About Us

Richard Wobbekind: Leader, Economist, Instructor

As Associate Dean of the MBA and Executive Education programs at the Leeds School of Business, a preeminent economist, and a member of Colorado Governor’s Revenue Estimating Advisory Committee, Richard Wobbekind brings a unique blend of real-world experience and specialty knowledge to his classes. Through the Colorado Executive Development in Residence Program (CEDIR), Richard teaches at the MBA and Executive level, and helps undergraduate non-business majors gain understanding of business education. In addition to his professional positions, Richard has been teaching at CU since 1985.

As a leading Colorado economist, how do you interface with businesses and government entities in our state?

I am the Executive Director of the Business Research Division at Leeds, where we have a small, highly trained research team. We conduct research, and compile and analyze data to create economic forecasts for the state of Colorado. So, I do a lot of external work to inform the broader business community, both locally and nationally, about economic conditions and how those conditions will affect their general business decisions.

More specifically, we produce three quarterly written pieces, in addition to the annual state economic forecast, which we present in December to business leaders and government entities.

The first of the three quarterly pieces we do is the Business Leaders Confidence Index for the state of Colorado. For this, we survey people managing businesses to get a sense of their views on things like hiring, sales, profitability and investment in new capital. This is an attempt to get real-time info about the direction of the economy in the short term.

The second is a Quarterly Leading Economics series, which is published in the Boulder County Business Report, and is read by local businesses to inform their decisions.

The third publication is a quarterly newsletter that covers the Colorado economy, which informs business and government leaders statewide.

Interspersed between these three quarterly pieces is the Business Economic Outlook — a compilation of the state economic forecast. As part of this, we do very detailed work on all the sectors of our broader economy like agriculture, mining, telecom and aerospace. This industry-specific work gives us good understanding of the current state of a particular sector, including what might happen in that sector in the upcoming year.

The annual Business Economic Outlook, which shows what direction the economy is going and the economic health or sickness of particular sector, is presented to business and government leaders to discuss the state of our economy and how that will inform and influence their upcoming decisions.

You have quite a lot of real-world experience to share with students. What topics do you cover in your courses?

The courses I teach focus on macroeconomics and the business environment people operate in, both monetary and fiscal. We cover things like policy, international business and international trade and, depending on the course, the regulatory or operational environment of business, like anti-trust and other regulatory provisions – the laws and regulations businesses operate under.

In general, what do your students hope to gain from taking your courses?

Most students who are in the working world want to know “how is this going to help me run my business smarter or do my job better tomorrow.”

My courses make students more complete and effective as business people. What they take away enables them to understand better the bigger picture of their business environment and makes them more capable of interpreting data in a wider array of circumstance and with more sophistication. It also means they can ask the right questions or bring up important issues in decision-making situations. Ultimately, this allows them to strategize ways to make their company more successful.

How do your students benefit from your professional work?

The work I do gives me extensive knowledge of theoretical concepts with a lot of practical application. I really know about what is going in the national and state economy, not just because I teach but because I am doing extensive research in this area. This helps provide a lot of real-world detail to a topic that can sometimes be taught abstractly. There are other people who do a great job at teaching; they just don’t do what I do.

In my particular case, having a lot of significant real-world experience helps me improve the relevance of course material for my students, regardless of their background or level of education. When I can use real examples, it improves the understanding process.

Also, because many of my students are working in the corporate world already, it helps that I understand their particular industry. The knowledge base I have from our research work in specific sectors of our economy means that I can talk to students about how a particular theory can be applied in their specific industry.

What is your general teaching philosophy or strategy?

I have found that when students, including myself, don’t have to keep up with the reading or work, the course lags behind other things competing for time. This is especially true for students with stressful corporate jobs. So, to help students keep up with the material I always have tests. And, to help them make the connection between theory and real-world scenarios, I assign projects or hand-in work that requires them to take what they are learning in class and apply it in some direct way to something relevant to them.

Regardless of the class, I use a three-component teaching strategy. The first component is conventional lecture and development of framework. This is where people get the nuts and bolts. The second is discussion of real-world situations. What is going on in the current state of our economy and how does what we are learning in class relate? The last component focuses on application of what has been learned, which generally includes a project so students can apply what they have learned in a business or other real-life context.

How do the business courses offered through CEDIR and Continuing Education differ from the courses offered through the Leeds School of Business?

Executive education gives people the opportunity to take classes that are much smaller than mega-section courses offered on campus. The classes are more personal and there is more contact and interaction with the instructors. This is a huge advantage for some students. At the same time, we expect every bit the same coverage of knowledge as we would in our regular classes offered through the business school. So Continuing Education classes are the same in terms of material and teachers, but smaller and more personal.