Dr. Ray Perryman to Receive Chairman's Award for Lifetime Achievement in Economic Development from the International Economic Development Council | The Perryman Group

Dr. Ray Perryman to Receive Chairman's Award for Lifetime Achievement in Economic Development from the International Economic Development Council

Released on August 27, 2019

Dr. Ray Perryman, founder and President of The Perryman Group, has been selected to receive the Chairman's Award for Lifetime Achievement in Economic Development from the International Economic Development Council (IEDC). The award is being given in recognition of Dr. Perryman's decades-long commitment to economic development and providing the information corporations and communities need to optimize location decisions.

Dr. Perryman pioneered many of the techniques for economic development analysis now routinely used throughout the world. He is author of "The Market for Prosperity," a widely used primer on economic development that is used throughout the US, and "Texas, Our Texas," the comprehensive plan that was the catalyst for the Texas economic development program, which is one of the world's most successful. He has been the keynote speaker at many major economic development venues around the world and has worked on initiatives on four continents. His efforts have been instrumental in the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs and trillions of dollars in capital investments.

"I am extremely grateful to my friends Tracye McDaniel and Jeff Finkle and everyone at IEDC for this designation," said Dr. Perryman. "As with most things in my career, I became involved in economic development by answering the phone, but it quickly became a passion. Economic development helps families and communities achieve their destinies. It is a place where economics becomes very real and meaningful. I was fortunate enough to come at it from a different perspective and bring some mathematics and optimization techniques to the process that make it more systematic and information driven. The real heroes of economic development, however, are the dedicated professionals who work tirelessly to make things happen and the citizens who vigorously support their communities. Being able to work with so many of them has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my career."

The Perryman Group has performed economic development analyses for dozens of communities in all 50 states and several foreign countries. Dr. Perryman has been commended for work in these areas by the American Planning Association, the Systems Research Foundation, the Democracy Foundation, the Asia and World Institute, the International Institute of Advanced Studies, and numerous governmental and other entities. The firm has analyzed the economic development aspects of a broad range of corporate locations, infrastructure projects, and regulatory changes, and has extensive experience in site selection and the corporate location decision process.

The award will be presented at the IEDC's annual conference in Indianapolis in October.