Director

Dr. Barrett serves as the Director of the Institute for Innovation and Economic Development and the LaGrange Eminent Scholar.  He received a Ph.D. in Statistics with a minor in Management Science from the University of Alabama in 1995. He has served as a UNA faculty member since 1997, taught as Professor of Quantitative Methods since 2004, and is the current Chair of the Department of Economics and Finance.  He has served on the Graduate Faculty of the University of Alabama.  Dr. Barrett has completed several economic impact studies for clients such as the City of Florence, Huntsville Housing Authority, RegionalCare Hospital Partners, and the University of North Alabama.  He has assisted as an instructor for Strategic Doing workshops.  Dr. Barrett is a founding member, first President, and a board member of the Society of Business, Industry, and Economics.  His publications have appeared in numerous academic journals, including Technometrics, IIE Transactions, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Human Relations, Journal of Business Ethics, Communications in Statistics: Stochastic Models, Journal of Sports Economics, and Public Finance Review.  He has served on the Editorial Review Boards for the Journal of Business Cases and Applications, the Journal of Financial and Economic Practice, and the Journal of Business, Industry, and Economics.