Rock Ridge Country Club, 214 Sugar Street/Route 302, will host Greater Danbury Chamber’s annual Economic Forecast on Friday, April 25, from 7:30 to 9 am.

Guests will gain expert insights into the US, Connecticut, and greater Danbury economies with a focus on consumer fundamentals, labor market conditions, and growth prospects. Key topics include inflation, interest rates, demographic trends, regional challenges, and risks to continued expansion in 2025.

The speaker will be Don Klepper-Smith, chief economist and director of research, DataCore Partners LLC. Klepper-Smith has been a professional economist for over forty years and served as chairman of Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell’s Economic Advisory Council between 2007 and 2010.

He is a longtime observer of the region’s economy, and is regularly quoted by various media sources for his perspective and insights on the domestic and Connecticut economies, being a frequent economics commentator on WTNH television in New Haven.

Klepper-Smith is also a longtime professional researcher, developing and directing strategic planning initiatives on behalf of clients in order to help them make better business decisions.

Between 1982 and 1996, Klepper-Smith was corporate economist with Southern New England Telephone in New Haven, providing economic analysis and forecasts of national and state business trends.

Today, he specializes in evaluating consumer markets, assessing the generators of consumer wealth, while also providing valuable perspective on business conditions as they relate to credit markets and employment growth. A technician by trade, Klepper-Smith’s reliable forecasts of the changing US and New England economic landscapes have kept him in demand.

In addition to chairing Governor Rell’s Economic Advisory Council, he also served as an economic advisor to the Governor of Connecticut during the Weicker Administration, and is presently an economic advisor to Liberty Bank in Middletown.

Klepper-Smith has chaired numerous economic outlook conferences over the last three decades, and has served as president of both the Economic Club of Connecticut and the Hartford Area Business Economists, two organizations that explore economic issues of importance to Connecticut with a focus on business, government and education.

He earned his Master’s degree in Public Administration from Stony Brook University in New York in 1978, focusing on economics, econometric modeling, statistics and forecasting theory. In 1975, he earned his BS in Applied Mathematics from Stony Brook University, as well.

Klepper-Smith is now semi-retired and lives in Hilton Head, S.C., with his wife Marcia.

Tickets for the Greater Danbury Chamber’s Economic Forecast are $49.87 ($44.87 for Greater Danbury Chamber members). They are available at danburychamber.com.

Additional information is available by contacting the Chamber at 203-743-5565 or info@danburychamber.com.