Client Snapshot: Hart Hodges, Western Washington University

Hart Hodges
Director, Center of Economic and Business Research
Western Washington University
Bellingham, Washington

To give policymakers, economic/workforce development professionals, and educators a better sense of how northwestern Washington industries are performing, the Center of Economic and Business Research (CEBR) releases sector profiles. The four-county reports have been facilitated by EMSI’s labor market analysis. Hart Hodges, director of the CEBR, says the profiles “paint a picture” of sectors ranging from manufacturing to health care to agriculture. In the past, the CEBR relied solely on data from Washington State’s Employment Security Department. He now has access to key figures for industries and occupations, such as location quotients (a measure of concentration) in easy to use, report-ready graphical format. Hodges also hopes to do similar reports focusing on workforce demographic profiles for even more Washington counties. Once again, EMSI’s analysis will be at the heart of the project, he says.