Economic Conference Celebrating Anniversary By BRIAN PEARSON, Business Editor   |   Jan 11, 2009

The silver anniversary of the Perryman Economic Outlook Conference is set for Thursday in Tyler, with longtime economic prognosticator Ray Perryman of Waco slated to unveil his forecast for the area.

With the economy listing heavily to starboard, this year's 25th anniversary event is expected to be a sellout, a Tyler Economic Development Council official said Thursday. As of Thursday, only 50 of 400 seats remained available.

The event has grown in popularity in recent years.

Some 350 attended last year, compared with 250 at the 23rd conference in 2007, according to Courier-Times Morning Telegraph archives. There were 130 in 2006 and 79 in 2000.

The event will be 11:30 a.m.-1p.m. at the Tyler Rose Garden Center, with a $20 door charge.

Last year, Perryman declared the Tyler economy to be healthy despite the Goodyear plant closure. He urged the region to integrate more young people into the work force and foster bio-technology ventures, with health care systems ready to support it.

For the past five years, Perryman has put a rosy economic forecast on the Tyler area.

"It's very helpful," Tom Mullins, CEO and president of the Tyler Economic Development, said of Perryman's forecasts. "We have a lot of chamber members who come to the event and use the information as a guide for their business this year and planning for next year."

Perryman last year was not ready to declare the country as being in a recession and predicted $200-a-barrel oil in the next 10 years. He also said the growing subprime mortgage problem to be blown out of proportion.

While Perryman's predictions haven't always panned out, most of his forecasts have been "dead on," Mullins said.

He said he expects Perryman to discuss how factors such as the energy sector, immigration and the credit crisis will affect this year's economy and beyond.

Perryman, in an e-mail Thursday, said that despite the economic woes worldwide, the "Texas economy has lived up to our expectations this year."
"We have added about 200,000 thousand jobs and seen output expansion at more than a 4 percent rate," he said. "The U.S. has obviously not done as well as we anticipated.

"The portions of the financial crisis that were off the books and thus unknown were much worse than anyone thought a year ago.

"I will focus a lot of my remarks (in Tyler on Thursday) on what happened, how it could get to this point under the radar screen, and where we are likely to go.

"It will be very blunt."