Cornered: May

Community Comments

Sean Snaith's UOP Forecasting Center, a First for Tracking Norcal Economies

By Don Lipper

Sean Snaith wants to be the Nostradamus of Northern California, the soothsayer of Stockton, the Jeane Dixon of economic forecasting (minus the UFO and celebrity divorce predictions).
    As director of the University of the Pacific’s new Business Forecasting Center in Stockton, Snaith has a dual mission of prognosticating the economic fates for the nation, state and 11 metropolitan areas, while at the same time trying to forge a future for the new BFC.
    Snaith, 38, became an economist through a twist of fate. He was a pre-med undergrad at Pennsylvania State University when he took an economics course to meet the writing requirement.
    “I heard the professor talking about GDP (gross domestic product) and unemployment,” remembers Snaith. “I grew up in Pittsburgh when the steel industry was collapsing and the mills were closing. There were structural forces going on around me that I couldn’t understand.”
     Seeing economics as a key to understanding the world, Snaith was hooked. After earning his Ph.D., he became an assistant professor at American University in Cairo, Egypt. While there, the 6-foot-5-inch Snaith also became a semi-pro basketball player.

Run Like an Egyptian
Continued...