Economist Kathy Deck is leaving the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville to become the director of community and economic research partnerships at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.
Deck, 41, has been the director of the Center for Business & Economic Research at the University of Arkansas since March 2007. Before that, she was the interim director for three months after Jeff Collins left.
Deck said the university would release a statement about her departure and any succession plans at CBER.
Deck is the lead researcher for the Arvest Bank-sponsored Skyline Report, which studies the northwest Arkansas real estate market, and serves as host and regional presenter at the annual Business Forecast Luncheon. Deck and her research team produce numerous economic research reports annually on Arkansas’ industries.
She was named a member of the Real Estate Industry Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Arkansas Business recognized her as a “40 Under 40” honoree in 2009, when she was just 33.
Deck’s leaving is a family affair. Her husband, Cary, is taking an endowed chair position in the economics department at Alabama. Cary Deck has been an economics professor and director of the Behavioral Business Research Lab at Arkansas.
Cary Deck’s parents live in Tuscaloosa, and he earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Alabama. Cary and Kathy Deck have one son.
“They made us an offer we couldn’t refuse,” Deck said. “It’s an exciting opportunity for us. Of course, we’re very sad to leave northwest Arkansas because we really love the place.”
Deck, a native of Virginia, earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia before earning a master’s in science and economics from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She was an antitrust economist for the attorney general of Arizona before she joined Arkansas’ CBER as a research associate in 2001.