Jock O'Connell is widely regarded as one of California's foremost authorities on world trade, global economic trends, and the internationalization of the Golden State's economy. A former staff advisor to the California Commission for Economic Development and a current member of the California Economic Strategy Panel's Technical Advisory Group, he is the Principal Consultant of The ClarkStreet Group, a private firm specializing in the analysis of economic, technological, and political trends affecting international commerce.

Mr. O'Connell grew up on the coast of Maine, received his B.A. in political science from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and later pursued a doctoral degree in international relations at the University of California at Davis. He has also studied at the Institute of European Studies (University of Vienna) in Austria and at the London School of Economics, where he was a Fulbright Scholar.

He is the author of numerous articles on economic, political and trade issues that have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury-News, Sacramento Bee, the California Journal, and Salon.Com.

Mr. O'Connell has been a lecturer at the University of California at Davis, the California State University, Sacramento, and the University of California Center in Sacramento, where he will be co-teaching a course on the Globalization of California's Economy during the Spring 2008 term.

Mr. O'Connell has most recently been engaged in projects relating to the logistics of foreign trade, the condition of California's international trade infrastructure, and, more specifically, the rapidly changing air cargo industry. He is a member of the Air Cargo Sub-Committee of the Transportation Research Board, a division of the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council. He is currently involved in a goods movement study for the Sacramento Area Council of Governments as well as a study of the market for airborne agricultural exports to the Far East for the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

More extensive information as well as links to all of Mr. O'Connell's published articles can be found at www.jockoconnell.com.