Staff Biographies

Marshall J. Vest, Director

Marshall is past-president of the Association for University Economic and Business Research, whose membership includes university-based applied research centers from across the country.  He also is a member of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE); an advisor to NABE’s Regional-Utility Roundtable; and past president of the Arizona Chapter of NABE. 

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Alberta Charney, Ph.D., Senior Research Economist

As an Economic and Business Research Center faculty member, Alberta Charney's research focus is on the economy of the state of Arizona. She received her double-major B.A. in economics and mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University and her master's degree and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in economics.

Dr. Charney has been at the University of Arizona since 1977 where she is considered an expert on tax analysis, econometric model building, regional economic forecasting and impact analysis. She has built numerous revenue and economic forecasting models for Arizona and its sub-state areas. She has received funding for these projects from the Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee, the Arizona Department of Transportation, the City of Tucson, Pima County, Tucson Economic Development Corporation, the Chamber of Commerce and the National Science Foundation. She has also received funding for studies on tax policy, population estimation/projection methods, and impact studies from the Arizona Department of Economic Security, the Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Maricopa Council of Governments, the City of Tucson, the Arizona Legislature, the Arizona Joint Select Committee on Revenues and Expenditures, the University Medical Center, the Arizona Department of Commerce, the Governor's Strategic Partnership for Economic Development, Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Business Bureau, and the Governor's Arizona Science and Technology Council.

Her diverse academic publications dealing with transportation, taxation, econometric model building, forecasting accuracy, water issues, migration, manufacturing location and entrepreneurship have appeared in Land Economics, Journal of Regional Science, International Regional Science Review, Review of Public Data Use, Journal of Urban Economics, Logistics and Transportation Review, Quarterly Review of Economics and Business, Resources and Energy, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, the Western Tax Review, Regional Studies, State and Local Government Review, the International Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, and contributed book chapters.

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Pia Montoya, Computer Database Specialist

Pia Montoya has been with the Economic and Business Research Center of the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management since 1977. She is a 1977 graduate of the University of Arizona and holds a double major B.A. in economics and romance languages (French and Spanish). She is fluent in both languages and Italian, her native language. She retired in June of 2005 but continues working part-time.

Over the years Pia built and managed the largest economic database of the state of Arizona, which supports the economic forecasting models, research projects, publications and EBR’s data reference. She designed and produced the data tables of the quarterly Arizona’s Economy and the data tables of the semi-annual Arizona Economic Indicators. She produced the 1993 and 2003 Arizona Statistical Abstracts. Both books won the 1993 and 2003 Award of Excellence from AUBER (EBR’s peer organization of University-based research centers) in the category of “Abstracts and other data books”. Pia’s primary responsibilities now focus on marketing and communications of Center activities, which  includes managing a contact and subscribers database.

She has been active in the State Data Center program of the Bureau of the Census, and with a member of the Bureau of Economic Analysis as a member of their Data Users Group.

Pia is a member of the Association for University Economic and Business Research (AUBER) and she recently served a two year term on the board of directors.

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Lora Mwaniki-Lyman, Research Economist

Lora Mwaniki-Lyman is a Research Economist with the Economic and Business Research Center (EBR) at The University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. She manages the AREMOS database that supports the economic forecasting models, research projects and publications developed by EBR research associates. Lora contributes to Arizona’s Economy and Arizona Economic Indicator Data Book and conducts research on U.S.-Mexico border region economies, cross-border flows and infrastructure projects.

Lora’s research and outreach contributions while at the University include managing and coordinating The State of Arizona Border Infrastructure Project (www.azbip.org), a strategic initiative of the Arizona-Mexico Commission endorsed by Governor Janet Napolitano in 2004. Lora worked closely with border community leaders and representatives, U.S. and Arizona Congressional delegation, and federal, state and local government officials to design and develop a web-based, searchable database that consolidates information on Arizona’s Border Infrastructure projects, tracks their progress along their delivery and funding paths, and generates printable reports. Lora is also a co-author of the Regional Economic Indicators: Arizona-Sonora Region Report (2003, 2004) and the Report Card: Arizona-Sonora Region (2003, 2004), which were presented annually to government, community and business leaders, the University of Arizona Economic and Tax Revenue Impacts FY2004 (2005) and Arizona as a Border State – Competing in the Global Economy (2005), the Eighty-Sixth Arizona Town Hall Background Report.

A graduate of The University of Arizona, Lora holds two masters’ degrees; one in the Management of Finance from the Eller College of Management, and another in Agricultural and Resource Economics. Lora’s prior professional career was with multinational agri-business companies from the Netherlands and Israel located in Kenya. She has extensive hands-on experience in the management, marketing, export, and sale of agricultural commodities, fresh-cut flowers, agro-chemicals, and agro-inputs.

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Maile L. Nadelhoffer, Senior Research Economist & Webmaster

Maile L. Nadelhoffer is a senior research economist in the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. For the last 10 years, Maile has been a member of  Center’s Forecasting Project team which produces quarterly economic forecasts for Arizona and the Tucson and Phoenix metropolitan areas. These forecasts are recognized as among the most accurate in the western states. With Center faculty member Dr. Alberta Charney, Maile recently co-authored a program evaluation of the City of Tucson’s Wired-for-Success workforce training program for the U.S. Department of Commerce. She is currently carrying out a workforce assessment study for the Town of Sahuarita. She also contributes analysis and editorial review to EBR's quarterly newsletter Arizona's Economy.

In her capacity as EBR's webmaster, she coordinates EBR's mission to facilitate public access via the internet to the most current and relevant socio-economic data available on Arizona and its communities. Under her direction, the EBR website has twice won the ”Award of Excellence” from AUBER (EBR’s peer organization of University-based research centers).

Prior to joining the Economic and Business Research Center's staff, Maile taught mathematics, statistics and economics at the University of Arizona. With a background in environmental economics, she carried out cost benefit analyses of proposed environmental regulation for the Arizona Comparative Environmental Project, a multidisciplinary task force prioritizing environmental risk in Arizona. Maile holds an M.A. in Economics and an M.S. in Mathematics, both from the University of Arizona.

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William P. Patton, Senior Research Economist

Dr. Pat Patton is a Senior Research Economist in the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona. He recently served as Chief Economist for Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities, Inc. He was previously the Director of Economic Forecasting at Tucson Electric Power Company, where he was responsible for the Company’s customer, sales and economic forecasts. 

He has been active in state and local economic development.  He served as the Chairman of the Metropolitan Tucson Chamber of Commerce Business Development Committee.  He served on the Board of Directors of the Arizona Association for Economic Development and the Southern Arizona Technology Council.  He was appointed by the Governor’s Office to the Arizona Infrastructure Development Authority, the Western Canamex Task Force and the Economic Research Advisory Committee.  He has co-authored three books on the Tucson regional economy, including:  the 1996 Greater Tucson Strategic Economic Plan, the 1998 Tucson/Pima County Industrial Directory and the 2000 Greater Tucson Strategic Economic Plan.

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Vera Pavlakovich-Kochi, Senior Regional Scientist

Dr. Vera Pavlakovich-Kochi is Senior Regional Scientist in the Eller College’s Business Research Center and adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Regional Development at The University of Arizona. She is a Fulbright scholar (Austria 1997).  Educated as a geographer, she holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and a Ph.D. degree from Kent State University.  She joined the University of Arizona in 1986.  Her research interests include regional economic development with an emphasis on U.S.-Mexico border. Articles on various aspects of Arizona's economy and U.S.-Mexican border have been published in Arizona's Economy, Arizona's Review, Journal of Borderlands Studies, Revista de El Colegio de Sonora, Estudios Sociales and Geografski glasnik.  She co-edited a book “Challenged Borderlands” published by Ashgate (2004) as a result of international collaboration with scholars from Mexico and several European universities (Utrecht, Berne, Zagreb and Ljubljana). Other research interests include the impact assessment of various agents on local and regional economy such as the maquiladora sector, fresh produce industry, Mexican visitors, as well as the role of The University of Arizona and University Science and Research Park in the regional economy of Pima County and Arizona. Prior to her current position, she was Director of Regional Development in the Office of Economic Analysis and Policy, where she developed an original set of cross-border economic indicators for the Arizona-Sonora Region and served as the principal author of the annual Indicators report and the Report Card for the Arizona-Sonora Region.

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Valorie Hanni Rice, Research Librarian

Valorie Hanni Rice is the research librarian for the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management, a position she has held for over ten years.  As librarian, she provides information regarding demographic and economic data on Arizona to the center staff as well as the university community, local businesses and general public. The Economic and Business Research Center is a coordinating agency for the Arizona State Data Center and Valorie is the department contact.  She assisted with the production of the 2003 Arizona Statistical Abstract and provides support to many of the department’s research projects.  Within the college, she has served on the Eller Staff Council and continues her involvement by maintaining the Council website.

Valorie has a B.A in Psychology from Concordia College (Moorhead, MN) and a M.L.S. from the University of Arizona.  She is a member of Special Libraries Association and served as secretary for the Arizona Chapter 1999 to 2003. 

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