Andrea Wood, publisher/editor of “The Business Journal” will address the morning ceremony

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Joseph G. Carson, director of Global Economic Research at AllianceBernstein, and Andrea Wood, chairwoman and president of the Youngstown Publishing Co., will receive honorary degrees at Youngstown State University’s Spring Commencement on May 7 in Beeghly Center on campus.

Wood is the featured speaker at the morning ceremony that starts at 9:30 a.m., and Carson speaks at the afternoon ceremony starting at 2:30 p.m.

A resident of Poland, Wood became the first newswoman at WYTV Channel 33 in Youngstown in 1974. She went on to work as a news anchor, producer and reporter at WSBT-TV in South Bend, Ind., and WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh. In 1979, she returned to WYTV as an investigative reporter and subsequently was promoted to chief anchor and executive producer.

In 1984, Wood launched a venture to promote small business and economic redevelopment in the Mahoning Valley with publication of the Youngstown Business Journal. In 1992, the newspaper broadened its scope to cover a five-county region and became known as The Business Journal.

Wood has served on numerous boards, including the Citizens League of Greater Youngstown, League of Women Voters, Crime Stoppers of Greater Youngstown and the Workforce Investment Board of Mahoning and Columbiana Counties. She is secretary of the YMCA of Youngstown board of trustees and a mentor in the Youngstown Business Incubator’s Women in Entrepreneurship program.

Carson, who lives in New York, earned bachelor and master of arts degrees from Youngstown State University and did his doctoral course work at George Washington University.

He joined AllianceBernstein, a global investment-management and research firm, in 2001. He oversees the Economic Analysis team for AllianceBernstein Fixed Income and has primary responsibility for the economic and interest-rate analysis of the United States.

Previously, Carson was chief economist of the Americas for UBS Warburg, where he was primarily responsible for forecasting the U.S. economy and interest rates. From 1996 to 1999, he was chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank.

While there, Carson was named to the Institutional Investor All-Star Team for Fixed Income and ranked as one of Best Analysts and Economists by The Global Investor Fixed Income Survey.

Carson began his professional career in 1977 as a staff economist for the chief economist’s office in the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he was designated the department’s representative at the Council on Wage and Price Stability during President Jimmy Carter’s voluntary wage and price guidelines program.

In 1979, Carson joined General Motors as an analyst. He had a variety of roles at GM, including chief forecaster for North America and chief analyst in charge of production recommendations for the Truck Group.