Oral Capps, Jr., PhD.

Dr. Capps is a demand and price analyst, with particular expertise in econometric modeling and forecasting methods. He is a nationally and internationally recognized leader in demand analysis, specializing in working with large data bases. Applied research areas include analyses of expenditure patterns of pre-prepared foods and foods eaten away from home, analyses of health and nutrition issues, uses of scanner-derived information for managerial decision-making in food retailing, and analyses of regional, national, and international markets for the agricultural, agribusiness and financial sectors. In addition, Dr. Capps specializes in unilateral price effects of mergers and acquisitions as well as evaluations of agricultural checkoff programs.

Currently a Full Professor and holder of the Southwest Dairy Marketing Endowed Chair in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University as well as Co-director of the Agribusiness, Food, and Consumer Economics Research Center (AFCERC), Dr. Capps was educated at Virginia Tech. He earned his B.S. in Mathematics in 1975, M.S. in Agricultural Economics in 1977, with a second M.S. in Statistics, and his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics in 1979. He has authored 115 refereed journal articles, and co-authored four books, Food Demand Analysis: Implications for Future Consumption, Introduction to Agricultural Economics, Fifth Edition; Economic Impact of Country-of-Origin Labeling on the U.S. Beef Industry; and Changes in the Sheep Industry in the United States: Making the Transition from Tradition. Another book, A Step-by-Step Approach to Economic Modeling and Forecasting, is in process. Dr. Capps also is co-founder (in 2001) and Managing Partner of Forecasting and Business Analytics, LLC, an economic consulting firm.

In 1995, he was honored at Texas A&M University with the Association of Former Students’ Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching. In 1997, he was the recipient of the Journal of Food Distribution Research Best Journal Article Award. In 1998, he received recognition via the Vice Chancellor’s Award in Excellence for Team Research at Texas A&M University. In 1999, he was the recipient of the American Agricultural Economics Association Distinguished Graduate Teaching Award, and a co-recipient of the Applied Consumer Economics Research Award given by the American Council on Consumer Interests. In 2000, he was the co-recipient of the Agricultural and Resource Economics Review Outstanding Journal Article Award. In 2001, Dr. Capps received the Frank Panyko Distinguished Service Award from the Food Distribution Research Society. In 2002, Dr. Capps was bestowed the Vice Chancellor’s Award in Excellence for Research at Texas A&M University. Finally, he received the Association of Former Students Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching from Texas A&M University in 2003. In 2004, Capps was named a “Fish Camp” namesake by undergraduate students of Texas A&M University. In 2006, Capps was appointed to the National Academies Committee on the Economic Development and Current Status of the Sheep Industry in the United States. In 2007, he was co-recipient of the AAEA President’s Award “for initiative, risk, imagination, and labor in improving, redesigning, and expanding the outreach organ of the Association, Choices, and in so doing, communicating the economic implications of food, farm, resource, and rural community issues to a wider audience.” In February 2009, Dr. Capps received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Agricultural Economics Association (SAEA).

Dr. Capps currently resides in College Station, Texas, with his wife Debbie and two sons (Kevin and Eric). Dr. Capps is a survivor of the San Francisco earthquake on October 17, 1989 and the New York City World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. Special Focus: applied econometrics, market analysis for agricultural commodities, applied statistics, and major league baseball.

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Professor of Agricultural Economics. He received a B.S. in Economics and M.S. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Arizona, and Ph.D. is in Agricultural Economics from the University of California, Davis. His research is in the area of applied decision analysis, especially as it contributes to understanding agricultural price uncertainty. He teaches graduate courses in research methodology and applied time series analysis.

Special Focus: Decisions under risk, price dynamics, time-series analysis, and agricultural history.

Dr. Leatham received his B.S. and M.S. in Agricultural Ecnomics from Brigham Young University. His Ph.D. is in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University.

Dr. Leatham's primary research focus is on improving financial decision making for farmers and ranchers. Farmers and ranchers must choose the optimal mix of assets (investment decisions), and the optimal mix of short-term credit, long-term credit and owner’s equity to finance assets (capital structure decisions). The outcome of investment and capital structure decisions is dependent on future events; thus, time and uncertainty must be considered. Much of the work he does is in a risk/return framework where optimal decisions depend on an individual's risk/return preference.

His secondary focus is on improving the ability of financial intermediaries to provide credit to farmer’s and ranchers (agricultural credit). Specifically, Dr. Leatham's work in this area centers on 1) designing and evaluating financial derivatives that can be used by agricultural lenders to manage interest rate risk, 2) improving credit assessment models, and 3) assessing the impact of deregulation and structural changes on agricultural lender’s ability and willingness to provide credit to agricultural firms.

Dr. H. Alan Love is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and in the Department of Information and Operations Management, Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. He received his B.S. from the University of Kentucky, M.S. from the University of Minnesota, and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. His research focuses on issues relating to the industrial organization, supply-chain management, information economics, and applied econometrics. His teaching responsibilities include core MBA quantitative methods and graduate courses in industrial organization, managerial economics, auctions and contracts and supervising and advising Ph.D. and M.S. students.

Rodolfo M. Nayga, Jr. is Professor and TAES Fellow in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. He presently teaches food and agribusiness marketing and economics classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels. His research and consulting interests are focused on the economics of food quality and on obtaining an understanding of how emerging consumer issues affect food and nutrient consumption/demand and public policies. Current and recent topics include product and program valuation related to novel foods for health, GMOs, irradiated foods, health claims, nutritional label use and diet quality, obesity, intra-household time/resource allocation and children's dietary behavior.

Titus Awokuse is an Associate Professor at the University of Delaware and an Associate of Forecasting and Business Analytics, LLC. He has experience as a manager at First USA Bank in Wilimgton, Delaware were he was in charge of managing a credit portfolio with millions of card members worth in excess of $4 billion. In addition, he lead the development of predictive/forecasting statistical models for areas including credit loses, bankruptcies and delinquencies.

Dr. Awokuse has special interest in time-series data modeling and forecasting and has experience implementing ARIMA (Auto-regressive, Integrated, Moving Average), neural nets and other state-of-the-art econometric techniques in the private sector. He received his PhD from Texas A&M University and M.S. from Murray State University.

Richard C. Wiser, MBA, CPA

Richard is a direct selling consultant with over 30 years of direct selling experience at Mary Kay, Inc., Pampered Chef, and Creative Memories.  At all three companies he established a system of metrics that coupled with analytical and modeling techniques support the strategic planning process by providing quantitative measures and evaluations of strategy and tactical success and insight to future actions.  His background includes establishing financial modeling and planning systems and well as marketing analysis reporting.  His specialty is applying his direct selling experience along with statistical analysis and modeling to assess past direct selling company strategies and to provide strategic planning and tactical feedback.

He formerly was the Vice President of Strategic Planning during his 25 year tenure at Mary Kay as well as Vice President of Business Analysis later at the Pampered Chef and Creative Memories.  His education includes an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin and he is a licensed CPA.

Flynn Adcock

Flynn Adcock has been International Program Coordinator and the Assistant Director of the Center for North American Studies in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University since 1997.  In this capacity, he conducts applied research and extension programming in the areas of international trade, trade policy, and international marketing, and specializes in both primary and secondary market research.

Mr. Adcock has focused his work on the NAFTA, Central and South American countries, but has also done work on WTO-related projects, particularly regarding the impact on U.S. agricultural policies.  Adcock also researches cross-cutting issues affecting agricultural trade such as technical barriers to trade, food supply chain disruptions, agroterrorism, biotechnology, exchange rates, dollarization, anti-dumping and countervailing cases, and the potential for trade with Cuba.  Adcock teaches Managerial Economics in the Master of Applied Economics Program at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, and has guest lectured in International Trade and Marketing courses in the UVG program.

William D. Grubbs, PhD.

Dr. William Grubbs is a senior statistician with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).  Since 1988, he has been the lead statistical analyst for SAIC in conducting the Air Force Health Study (AFHS), a large-scale matched cohort epidemiologic investigation of the long-term health consequences of occupational exposure to herbicides in Southeast Asia.  Dr. Grubbs has worked with many statisticians, physicians, and survey methodologists to produce a series of six comprehensive reports for the AFHS.  Primary statistical analysis techniques included multiple linear and logistic regression, analysis of variance, and contingency table analysis.  He also provided extensive guidance to data management staff in the compilation of data.  Prior to the analysis, Dr. Grubbs used his extensive knowledge of the AFHS to review and analyze clinic, laboratory, and interview databases for format and content and to check the databases for accuracy and logical consistency.  He has also performed statistical analysis of distributions of environmental data for programs in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Science and Technology and Office of Ground and Drinking Water.

Dr. Grubbs holds a PhD and MS from Virginia Tech in Statistics and a bachelor's degree in Mathematics from James Madison University.  He has also has a Certificate in Financial Planning from Virginia Commonwealth University.  The financial planning courses cover general principles of financial planning, taxation, retirement planning and employee benefits, estate planning, insurance, and investments.

Dmitry V. Vedenov, Ph.D.

Dmitry specializes in risk management and insurance, with particular expertise in developing and implementing simulation models to analyze various economic problems.