Chief Economist
LEADERSHIP
Brett Edgerton serves as Chief Economist of Powderhouse, leading the institution’s economic research and market intelligence. He brings a decade of experience measuring, analyzing, and forecasting the U.S. economy inside the federal statistical system and in private-sector research.
Prior to joining Powderhouse, Brett served as a Supervisory Economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, leading the nonresidential construction team within the Producer Price Index program and serving as principal advisor to program leadership on the construction industries. Before that, as a Senior Economist at the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, he was a subject‑matter expert within the national accounts — responsible for business investment, software and R&D, and construction within GDP — and briefed senior staff monthly on the drivers of growth and revision.
Earlier, in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ International Price Program, he served on the experimental research team that produced new measurements of inflation from administrative trade records — early work in the alternative‑data methods now reshaping official statistics. He began his career producing econometric forecasts of U.S. hotel markets at CBRE Hotels Americas Research, where he authored the firm’s quarterly MarketView reports and its annual forecast-accuracy review, and represented its research at industry conferences and in the press.
Within the federal statistical community, Brett was selected for the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy’s mentorship program and served as a Pathways mentor to economists entering government service. He has taught economics throughout his career, as an adjunct in the Department of Business at the College of Southern Maryland and previously as a graduate instructor at the George Washington University School of Business — a record of translating technical work for expert and non-expert audiences alike.
At Powderhouse, Brett is responsible for how the institution reads the operating environment — the conditions under which founders build and capital moves. His work strengthens the evidence behind every evaluation the system produces.
Brett leads how the institution measures and interprets the environment in which founders build and capital moves.
His role is to ensure the institution never evaluates in the dark.
For economic research and market intelligence matters, please contact Powderhouse.