A career marked by
singular events
Ferguson recalls his 30
years at UA
Like every career, Carl Ferguson’s 30
years at The University of Alabama have
been marked by many singular events.
The first was that following graduation
with a Ph.D. from the University of
Missouri in 1974, his employment
search included only one site visit—
to The University of Alabama.
“I was so struck by the energy and
enthusiasm of Dr. J. Barry Mason, then
Chairman of the Department of Management and Marketing, and all of the
departmental colleagues, that I could
not imagine a more inviting place or
one better suited to my professional
skills and interests,” Ferguson said.
Interestingly, Ferguson not only spent
his entire career at UA but he worked
for Mason the entire time. “To Dean
Mason, my mentor and friend, I would
like to say thank you—it has been a
most amazing journey.”
Ferguson will retire as associate dean for
research and technology, professor of
marketing, and director of the Center for
Business and Economic Research (CBER),
at the end of the year. He has been a
voice for education reform, work force
development, and the go-to spokesman
on the state’s economy.
“Almost immediately after accepting
UA’s offer of employment as an assistant
professor of marketing, Dr. Mason asked
if I would be interested in working in
the Center for Business and Economic
Research,” Ferguson recalled. “By 1975
the Center had a storied history. Its
founding director, Dr. H. H. Chapman,
had been a national leader in the development of regional income measurement
and an active player in the establishment of what is today the U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic
Analysis. Not only was I being given
the opportunity to work with some of
the best and brightest of my marketing
peers, now I was being offered the
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Alabama Business
1970s
1980s
opportunity to work in a center with a
national reputation for excellence. It
was an inspiring beginning.”
ment of the Alabama State Data Center,
exceptionally large computer-based data
holdings.
Ferguson said he spent his first five years
at UA learning about the economy of
Alabama, its people, and its history. “It
didn’t take long for my family and me to
realize that we had a new home of
which we could be proud and we felt
very much a part,” Ferguson said.
Another singular event in his career,
Ferguson said, was Dr. David Mathews’
return as president of UA in 1977
following a following a leave of absence
to serve as President Gerald Ford’s
Secretary of Health, Education, and
Welfare. “Dr. Mathews understood the
need to model and track the economic
and demographic changes underway in
Alabama. CBER, working with Dr. David
Cheng, a Yale-trained College of Commerce economist, appealed to Dr.
Mathews to fund the development of
the first econometric model of our state.
Dr. Mathews approved the request and
remained an enthusiastic supporter of
the Center until his departure in 1981
to become President of the Kettering
Foundation,” Ferguson said.
In addition to the traditional course
work in statistics common to most
business doctoral programs, Ferguson’s
committee at the University of Missouri
allowed him to use computer science as
his language. Formal training and an
aptitude for programming and computing technology have served him
well over the course of his career.
“Like many students of my era, all of
my training was on IBM mainframe
computers,” Ferguson said. “In 1975
The University of Alabama was using a
UNIVAC mainframe. This led to many
interesting opportunities and challenges.
I remember there were remarkably few
basic applications available. Working
with staff, the first two applications we
developed were an address management
system to replace an old addressograph
machine and a departmental accounting
package fondly referred to as DASY to
maintain timely information on account
balances.”
Driven by an affinity for the role of the
computer and a staff willing to take on
and master rapidly evolving technologies, CBER had one of the first networks on campus—an IBM Token Ring;
in-house and later worldwide email
over ARPANET; word processing with
Jacquard J500s; computer graphics
using Tecktronics Computer Graphics
terminals; and following the establish-
State econometric models depend on
forecasts of national economic conditions. According to Ferguson, at that
time one of the best sources of such
forecasts was Wharton Econometric
Forecasting Associates (WEFA).
Founded by Dr. Lawrence Klein (recent
Nobel laureate and Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School), WEFA provided
essential detailed forecasts of national
economic activity by sector. “While
attending a WEFA conference in
Chicago, I discussed with Dr. Klein the
work we were doing at Alabama and
invited him to come and visit. He
agreed,” Ferguson recalled.
During the course of several meetings,
Ferguson and Klein discussed the
challenges of developing simultaneous
solutions for the Alabama econometric
model. The UNIVAC in use at the
time could not support most of the
to facilitate and advance the use of
Department of Commerce data,
particularly census data, in support
of business and economic development. The concurrent establishment
of the Alabama State Data Center
and the Alabama Econometric Model
worked to solidify CBER as a preeminent data and analytical center for
the state.
1990s
now
econometric applications commonly
used during that period. “After a
moment of thought, Klein recalled
that the Institute for Advanced Studies
in Vienna, Austria was also using a
UNIVAC mainframe and that they were
developing econometric software to
support their efforts,” Ferguson said.
“Before Dr. Klein left campus that day, I
had spoken to Klaus Plasser, the senior
program analyst at the Institute, and
learned that they did indeed have an
application called the Interactive Analysis System (IAS) for the management
and estimation of simultaneous equation
econometric models. Klaus put a distribution tape in the mail the next day and
within two weeks we were up and
running. Our relationship with the
Institute grew over the next several
years. Klaus visited us in Alabama;
CBER helped distribute IAS to other
UNIVAC users across the United States;
and Klaus and Dr. Klein introduced us to
Project Link—a joint WEFA and United
Nations project to tie together national
models to create a comprehensive world
model.”
Working with graduate students, Dr.
Cheng and the CBER staff built what
became the Alabama Regional Economic
Information System; learned about the
strengths and weaknesses of national
and state level data; and, most
importantly, began to develop a much
deeper understanding of the Alabama
economy and its people.
In 1978, coincident with the development of the Alabama econometric
model, CBER was designated by
Governor Wallace as one of the nation’s
first U. S. Census Bureau’s state data
centers. State data centers were
subsequently established in all states
The Center’s state and regional
modeling efforts quickly led to a close
working relationship with the Alabama
Development Office and the newly
created Office of State Planning and
Federal Programs, the forerunner of
today’s Department of Economic and
Community Affairs. Working under
contract, CBER produced Alabama’s first
Economic Outlook in 1980. The Alabama
Economic Outlook and the Regional
Economic Information System are two of
the Center’s hallmark products today.
Another significant career event
occurred in 1981 when Mason suggested
that Ferguson look at a new book by
Richard Baggozi titled Causal Models in
Marketing. Mason thought Ferguson
might find the rigor of the methodology
on structural equation modeling (SEM)
and its application to marketing research
appealing. Although many statisticians
contributed to the study of path models
and the early conceptualization of the
SEM methodology, Dr. Karl Jöreskog of
the University of Uppsala (Sweden) is
widely credited with the seminal work to
fully conceptualize structural equation
modeling with latent variables and the
development of the LISREL software that
empowered this truly revolutionary
research methodology.
After reading Baggozi’s book, Ferguson
was convinced that structural equation
modeling with latent variables would
have a great impact on marketing
research. Ferguson attended a workshop
Jöreskog was conducting in Washington,
D.C. and invited Jöreskog to the University to interact with UA faculty and
graduate students and later to conduct
forums for marketing scholars from
around the country.
occasions, conducting workshops on
LISREL and exploratory factor analysis.
Jöreskog was so impressed with the
early implementation of the mainframe
LISREL application at the University, he
ask CBER and Ferguson to help him
distribute LISREL in the U.S. market.
Jöreskog was also generous with his
time and intellectual guidance in support
of C&BA graduate students. “Over a
career every professor, if they are fortunate, will have a few doctoral students
who study and excel far beyond the
teacher,” Ferguson said. “I was fortunate to have had two.” Jöreskog agreed
to serve on their dissertation committees and ultimately coauthored seminal
journal articles with each. “To Karl and
these fine young men—now great
professors in their own right—I am
most grateful.”
Recent years have seen Ferguson’s role
expand to include responsibilities for the
computing and network technology
across the College. CBER continues to
be recognized for its Economic Outlook
and its regional economic impact
studies; the continuing work of the State
Data Center; and the new work of the
Entrepreneurial Research Network, an
initiative to stimulate entrepreneurship
across rural Alabama.
“Our current partnership with Compass
Bancshares, Inc. is one of which we are
particularly proud. Working with representatives from Compass, Center staff
and our Compass partners developed the
Compass Business Leaders Confidence
Index® which is a quarterly measure of
economic expectations. The Compass
BLCI® is recognized as a leading indicator of state and national economic
conditions,” Ferguson said.
“I am blessed with an exceptional family,
circle of friends, and colleagues. I offer
my heartfelt thanks for all they have
done over the years. It has been a most
amazing journey.”
Carl Ferguson
[email protected]
Over the course of the next several
years, Jöreskog visited UA on numerous
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