
'Roger L. 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"
[1] 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.
[2] 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.
[3]
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.
References
1. 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.
2. '''"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.
3. '''McGill News''' 76 (Spring 1996), p. 39.