Thomas I. Barkin
president and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

In this role as president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Tom Barkin is responsible for monetary policy, bank supervision, payment services, and the Fed’s National IT organization. He serves on the Fed’s chief monetary policy body, the Federal Open Market Committee. He is “on the ground” continually in the Fed’s Fifth District, which covers South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., West Virginia and Maryland. His engagement in the region has brought real attention to areas facing economic challenges.

Barkin joined the Richmond Fed in January 2018. Before that time, he was a senior partner and chief financial officer at McKinsey & Company, a worldwide management consulting firm. He also oversaw McKinsey’s offices in the southern United States. Barkin served on the board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta from 2009 to 2014 and was the board’s chairman from 2013 to 2014.

He is a member of the Emory University Board of Trustees and the Greater Washington Partnership.

Barkin is a native of Tampa, Florida, and attended Harvard University, where he earned his undergraduate, MBA and law degrees.

Robert Oldendick,
professor of political science and director of Graduate Studies, University of South Carolina College of Arts and Sciences

Before coming to USC in 1989, Bob Oldendick was the assistant director of the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati. Oldendick has over 40 years of experience in the field of public policy research. During this time, he has served as principal investigator or project manager on more than 200 projects. He is also the author of numerous articles on research methodology, including procedures for sample selection in telephone surveys, methods of respondent selection within households, and the effects of question wording and format on responses to survey questions that have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Official Statistics, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Political Methodology. The fourth edition of his book, Public Opinion: Measuring the American Mind (co-authored with Barbara Bardes) was recently released by Rowman and Littlefield. In 2015, he received the John M. Kennedy Award from the Association of Academic Survey Research Organizations.

Joey Von Nessen
research economist, University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business

Joseph C. Von Nessen is a research economist in the Division of Research at the Darla Moore School of Business where he specializes in regional economics, regional economic forecasting and housing economics. He regularly conducts a wide variety of economic impact analyses, feasibility studies and independent market research projects for clients in both the private and public sector.

Von Nessen engages in industry-level and regional economic forecasting for organizations at the state, national and international level. He has served as lead researcher on projects with clients as diverse as Sonoco, BlueCross BlueShield, Michelin, Boeing and the Savannah River National Lab, among others. He has also been the recipient of many grants from both local and national sources, including the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Von Nessen is also responsible for the preparation and presentation of the University of South Carolina's annual statewide economic forecast. He serves on the advisory committee of the South Carolina Board of Economic Advisors and is regularly invited to brief the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond on economic conditions in South Carolina. He frequently appears on programs at national conventions, including the International Builders Show, the 21st Century Building Expo and the North American Regional Science Council and its subsidiaries.

In addition, Von Nessen specializes in housing economics and residential real estate and provides economic and marketing research and consulting services to builders, developers and other businesses in the housing industry on a regular basis. His recent academic research has focused on the application of hedonic house price modeling to the housing industry. He is a member of the National Association of Home Builders and is actively involved with the local branches of the Home Builders Association and the Association of REALTORS throughout South Carolina.

Von Nessen is a frequent speaker for business and government leaders throughout the southeast, providing information and consultation about business, housing markets and local economies. He also makes frequent media appearances to discuss various local economic topics of interest.

Doug Woodward
Division of Research director and professor of economics, University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business

Doug Woodward is professor of economics and the director of the Division of Research at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in 1986. He joined the University of South Carolina faculty in 1987.

Woodward’s primary research interests are regional economics, firm location, urban and industrial clustering, and foreign direct investment. He is co-author of a book on foreign direct investment in the United States, The New Competitors, ranked as one of the “top ten business and economics books” by Business Week and listed by Fortune as one of the books “CEOs are reading." He has published widely in academic journals, including the Journal of Urban Economics, the Journal of Regional Science, Regional Science and Urban Economics, the Journal of Economic Geography, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. His recently published papers have investigated local area labor matching and knowledge spillovers. Professor Woodward also has ongoing research comparing regional economic cluster development across the world. He has ongoing research investigating foreign investment and economic development in Africa.

Over his career, Woodward has received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education and many other funding agencies. He has testified before local, state and national government committees and has presented his research at many conferences around the world, including the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He has often appeared in the media discussing economic development and related topics.

Woodward served as the 2013 president of the North American Regional Science Council. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Regional Science and the Review of Regional Studies. From 2010 to 2011, he was president of the Southern Regional Science Association and was honored to be named as a fellow of the association in 2016.