"Putting Penn to Figures"
BERC Director Brings Different Perspective

Daily News Journal (9/8/02)

By John Callow/ Staff Reporter of The Daily News Journal

After a national search, MTSU has found a new director for its prestigious Business and Economic Research Center.

David Penn took over as director of the center on Aug. 1, replacing Al DePrince, the center’s director since 1999. DePrince has returned to the classroom full time.

Penn came to MTSU from the University of Oklahoma because it’s “an opportunity to be the director of an economic research shop,” he said.

“I’d been the assistant director or associate director for 13 years,” he said. “Also, I had the opportunity to get back in the classroom and start a new career path. I had interviewed for similar jobs elsewhere and had some offers, but this was a perfect fit. I ran out of reasons not to do it. I look at a problem and list what can go wrong. I ran out of things that can go wrong.”

Getting back into the classroom has been for him a bit like riding a bicycle, Penn said.

“You never quite forget how,” he said. “You just have to get in there and do it.”

It helps that one of the courses he’s teaching is an introduction to economics class, he said.

“The book may be different but the graphs all look the same,” he joked.

Getting up to speed from the standpoint of data won’t be that difficult since the data series are pretty much the same here as any place else, Penn said.

“The hard part is getting up on the contextual aspects,” he said. “To do that, you just have to talk to people, and I’ve already started talking to people. You have to absorb.”

Q. Those of us who have lived in Middle Tennessee for any length of time love to tout our economic conditions and how fortunate we’ve been to avoid the worst bumps felt in the rest of the country. As a newcomer, you’re not so invested in all this. How close to right are we?

A. I think you are right, from what I’ve seen. If you look around at the traffic, the amount of spending, the construction, you don’t see much evidence of a recession. You don’t see any evidence of a recession until you read the papers or look at the media. Then you hear about layoffs in Nashville. For Murfreesboro and Rutherford County the employment growth has slowed a little bit, but there’s been no dip. Even in the Nashville MSA there’s been no decrease in employment. There’s been very slow growth. So you’ve been fortunate compared to the rest of the state and the rest of the country.

Q. Where would you have to go to see recession?

A. Northeast. If you go northeast, you’ll see strong evidence of a recession in some services and manufacturing. What you see of the recession here is due to the state government budget problems which have been an issue for some time.

Q. Tennessee is not the only state with budget problems. How much attention are the bond rating agencies in New York paying to Tennessee as opposed
to other states?

A. The bond markets understand that many states have balanced budget requirements and when things slow there is going to be a need to either cut spending or raise revenue. They’re going to keep tabs, especially on states that have a lot of turnpike debt, construction debt, dormitory debt, whatever. It’s not anything to be ignored, but overall, states are in a better position to deal with finances than a lot of private sector operations. Business can’t simply raise revenue by raising prices like a state can attempt to raise revenue by raising taxes.

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