Alex Carrick obtained his undergraduate degree at the University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario, Canada) in 1969. His M.A. in Economics was earned at the University of Toronto (U of T) in 1971. Mr. Carrick left the academic world for an exciting opportunity with the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction (CISC), a trade association representing structural steel fabricators. He eventually became the CISC’s Secretary-Treasurer.

In 1985, Mr. Carrick moved further into the private sector when he assumed the role of Chief Economist with CanaData, the leading supplier of statistics and forecasting information for the Canadian construction industry. CanaData is a product line of ConstructConnect based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Due in large measure to his heightened social media presence, Mr. Carrick was promoted to ConstructConnect’s U.S. and Canadian Chief Economist nearly a decade ago. The number of his followers on Twitter and LinkedIn is in the tens of thousands.

Pre-pandemic, and virtually through the pandemic, Mr. Carrick’s endeavors have become much broader in scope. He has delivered numerous presentations throughout the continent on the Canadian, United States and world construction markets. The number of articles he’s written for the company’s various websites has climbed into the thousands.

Mr. Carrick also co-ordinates, along with Oxford Economics (London, U.K.), the calculation of a much-followed quarterly econometric ‘construction starts’ forecast for dissemination to a list of high-profile subscribers in the U.S. and Canada. In addition, Mr. Carrick’s U.S. put-in-place capital spending projections form part of the consensus outlook piece showcased by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) twice each year.