Georgia stays in Georgia.

Renasant Bank is a major supporter of GAABC, both in corporately donated funds and employee donations and participation in the walk.

To learn more about GAABC and the 2-Day Walk, go to the GAABC Website.

About North Fulton Business Radio and host John Ray

With over 800 shows and having featured over 1,200 guests, North Fulton Business Radio is the longest-running podcast in the North Fulton area, covering business in our community like no one else. We are the undisputed “Voice of Business” in North Fulton!

The show welcomes a wide variety of business, non-profit, and community leaders to get the word out about the important work they’re doing to serve their market, their community, and their profession. There’s no discrimination based on company size, and there’s never any “pay to play.” North Fulton Business Radio supports and celebrates business by sharing positive business stories that traditional media ignore. Some media leans left. Some media leans right. We lean business.

John Ray, Business RadioX - North Fulton, and Owner, Ray Business Advisors — **John Ray, Business RadioX – North Fulton, and Owner, Ray Business Advisors**

John Ray is the host of North Fulton Business Radio. The show is recorded and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, and many others.

The studio address is 275 South Main Street, Alpharetta, GA 30009.

John Ray also operates his own business advisory practice. John’s services include advising solopreneurs and small professional services firms on their value, their positioning and business development, and their pricing. His clients are professionals who are selling their expertise, such as consultants, coaches, attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.

John is the national bestselling author of The Generosity Mindset: A Journey to Business Success by Raising Your Confidence, Value, and Prices.

AZ TechCast

Economic Forecast for 2020 and Beyond E2

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Economic Forecast for 2020 and Beyond E2

At the start of 2020, most investors and economic analysts expected the 11-year bull market to continue. And then the spread of COVID-19 changed everything. As a result of the pandemic, the global economy is projected to contract sharply by 3% in 2020. In addition, there is a huge amount of uncertainty about the future of the outbreak and the economic impacts associated with it. While the epidemic’s economic impact is difficult to predict, the economic forecast says we are on track for a major downturn. The question is how bad and for how long.

Economic experts Jim Rounds, George Hammond, Dennis Hoffman and Steve Zylstra join the Arizona Technology Council’s May 29th podcast to share their assessment of the damage, needed measures for economic growth and the prospects of recovery in the coming months.

Featured guests covered:

Arizona’s economic recovery
Hard-hit industries that will take the most to recover
Expected growth rates for Arizona
How 2020 compares to the crash of 2008 and the Great Depression
How can IoT and renewable energy help kickstart an economic recovery
The innovation and opportunity a downturn can spur

While the epidemic’s economic impact is difficult to predict, we are on track for a major downturn. The question is how bad and for how long.

Rounds Consulting Group advises both public and private sector entities on matters of policy and economics. The firm specializes in economic development; data collection and analysis; fiscal planning including revenue forecasting and budget development; strategic planning and marketing; impact and market studies; litigation support, and keynote speaking, and more.

Jim Rounds is president of Rounds Consulting Group, a firm specializing in economic development and tax policy analysis; education research; transportation economics; fiscal planning including revenue forecasting and budget development; strategic planning and marketing; impact and market studies; and litigation support.

He regularly provides economic advice to policymakers at the State Capitol, mayors throughout the state as well as city council members, county board members, and other public and private sector leaders in the community.

Rounds a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute and serves on many boards and foundations, including the Maricopa County IDA, the Helios Education Foundation, Achieve 60 AZ, the Rodel Foundation, the Arizona Board of Regents and various state universities, among others. He serves as the lead economist for multiple rural and urban area healthcare and hospital associations and is a member of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee’s Finance Advisory Committee. He has also served on scores of committees and task force efforts at both the state and local levels.

His recent areas of study include advanced workforce analysis; minimum wage impact analysis; State Trust Land finance; public employee pension reform; utility infrastructure investment; and state and local area tourism planning. Recently, Rounds has been supporting the concept of “growing from within,” which includes efforts to better understand small business development issues, and strategic investment in education and workforce training.

Rounds began his career as a Senior Economist and Senior Budget Analyst with the Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee and has been engaged in policy related economics for more than two decades. He has a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science degree in Economics from Arizona State University.

Follow Rounds Consulting on LinkedIn, Facebook, and connect with Jim on Twitter.

Founded in 1913, the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz. is one of the largest colleges at the University of Arizona, with over 5,400 undergraduate students and nearly 700 graduate students. Employing over 130 faculty members, the business school offers programs in accounting, economics, finance, marketing, management information systems, operations management, entrepreneurship and business administration.

Its interdisciplinary program in entrepreneurship is perennially ranked one of the world’s best. As the highest-ranking college at the University of Arizona, Eller also boasts the #1 Public Management Information Systems and ranked #7 Entrepreneurship programs nationally. The MIS program has been ranked in the Top 5 by U.S. News since the inception of the rankings, one of only three programs in the U.S. with such a distinction.

George W. Hammond directs the Economic and Business Research Center in the Eller College of Management. A specialist in econometric forecasting for more than two decades, Hammond has designed, built and used economic models to produce more than 100 forecasts for state and local economies, and completed more than 50 regional economic studies on topics including economic and workforce development, energy forecasting and the impact of higher education on human capital accumulation.

These forecasts and reports reach thousands of business leaders, policymakers and citizens each year through conferences, public presentations, publications, EBRC’s websites and social and traditional media. Hammond is a frequent contributor to local and national news services. His analysis and commentary have been featured on NBC Nightly News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Bloomberg Businessweek and The New York Times.

In addition to directing EBRC and spearheading EBRC’s Forecasting Project, Hammond is also a research professor with academic research interests focusing on the determinants of local economic growth in the U.S., the impact of state and local policies on economic growth and the contribution of higher education to local workforce development.

Follow Eller College of Management on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The L. William Seidman Research Institute serves as a link between the local, national and international business communities and W. P. Carey School of Business. It collects and disseminates information about local economies, benchmarks industry practices and identifies emerging business research issues.

Dennis L. Hoffman is a Professor of Economics at Arizona State University where he has published numerous academic articles and a book in the area of macroeconomics and econometrics. He has received both teaching and research awards from ASU. He received the Distinguished Faculty Research Award in 1992 and has held the title of Dean’s Council of 100 Distinguished Scholar since 1996. He served as a visiting research scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis during the summer of 1996. In 1997, Dr. Hoffman was named the Arizona Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation.

In addition to his academic appointment, Dr. Hoffman has held several administrative appointments; Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, 1998-2004, Associate Dean for Research; 2004-2008, and Director of the Seidman Research Institute, 2004-present. Dr. Hoffman is also director of ASU’s Office of the University Economist, 2005-present.

In his role in the Seidman Institute – as University Economist, Dr. Hoffman is responsible for the production of policy white papers with regional, education, fiscal, and labor market emphasis. This work is supported directly by the Office of University President Michael Crow. In addition, Seidman serves as the applied contract research arm of the W. P. Carey School averaging approximately $800,000 per annum in external research contracts meeting the needs of government, community and business clients primarily in the southwest. This activity is summarized at https://seidmaninstitute.com/. Seidman is also responsible for responding to the majority of business/economic media inquiries received by the university and has considerable connections with both local and national media outlets.

Dr. Hoffman’s sponsored project efforts include the construction and maintenance of the tax revenue forecasting model used by the Executive Budget Office of the State of Arizona each year since 1982 – serving eight different Governors. Dr. Hoffman headed groups of economists who measured the economic impact of several fiscal initiatives for the State of Arizona in 1989 and in 1990. The 1989 study was commissioned by Governor Mofford as an input to fiscal initiatives that were contained in her State of the State speech in 1989. The 1990 study was requested by the Joint Select Committee on Fiscal Reform of the Arizona Legislature. In 1996 Dr. Hoffman was appointed to the Joint Select Committee on Economic Incentives of the Arizona Legislature. He also served as technical advisor for Governor Napolitano’s citizen’s fiscal reform committee (2004). At the Governor’s request, Dr. Hoffman served on the Board of the Arizona State Retirement System (ASRS) from 2012-2017. As Director of the Seidman Research Institute,

Dr. Hoffman has closely studied the regional economy in Arizona. His extensive experience with the state and local economy positions him for his current research interests that include defining and measuring the role of research universities in regional development, quantifying the value of education investments to the economic prosperity of a region, and measuring the impact of various fiscal initiatives on regional development. These current research interests align with Dr. Hoffman’s administrative assignment, Director of the Office of the University Economist, undertaken as a strategic university initiative at the direction of Arizona State University President Michael Crow. Dr. Hoffman is the faculty director of the Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research where he directs the Productivity and Prosperity Project.

Connect with Dennis on LinkedIn and follow Seidman on Twitter.

About the Show

AZ TechCast is dedicated to covering innovation and technology in Arizona and beyond.

Through the art of connected conversation, AZ TechCast’s guests will share their expertise, success stories, news and analysis about the region’s leading startups, companies and emerging technologies, as well as the latest industry trends and critical issues propelling the state’s growing technology ecosystem.

About Your Hosts

Steve Zylstra serves as president and CEO of the Arizona Technology Council, a role he assumed in 2007. He is responsible for strategy, operations, finance and policy development. Zylstra is a vocal spokesman for the value technology can provide in raising social and economic standards in Arizona.

Zylstra serves on numerous councils, committees and boards, was named “Leader of the Year, Technology,” by the Arizona Capitol Times, and “Most Admired Leader” by the Phoenix Business Journal. In addition, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of science in technology from the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, Ariz.

Zylstra earned a bachelor’s degree in automotive engineering technology from Western Michigan University.

Karen Nowicki is a successful author, speaker and the creator of Deep Impact Leadership™ and SoulMarks Coaching™. She is a two-time recipient of the prestigious national Choice Award® for her book and personal development retreat. Karen was crowned the first-ever “Mompreneur of the Year” Award in 2010 for the southwestern states. She was recognized for her leadership, business acumen, and work-life balance.

Karen has been an expert guest on regional TV and radio shows, including Fox Phoenix Morning Show, Sonoran Living, Good Morning Arizona, The Chat Room, and Mid-Day Arizona. She has been a regular contributor to many print and online magazines – publishing articles and blogs for business and education.

In addition to working with private coaching clients, Karen is also the Owner & President of Phoenix Business RadioX. The Business RadioX Network amplifies the voice of business – serving the Fortune 500,000, not just the Fortune 500. Phoenix Business RadioX helps local businesses and professional associations get the word out about the important work they’re doing to serve their market, profession, and community.

Of all the experiences Karen has had the privilege of participating in over her vast career, she shares that Phoenix Business RadioX is a pinnacle adventure!

Connect with Karen on LinkedIn and follow Phoenix Business RadioX on Facebook and Instagram.

About Our Sponsor

The Arizona Technology Council, Arizona’s only statewide organization serving the technology sector, fosters a climate of innovation to enhance technology in Arizona.

A trusted resource in strengthening Arizona’s technology industry, the Council proactively eliminates impediments that companies face, accelerates the entrepreneurial mindset in the state’s expanding innovation ecosystem, and works to create a destination for companies to be, thrive and stay.

Follow Arizona Technology Council on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.