Bill Gilmer is Director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting (IRF) at the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business.  The Institute monitors the Houston and Gulf Coast business cycle, analyzing how oil markets, the national economy, and global expansion influence the regional economy.  Gilmer is also appointed as an inaugural University of Houston Energy Fellow. 

Before joining the Institute, Gilmer served the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas for 23 years, retiring from the bank as a Senior Economist and Vice President.  He joined the Houston Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas as a senior economist in 1989, focusing on energy markets and regional growth.  He co-managed the 11th  district’s regional economic analysis from 2004-2012, and was editor of two of the bank’s regional publications.  Gilmer’s work on the Texas economy has been recognized in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Forbes.

Gilmer also served the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas as the officer in charge of the El Paso Branch from 2003-2012, overseeing Federal Reserve operations in West Texas and New Mexico.  Prior to joining the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in 1989, he held the principal economic forecasting position at the Tennessee Valley  Authority.  He also worked as a research economist at the Institute for Energy Analysis in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and at the Institute for Defense Analysis in Arlington,  Virginia.

Gilmer was as an intern in the Texas Governor's office while finishing graduate school, and spent 1987-88 as a Visiting Research Professor at Ball State University in Muncie Indiana.

He was born in Amarillo, Texas, and grew up in El Paso where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Texas at El Paso. Gilmer later earned a Master of Arts and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas at Austin.