Alfie Meek, Ph.D.

Alfie Meek, Ph.D., is the Director of the Center for Economic Development Research at the Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI²). He has more than 25 years of experience in economic/fiscal impact analysis and community-based research.  Over the years Dr. Meek has served the State of Georgia in various roles including the technical advisory committee for the Georgia Rural Development Council and the Rural Research Consortium.  During the pandemic, Dr. Meek served as a member of Governor Kemp’s Coronavirus Task Force Economic Advisory Committee and has recently been asked to serve on the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors.

Before joining EI², Alfie served for nine years as the Chief Economist and Director of Economic Development for the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners.  In that role, he was integral in the development and implementation of Partnership Gwinnett, a community-wide strategic plan that was named the best multi-year economic development program for large communities by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) in 2010.  Before his time in Gwinnett County, he spent three years as the Director of Applied Research at The University of Georgia’s Business Outreach Services and Small Business Development Center and served for five years on the faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an economist and project director for the Center for Economic Development Services.  Preceding his tenure at Georgia Tech, Alfie was the Research Economist for SunTrust Banks, Inc.

Current areas of special focus include economic/fiscal impact analysis, forecasting and modeling, tax policy analysis, and target industry analysis.  In addition to his research, Dr. Meek speaks widely on topics relating to economic impact and economic development.  Dr. Meek is on the board of the Georgia Academy of Economic Development and has spoken to more than to 4,300 elected officials and local leaders from each of the 159 counties in Georgia on the importance of fiscal impact analysis in their economic development efforts.

Dr. Meek has also written for economic development-related publications, as well as other periodicals.  His research on the size and economic impact of the sports industry in the United States was published in Sports Marketing Quarterly.  This research has been written about and cited in numerous publications – USA Today, Georgia Trend, Financial Times London, Fortune Magazine, and Investor’s Business Daily among others.

Alfie is an active member of the Georgia Economic Developers Association (GEDA); the National Association for Business Economics (NABE); and is past president of the Atlanta Economics Club.  He holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from The University of Georgia; a Master of Science in Business Economics from Georgia State University; and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Georgia Institute of Technology.