YOURECONOMY
YourEconomy was established as a one of a kind effort beginning in 2006, to assemble establishment level time series data (from the NETS database), that would follow business and job activity for the entire U.S. on a web based platform.
The original YourEconomy team - Mark Lange and Gregg Cole moved the web based
time-series from the Edward Lowe Foundation to the Universities of Wisconsin in 2014, and in 2016 developed an all new time series database utilizing multiple Data-Axle national files and hundreds of new variables to create the YourEconomy Time Series (YTS).
The Wisconsin YourEconomy team added Kristi Smith in 2022 and is currently hard at work updating the YTS Data, and introducing the innovative YourEconomy Dashboards to enhance data visualization for economic development organizations, researchers, and policymakers.
Team
Gregg Cole - Research & Technology
Gregg designs and develops national initiatives to assemble and apply large economic data sets. Gregg’s “apps” continue to be a leading resource for economic-development groups, policy makers, and researchers around the country, Far East, Canada, and Europe.
By spring of 2024, Gregg had uniquely developed several versions of the YTS (YourEconomy Time Series) database, including a quarterly time series during Covid, resulting in a semi-annual time series version available today.
In fall 2011, Gregg presented the U.S. economy through the website YourEconomy.org to select House and Senate staffers and the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Development in Washington D.C. and participated in NASDAQ closing-bell ceremonies on Oct. 4, 2011 in New York, highlighting a research partnership with NASDAQ OMX Educational Foundation.
In 1999, Gregg founded Beanstalk Internet, a successful ISP focusing on supplying broadband wireless Internet access to rural areas. Prior to his entrepreneurial ventures, Gregg worked in Silicon Valley specializing in the IC CAD (integrated circuit computer aided design) industry.
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Kristi Smith - Technical Marketing & Sales
Kristi helps YourEconomy’s customers to explore the answers to their questions through data. She jokes that she “speaks fluent Geek” and enjoys answering real world questions with easy-to-understand graphs and charts, or raw data files from custom queries.
Helping others understand and utilize data is a common theme throughout Kristi’s career. In 2002 she founded her first company, providing database design, consulting and training services for small businesses and sales teams. After the sale of this business in 2017, Kristi continued helping entrepreneurs at the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center (SBDC). She also created, managed and sold a retail candy store with a separate fundraising brand.
Kristi earned a Master of Arts in Government from New Mexico State University. Her research paper “Training, Credit and Cooperatives: Suggestions for Developing Sustainable Enterprise in Chiapas, Mexico” was presented at the Fourth International Conference of the International Society for Third Sector Research.
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Mark Lange - Founder
Mark’s areas of expertise include business development and technical assistance, data-driven strategies for economic development, second-stage business development and local economy statistics. Those who work with Mark know his humor is always present and relationships are important to him.
Some of the favorite aspects of his work are engaging with people who are dedicated to their craft and expertise and using teams to solve problems and build programs. Interacting with economic developers at all levels to help them learn new business development strategies and data to measure, report and influence business activity within their region is very meaningful to Mark. He enjoys learning from those same economic developers as they interact with the wide variety of support organizations and community stakeholders to serve local economies.
Before his work at the Universities of Wisconsin, Lange served as the director of the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Oregon. He co-founded CVT Productions, a video-production and software-distribution company and has served as an adjunct faculty member in entrepreneurship at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame.
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Contact Us
Illustration by Tommy Washbush
Reach the YourEconomy team now!
YOURECONOMY
Universities of Wisconsin
Office of Business and Entrepreneurship
780 Regent St., Suite 305
Madison, WI 53715
Phone: (608) 287-9464