SPEAKER BIO: Brian Wesbury

Brian Wesbury is chief investment strategist and chairman of the investment committee at Claymore Securities, Inc., a financial services firm based in Lisle, Illinois. He also serves as The Heartland Institute's senior fellow for federal budgets, trade, taxes, and monetary policy. The Wall Street Journal ranked Wesbury the nation’s #1 U.S. economic forecaster in 2001 and USA Today ranked him as one of the nation’s top 10 forecasters in 2004. Wesbury writes a monthly column for The American Spectator magazine and serves as the magazine’s economics editor. He is a contributor to the editorial page at The Wall Street Journal and is a regular co-host on CNBC’s Squawk Box. Wesbury is a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and an adjunct professor of economics at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. In 1995 and 1996, he served as chief economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress. Wesbury’s career as an economist began in 1982 at Harris Bank in Chicago. He also has served as vice president and economist for The Chicago Corporation and as sSenior vice president and chief economist at Griffin, Kubik, Stephens & Thompson, Inc. Wesbury received an M.B.A. from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a B.A. in economics from the University of Montana. McGraw-Hill published Wesbury’s first book, The New Era of Wealth, in October 1999.