Eric Clower
Turning complex economic insight into tools, guidance, and decisions people trust.
I’m a senior education and applications leader with experience spanning applied economics, analytical software, and large-scale user enablement. I currently serve as Director of Education Services at IMPLAN, where my work focuses on helping organizations move from complex analysis to practical understanding—so economic insight can inform real decisions with clarity and confidence. In my current role, I lead and mentor a cross-functional education team responsible for training, documentation, and user enablement, including hiring and onboarding new team members.
Across roles in product development, education, and customer enablement, I’ve led efforts to design tools, documentation, and training that make sophisticated analytical methods accessible, reliable, and actionable for decision-makers.
How I approach economic insight and decision-making
I focus on helping organizations move from complex economic analysis to clear, trusted decisions by combining analytical rigor with practical education and user-centered design.
- Decision-first framing: I start with the decisions people need to make, then work backward to the analysis, assumptions, and models that meaningfully inform those choices.
- Applied economics over abstraction: Economic theory matters most when it is grounded in real-world constraints, data limitations, and institutional context.
- Education as a force multiplier: Clear documentation, training, and explanation are not add-ons—they are what make sophisticated analysis usable at scale.
- Trust through clarity and reproducibility: Tools, workflows, and guidance should be transparent, testable, and understandable to the people who rely on them.
- Bridging roles and perspectives: I’m most effective working across economics, product, and users—translating between technical depth and practical application.
Selected work
Building reliable time-series modeling tools for applied economic decision-making
Led the design and implementation of production-grade time-series modeling tools used by applied economists and analysts. This work emphasized statistical correctness, transparent assumptions, and reproducible results—so forecasting and policy analysis could be trusted in real decision contexts.
In addition to core model implementation, the project incorporated test suites, validation against known benchmarks, and instructional examples, aligning econometric theory with day-to-day analytical use and user education.
Designing education and documentation to scale economic understanding
Led the development of instructional code, reference implementations, and documentation to support the practical application of econometric and time-series methods. This work focused on clarifying model assumptions, illustrating correct usage through examples, and reducing friction for users applying advanced methods in real analytical settings.
These efforts supported formal training, online documentation, and user support workflows—helping ensure that sophisticated analytical tools could be understood, taught, and used consistently across a broad user base.