November 2008 Conference

Conference Program

Cancellation Policy: To cancel your registration and be eligible for a refund, call the Economic Forecasting Center at 404-413-7260 before 4pm the day before the conference. A stop payment of a check does not constitute a formal cancellation. Registrants who do not attend the conference and have not cancelled one day prior to the conference are liable for the entire registration fee but will be mailed conference materials.

Substitution Policy: If an annual subscriber cannot attend the conference, another person from the same company can substitute in the subscriber's place.

Industry Speakers

Robert L. Fornaro is president and chief executive officer of AirTran Holdings, Inc., and its subsidiary, AirTran Airways, Inc.  In addition, he serves on the company's board of directors.  Fornaro joined AirTran Airways in March 1999 as president and CFO.  He was named chief operating officer and elected to the board of directors in 2001.  Fornaro became chief executive officer on Nov. 1, 2007.

Fornaro has 30 years of marketing, planning and management consulting experience. Prior to joining AirTran Airways, he operated a successful aviation consulting practice.
From 1992 to 1997, Fornaro served as senior vice president - planning for US Airways where he directed the company's route planning, pricing and revenue management and overall corporate strategy. Before joining US Airways, Fornaro held the position of senior vice president - marketing planning at Northwest Airlines. His responsibilities included managing Northwest's international alliances and regional airline partner relationships.

Prior to Northwest, Fornaro was senior vice president - marketing and planning at Braniff, Inc. Fornaro also served as vice president - research for Jesup & Lamont Securities, Inc. and director of future schedule planning for Trans World Airlines.

A native of Long Island, N.Y., Fornaro attended Rutgers College in New Brunswick, N.J., on a lacrosse scholarship and earned a bachelors degree in economics.  He also received a masters degree in city and regional planning from Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.  He is a director of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and serves on the board of the Georgia Aquarium.  Fornaro and his wife, Karen, reside in Orlando and have three adult children.

Janet F. Speyrer is Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Economics in the College of Business Administration at the University of New Orleans (UNO).  She earned a B.A. (cum laude) in Mathematics and Economics from Rice University in 1976 and an M.A. (in 1979) and Ph.D. (in 1982) in Economics from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Speyrer has served on the faculty of Tulane University and on the staff of the Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department, where she participated in the development and evaluation of tax policy.

Dr. Speyrer has published several articles in the areas of urban economics and public finance in nationally recognized economics journals.  She has also conducted many studies of local interest, including the economic impacts of casino and riverboat gambling, the impact of flood risk on property values, and an examination of Louisiana's fiscal health.  She has worked with Dr. Tim Ryan and the staff of the Division of Business and Economic Research (DBER) at UNO to develop a sophisticated forecasting model for the New Orleans metropolitan area.  The results of this model are published quarterly in the Metropolitan Report:  Economic Indicators for the New Orleans Metropolitan Area and are widely used by the New Orleans business community.  Under Dr. Speyrer's leadership, the DBER and faculty from the School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Administration at UNO have collaborated to conduct a number of tourism research studies.  Dr. Speyrer has worked with local and state government leaders on a variety of policy issues.  Local, national and international media representatives regularly consult with Dr. Speyrer.

She recently served as President of the Association for University Business and Economic Research (AUBER), a professional association comprised of business research organizations in universities nationwide.