Boot Camp Instructor Profiles

DATABASE 101|201 INSTRUCTOR PROFILES

Listed below are the instructors who lead the CARR Database Boot Camp 101|201 courses.

For general questions, please contact Mark Tapscott at (202) 459-4968.

William Beach, M.A. Director Center for Data Analysis
	Beach received a master's degree in history and economics from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1976 and a bachelor's degree in history and economics from Washburn University in 1972. Prior to joining The Heritage Foundation in 1996, Beach was an economist for the state of Missouri where he designed and managed the state's first econometric model. He is also former chief economist for Sprint Corporation. He is the author of two books on congressional redistricting from 1878 to 1872 and he was an adjunct professor in economics and history at the University of Missouri in Columbia and Kansas City.

Kirk Johnson, Ph.D. Senior Policy Analyst Center for Data Analysis
	Kirk Johnson is a Fellow in Statistical Welfare Research at The Heritage Foundation. His work focuses on estimating the outcome of policies that affect low-income Americans. To that end, he focuses on welfare program participation issues, employment/labor policy, marriage, family, and education. His statistical models help answer the "what if" questions in welfare policy analysis. His analysis and commentary has been featured in numerous media sources, including the Los Angeles Times, Investor's Business Daily, Forbes, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Miami Herald, Detroit Free Press, and the Fox News Channel, among others. Previously, he held positions at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the U.S. Census Bureau, and George Mason University. Dr. Johnson holds a B.A. in economics from California State University, Sacramento, an M.S. in applied economics from the University of North Texas in Denton, and a Ph.D. in public policy from George Mason University.

Norbert Michel, Ph.D. Policy Analyst Center for Data Analysis
	Before joining Heritage, he was a research associate for the National Ports and Waterways Institute for seven months. Prior to being a research associate, he was a Senior Customer Service Financial Analyst for Entergy Corporation for a year and a half. Michel earned his PhD in financial economics at the University of New Orleans.

Ralph Rector, Ph.D. Program Manager Center for Data Analysis
	Rector holds a Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University and he received a bachelor's degree in economics and political philosophy from Oklahoma State University in 1979. Prior to joining The Heritage Foundation in 1998, Rector worked in the Tax Policy Group at Coopers & Lybrand, L.L.P. where he supervised the construction of microsimulation models to analyze the impact of tax reform on businesses and individuals. He has managed projects involving use of large-scale relational databases and he has served as a tax analyst and revenue estimator at the state and federal levels of government.

Mark Tapscott Senior Journalism Fellow
	Prior to joining The Heritage Foundation in 1999, he was a managing editor at The Journal Newspapers in suburban Washington, D.C. where his staff won 42 professional journalism awards for excellence in reporting, news photography and feature writing. He was a member of the FOI Subcommittee of the Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Press Association. He is also a former assistant managing editor, national editor and business editor for The Washington Times where he began his journalism career in 1985 as a national staff reporter. Tapscott received a bachelor's degree in communications and political science in 1972 from Oklahoma State University and completed Ph.D. coursework and a dissertation draft in 1975 in political philosophy from the University of Dallas.

Timothy Kane, Ph.D.
Research Fellow
Center for Data Analysis

Tim Kane is a research fellow in macroeconomcis. He was born in Lansing, MI, and grew up in Columbus, OH. He earned a BS degree with a double major in Economics and Political Science at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He earned a Ph.D. degree in Economics at the University of California, San Diego.

Before joining Heritage, he was a professor of economics at Occidental College and San Diego State University for 2 years. He also was a high-tech entrepreneur, founding two software companies in San Diego. He is an Air Force veteran, and served as an intelligence officer in Asia during the early 1990’s. He lives in Vienna, VA with his wife Hiromi and children.

Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

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