MARY JO WAITS

Mary Jo Waits is a senior fellow with the Center for the Future of Arizona, a nonprofit organization founded by Lattie Coor, former President of Arizona State University. For more than a decade, she was Associate Director of the Morrison Institute for Public Policy, a “think tank” at Arizona State University. She oversaw the Institute’s project development, publications, research and analysis. She was one of two lead consultants for Arizona’s economic development strategies--Arizona’s Strategic Plan for Economic Development, 1990 and Arizona’s Partnership for the New Economy, 2001. She was principal author of The New Economy: A Guide for Arizona and The New Economy: Policy Choices for Arizona. She was project director for the October 2000 report, Hits and Misses: Fast Growth in Metropolitan Phoenix. She was commissioned by the Alliance for Regional Stewardship to produce a monograph, The Downtowns of the Future: Opportunities for Regional Stewards in 2001. Based on that work, Ms Waits served as W.K. Kellogg Foundation Expert-in-Resident. 

She was the principal author of Five Shoes Waiting to Drop on Arizona’s Future, the fourth publication in the Institute’s Arizona Policy Choices report series. The National Conference of State Legislatures awarded the “Five Shoes” report a 2002 Notable Document Award. Most recently, she was the principal author of Which Way Scottsdale?, a report widely acclaimed for shaping that city’s –and other cities’—strategy to lead in the knowledge economy.

In 2002, she received the Desert Peaks Regional Excellence Award as the single individual who demonstrated exemplary commitment to the spirit of regionalism. She was nominated for the award by the City of Phoenix because of her positive impact on the public debate and policy choices in the region and in Arizona.

Ms. Waits was assistant director for the Arizona Governor’s Office of Policy Development and Planning during the Babbitt Administration. She also served as a senior economic policy advisor to the governor and lieutenant governor of Alaska.

Governor Symington appointed Ms. Waits to serve as an executive board member of the Governor’s Strategic Partnership for Economic Development (GSPED). She served four years as a member of the North American Development Bank’s Advisory Board, appointed by President Clinton, and for four years as a member of the Phoenix Planning Commission. 

Ms. Waits has been a keynote speaker for national conferences including Western Governors Association, National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, National Conference of State Legislatures, Council on State Governments, US Department of Commerce, International Downtown Association, International Economic Development Council, Alliance for Regional Stewardship, American Association of State Colleges and Universities, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

She is a member of the Economic Development Quarterly’s editorial board. She has written extensively on the industry clusters approach to economic development. Her articles on economic development have been published in Public Administration Review, Economic Development Quarterly, and Economic Development Commentary.

Ms. Waits holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California. She was a doctoral candidate (ABD), University of Michigan.