athryn Kobe is the Director of Price, Wage, and Productivity Analysis with Economic Consulting Services. Prior to joining ECS she was Chief Economist and Executive Vice President of Joel Popkin and Company where she worked since February 1981. Her research responsibilities include macroeconomic and industry forecasting; constructing price and wage indexes from individual company's data, proprietary survey data and from government data; studying wages, benefits, price and cost issues and forecasting their trends; and constructing cost impact models of industries or companies. She has served as an expert witness, presents research results in reports and briefings, and provides input to regulatory and policy reviews. She is the co-author of the recent study for the Council of Manufacturing Associations entitled "Securing America's Future: The Case for a Strong Manufacturing Base" and recently testified before the Senate Finance Committee on the state of manufacturing in the U.S. She also represents the Company in providing television and other interviews on various aspects of the economic outlook. JPC's clients include industrial and financial corporations, the U.S. and other national governments and international organizations.

Ms. Kobe is a member and former Chairperson of the Board of the National Economists Club, and belongs to National Association for Business Economics, the Society of Government Economists, the Washington Association of Money Managers and the Industrial Relations Research Association.

Before coming to Joel Popkin and Company, Ms. Kobe worked at Evans Economics, a private econometric and forecasting firm. At Evans, she was responsible for developing the livestock and dairy sectors of the Evans agricultural model. Prior to joining Evans Economics, Ms. Kobe was an economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Her duties there include researching and building a sector of an agricultural product model and analyzing prospective grain price support policy actions.

Ms. Kobe received her B.A. in economics Summa Cum Laude from the University of Maryland (College Park) and received her M.A. in economics from George Washington University.