HDSI Industry Fellows play a special role in mentoring our students and in building research engagements with our industry partners. To achieve these goals, the HDSI Industry Fellows program is designed to attract well-known practitioners of Data Science areas from our industry partners for their engagement into Institute’s activities including company visits, seminars, meet-up events and mentoring of student projects, including required capstone projects for our seniors.
It is my pleasure to announce the appointment of Ray Major as an HDSI Industry Fellow. Ray joins our Industry Fellows, Keith Muller, Dean Lee and Matthew Levy in supporting our broader mission.
Mr. Major currently serves as the Chief Economist and Chief Data Analytics Office for SANDAG, the San Diego Association of Governments. SANDAG operates as the chief planning agency consisting of 18 cities and county government in the San Diego region. SANDAG is a public agency that serves as the forum for regional decision-making. SANDAG builds consensus; makes strategic plans; obtains and allocates resources; plans, engineers, and builds public transportation, and provides information on a broad range of topics pertinent to the region’s quality of life.
Mr. Major received BA and MA degrees in Economics from San Diego State University. He has over 20 years’ experience in the private sector as a senior executive providing oversight and direction for the profitable growth of companies and business units. He previously served in a variety of leadership roles in private industry including Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Nielsen (a media data company) and Chief Strategy Officer and CEO at Halo Business Intelligence where he focused on data, analytics, and business intelligence applications to help fortune 500 companies gain insights and make better use of data through advanced analytics.
In his current role at SANDAG, Ray Major leads the Office of Data Science and Analytics where he oversees the SANDAG economic and demographic forecast, and the agency’s data and analytics strategy. He is responsible for agency-wide of empirical information as a regional asset. Ray supports many regionally significant initiatives including the 2021 Regional Plan (known as “5 Big Moves”); the San Diego Grand Central Station and Airport Connectivity project; and the Otay Mesa East Port of Entry project.
