Joe Cortright is an economist with Impresa, a Portland consulting firm specializing in economic analyses. He is a member of the Oregon Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors, and is the chief economic analyst for the Oregon Business Plan, a private sector-led effort, and for CEOs for Cities, a national organization of urban leaders. He is cofounder and editor of EconData.Net, the web’s leading guide to regional economic data. Previously, he sat on the editorial board of Economic Development Quarterly. Prior to starting Impresa, Mr. Cortright served for 12 years as the Executive Officer of the Oregon Legislature’s Trade and Economic Development Committee. He has served as an advisor to state and local governments, private businesses, foundations and advocacy groups in more than a dozen states, Canada and Europe.

Mr. Cortright recently published Driven to the Brink: How the Gas Price Spike Popped the Housing Bubble and Devalued the Suburbs. He is the author of several publications on industry clusters published by the Brookings Institution, including: Making Sense of Clusters (2006) and Signs of Life (2002), a benchmark analysis of the clustering of the U.S. biotechnology industry. He has also written extensively on the migration of talented young workers among metropolitan areas in a series of studies entitled The Young and Restless. His work is quoted regularly in the media, including such publications as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Business Week.

Mr. Cortright is a graduate of Lewis and Clark College and holds a Master’s degree in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley.

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