Rick is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the BYU Macroeconomics and Computational Laboratory and is one of nine members of the Utah Economic Council. After receiving a B.A. in economics from Brigham Young University in 1998, he began his economic career as a Research Economist at Thredgold Economic Associates in Salt Lake City, providing state and national economic analysis for Zions Bank and their operations in eight western states. Rick later received a M.A. in Public Policy from Brigham Young University in and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin. He has also spent time as a researcher at the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and as an economic consultant.