LAST WORD

Ross Gittell, professor of management at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, poses in his Portsmouth home. Photo:  Rich Beauchesne

In the information age, there is no shortage of data, detailed reports and forecasts coming from government bodies, think tanks large and small, and private corporations.

On a daily basis, I could spend my time and squander my sanity sifting through an endless barrage of weekly, monthly and quarterly reports that may or may not explain, for example, why we’ve reached peak oil production. Or not.

Though economic forecasting isn’t a contact sport, it does requires a certain discipline, smart mathematical modeling and inspiration to transform past data into possible future realities.

No doubt like the ancient Greeks, we need these trips to Delphi, seeking oracles of metaphysical power through insight into a murky future.

Here’s an early bird prediction: The bloated federal budget deficit is about to make a comeback as a top issue (just like 1992) and potential threat to regional and national economic growth. In fact, it’s likely to become a hot topic in the upcoming 2008 presidential primary which, in case you blinked, has already started.

This forecasting nugget was courtesy of Ross Gittell, a management professor at the University of New Hampshire who specializes in his spare time as one of the state’s top economic forecasters and is well regarded for his understanding of the Seacoast economy.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty in the macro economy,” Gittell told me recently when I asked him about his near-term economic perceptions. What Gittell means is that while conditions in our Seacoast Mecca are in good shape — slow but steady growth — there is enough conflicting data out there regionally, nationally and globally to be concerned about. Or perhaps not.

The soft-spoken Gittell has been in the research and forecasting field since 1981 (he began with Chase Econometrics right after graduate school) and is well known for his work with the New England Economic Partnership, a Massachusetts-based non-profit which issues two forecasts annually on the economic state of affairs in the region.

Like any good forecaster, he can combine the raw ingredients of demographics, labor shortage, education levels and housing costs (to name a few) into a comprehensible snapshot of the present that may be an accurate prediction.

He is called frequently by media types like myself to comment on events and trends that could impact current trends. Gittell was a voice of reason during the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard closure debate in 2005; if PNS closed the region would take big economic hit but it wouldn’t be as bad as imagined.

And then there traumatic events such as 9/11 which leave everyone dazed and confused.

“I got calls that afternoon asking me about the economic impact,” he told me. “I couldn’t even fathom what it would mean to the labor and financial markets. Who could know?”

One of the state’s other top forecasters is Russ Thibeault, the president of Applied Economic Research in Laconia who has been dissecting the New Hampshire economy for 30 years.

Thibeault, who recently provided a major study of the Pease International Tradeport, likes the Seacoast economy, its diversity and its interconnected strength.

“No one community dominates the region,” he told me. (On the other hand he’s concerned that his hometown of Laconia is depending too much on tourism, becoming too much of “a one-trick pony.”)

“I’ve learned a lot,” Thibeault said. That’s a simple but important observation. He believes that economic forecasts are more reliable now and he’s become more savvy, more aware of the risks and pitfalls in forecasts — especially when he provides vital information for a policy decision that can have major economic and social impact on a town or region.

“Anybody can take a trend and project it,” he said. Thibeault told me he hit a home run a few years ago with a successful forecast no on else detected. He was bullish about a housing boom was coming to the Plymouth and Upper Connecticut River Valley areas because of fast job growth and low unemployment trends. In other words, more employees needing places to live.

And then there’s the occasional miss. He forecast that the dramatic job losses in the early 1990s, especially those in the manufacturing sector, wouldn’t be recovered for a decade or more. Courtesy of the high-tech boom and a resourceful manufacturing sector, he was off by a half a decade. “Some (forecasts) work out, some don’t,” Thibeault mused.

Of course, the Internet boom busted beginning in 2001 and the recession that followed wiped out those manufacturing gains as jobs were sent overseas to cheap labor countries.

But the economic band plays on through sometimes glacial or sometimes traumatic change. One constant is surprise. Consider, the immediate post-9/11 period, coming as it did in the midst of downturn and great uncertainty, could have turned out much differently. But Ross Gittell told me he was impressed by an intangible that can’t be measured in any forecast.

“What we saw was the incredible resiliency of the American people and economy.”