A consulting economist must create a last-minute economic profile of the host county for a last minute presentation to the local economics club in Washoe County, Nevada, after the original speaker booked was unable to make it to the meeting.

You have been asked by a life-long colleague to prepare a last-minute presentation as the keynote speaker for a local economist club (Washoe County, Nevada) luncheon meeting. This call came just after you hopped out of bed in the morning. You have less than an hour to complete this task, but with the help of the NV-REAP site you will be able to get it done in plenty of time. You will even have enough time for a leisurely cup of coffee before the meeting.

You are a summer intern for a commercial real estate investment firm, and have to evaluate, analyze, and compare two major metropolitan markets in a very short amount of time. The key players in your firm have determined over the course of a handshake and expense-account steak dinner to look into whether the Reno (Washoe County, Nevada) or Sacramento (Sacramento County, California) markets appear more viable (on the demand side) for a commercial real estate building. They are interested in buildings that will house firms in the information business. Because in-depth real estate market analysis is expensive, they have asked you for a very brief presentation (they have very short attention spans when not at a steakhouse or bar) that they will use to determine which of these markets to analyze at greater depth. It is 2pm, and they have asked you to return this report by happy hour at their favorite haunt, which begins at 4pm. Unfortunately, they do not want you to be at the bar with them, so you must present the material by 3:45 pm.

A newly minted-MBA uses REAP and in a matter of hours presents a brief overview of two tertiary economies for his regional bank.

Regional banks, bolstered by the cheap capital flood emanating from Washington D.C. and Wall Street, are jockeying for position to develop fast growing tertiary markets in the West. You are an MBA recently hired by a regional bank headquartered in Reno, Nevada. The bank is interested in expanding its reach in the areas of Minden (Douglas County) and Fernley (Lyon County). At 4:30 pm you’re asked by the bank president to prepare a 12 minute overview presentation about the Douglas and Lyon County economies relative to the rest of the state of Nevada for the bank’s board of directors by 9 am the next morning. BTW…you’ve invited your girlfriend to dinner and dancing that evening so you can pop the question.

An aide to a legislator saves the day through use of the NV-REAP site by giving vital economic context that forms the basis of the stump speech given during the waning days of an intense and hotly contested campaign.

You are a legislative aide to a congressman from northern Nevada, who is in the waning days of an intense campaign. Because telephone polling surveys indicate he needs to draw a few hundred additional votes out of Northeastern Nevada, he needs to give a last-minute speech in Elko, Nevada. His chief strategist has told him the speech must be about economic issues, so he needs data and graphics on the economy. The congressman, from southern Nevada, has only been to Elko once in the past and has no knowledge of economic issues altogether, so the information must be presented in a simple, graphically pleasing format. Some interns in his campaign will be making excessively large versions of some of the graphics that you produce as a backdrop. They would like this in a PowerPoint format, and they would like it in 1 hour.

A health care lobbying group is interested in the importance of health care employment in Nevada. They wish to use data showing the relative lack of health care employment in Nevada as a stepping stone to tax inducements for future firm relocations into Nevada.

In your job as an economic aide-cum-consulting politico, you have been approached by a lobbying firm seeking your assistance in producing graphics and maps showing the importance of health care employment in Nevada. They are hoping to show that Nevada is underserved by health care employment as a basis for their demands for heavy tax inducements for new firms that choose to locate in Nevada. They demand graphics showing the importance, relative wages, and trends in health care employment.

You are a researcher for an organization that writes grants to secure funding for community and economic development efforts in Nye County in Southern Nevada. You are seeking to secure funding intended to serve areas that are lagging among income and employment indicators. For your initial grant application, you will need some visual materials that illustrate why Nye County, NV is an appropriate choice for these grant funds. The head of your organization was on vacation for the past 2 weeks, and the deadline is fast approaching. Although you should be distressed at your time pressure in this situation, REAP can greatly assist you in getting the graphics out fast.

You are packing to attend the annual Western Regional Economic Development Conference for the following three days and receive a call from your childhood friend Marie, who is now the Western EDA Director. You owe her a bit, seeing that it was she who convinced you to dance on the table top at the rehearsal dinner the night before your scheduled wedding to Ralph. Who would have guessed that the resulting cancelation of the wedding by Ralph’s parents would turn out to be a Godsend in light of Ralph’s conviction later in the week for running an investment securities ponzi scheme?

Marie informs you that one of the keynote speakers just called to say that she would not be able to show because of a pressing family emergency. She asks you if you could pinch hit and give a 15 minute presentation and overview of the economic conditions and trends of rural areas for 3 western states – California, Nevada and Washington. Your plane is due to leave in 2 ½ hours, which gives you a little over an hour to throw something together. Your plan…is to run and gun on the REAP website to pull off about 10-14 graphs and paste them into a PowerPoint…and head out the door. Get cracking.

Use the REAP site to provide professional quality graphics and illustrations for an article on the economic conditions of Eureka, Nevada in just a few short minutes. Your boss has been asked to write a guest column in the business reporting section of the Eureka Times. This column will be an overview of the regional economic activity of the region. Eureka just happens to be in Eureka County, Nevada. Your boss will do the writing, but needs your help with the graphics and short captions/vignettes for the paper.

The column is going to print tomorrow morning, so you need to have this done within a few hours.