Roger Lee Mendoza

Dr. Roger Lee Mendoza, noted practising economist, economic historian and scholar, has contributed significantly to the study and implementation of privatization policies and strategies, especially for military installations and facilities in the United States.

Awarded the Reginald Gayle graduate fellowship, he obtained his Ph.D. from McGill University in 1993, where he trained under Nobel Laureate in Economic Science Robert Mundell and Charles Taylor, and did his postdoctorate in Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a summer exchange student at the University of London in 1991. His multi-awarded doctoral dissertation on the subject of "Economic Policy and the Privatization of Government Corporations" [See http://en.scientificcommons.org/5612438. See also "Economic Policy and the Privatization of Government Corporations" "Social Science Dissertation Abstracts", UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1995. vi, 420 pp.: illus. ] was written as many industrialized and developing countries began to downsize and restructure their public sector in the mid-1980s. Like his dissertation, many of his earlier works formulated stochastic models of divestiture and corporate restructuring that either influenced or were directly employed in several privatization initiatives in the 1990s. In 1995, then Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, who later became the first Secretary of Homeland Security, appointed him a member of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRACC) in recognition of his scholarly contributions to public enterprise reform. ["Mendoza Named to High-Profile Bases", "Philadelphia Inquirer", January 19, 1995, p. B-1.; "Ridge Vows fight for Jobs", "The Patriot Times", February 22, 1995, p. 1 and B-12; "Ridge Vows Base Closings Battle", "The Morning Call", February 22, 1995, p. 1.] During his term in the BRACC, he travelled nationwide with other BRACC members, met key military personnel and conducted BRACC hearings to help determine the method of privatization appropriate to each of the military bases and installations which were slated by the US Secretary of Defense for closure. These included full divestiture, merger with other military bases and facilities, base conversion and realignment. ["McGill News""' 76 (Spring 1996), p. 39.]

Dr. Mendoza has also done related actuarial work on the privatization of the Social Security and pension systems with several corporate, government and non-profit organizations, including the Board of Pensions, Towers Perrin, Hay Huggins, and Bancroft NeuroHealth. Formerly professor of economics at Drexel University, he has published in the areas of public sector reform, pension economics, and the economic history of retirement benefit systems. He specializes in defined contribution benefits and pension plans in his professional work with pension actuarial and investment recordkeeping firms. He is is a member of the American Economics Association (AEA), the International Economic History Association (IEHA) and the American Society of Pension Actuaries (ASPA). He is also active in local and national historical societies.

A consistent honor student who obtained his B.A. "summa cum laude", he is a life member of the honor societies of Phi Beta Kappa (for excellence in liberal arts), Phi Kappa Phi (for overall academic excellence), Pi Gamma Mu (for excellence in the social sciences), and Omicron Delta Epsilon (for outstanding scholarship in economic science).

Dr. Mendoza has lived in and travelled to over 30 countries and speaks Spanish, French and Filipino. He has resided in New Jersey for the last 10 years.

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