About FXM Associates
FXM Associates is a consulting firm specializing in economic planning and research for public and private sector clients nationwide. The company was established in 1991 by Francis X. Mahady, an economist and planner with more than 45 years’ experience in economic development and transportation planning. The firm offers expertise in economic development, transportation planning, social and economic impact assessment, and waterfront development.
The company's signature work is its development of practical and effective strategies to attract, retain, and diversify employment and business opportunities, while retaining and enhancing the natural and historic characteristics that distinguish communities and regions. FXM's senior professionals have shown particular strength in communicating the results of our work to a broad spectrum of citizen, professional, business, and legislative groups In each assignment, the firm strives to help clients sharpen goals and objectives, to provide relevant analyses and recommendations for achieving them, and to produce reports and presentations that are focused and comprehensible to the target audience.
FXM Associates is a small business meeting the standards in 13 CFR Part 121, and Federal Acquisition Regulations, 48 CFR Part 19.
Francis X. Mahady
Principal
Mr. Mahady is an economist and planner with over 45 years' experience in community and regional planning nationwide. He is the author of more than 400 reports, journal articles, and presentations in the fields of economic development, transportation, land use and demographic forecasting, and social and economic impact assessment. His clients include state and federal agencies, regional and municipal governments, non-profit organizations, engineering firms, and development companies. He serves as principal-in-charge and author or co-author on all FXM assignments. Prior to founding FXM Associates in 1991, he was a Senior Vice President at Economics Research Associates, where he led that firm's transportation planning and economic development practice nationwide for 15 years. Mr. Mahady holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College and a Master of City Planning degree, specializing in economic development, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dianne Tsitsos
Senior Associate
Dianne Tsitsos has over 30 years’ experience in economic development planning. For FXM Associates, she specializes in developing economic development strategies, fiscal and socioeconomic impact analyses and in market studies for public and private investment projects, particularly in housing and transportation. Her most recent projects include preparation of the socioeconomic impact sections of EIS’s for the proposed $2.5 billion Allston Interchange /West Station project and the $4.2 billion project to replace the Sagamore and Bourne Bridges to Cape Cod. Prior to joining FXM Associates, she was a Senior Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development. She was responsible for low and moderate income housing and urban development programs in developing countries. In the latter part of her USAID career, she was a senior manager overseeing a broad range of international economic development projects in the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Ms. Tsitsos has degrees in Political Science from Tufts University (M.A.) and Syracuse University/Maxwell School (B.A.).
Michael L. Lahr, Ph.D.
Senior Consultant
Michael Lahr is an economist and Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University. He has extensive experience in regional input-output modeling and is the author or co-author of over 80 publications, papers, reports and presentations. Dr. Lahr has developed models to estimate economic impacts of transportation, waterfront, tourism, and historic preservation investments across the U.S. His research spans a broad range of regional economic issues. Dr. Lahr has collaborated with FXM for the past 25 years. He typically applies the RECON Input Output Model and other quantitative models to assess indirect and induced economic and fiscal effects and to forecast population and employment changes attributable to a wide variety of project investments. His projects with FXM range from the economic impact of Bridgewater State college, the role in the regional economy of the Peace Bridge between Buffalo, N.Y. and Fort Erie, Ontario, and estimating future households, population, and employment on Cape Cod. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He holds a B.A./M.A. and Ph.D. in Regional Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
David Borges
Senior Associate
David Borges is a multidisciplinary applied research analyst with over twenty-five years’ experience conducting quantitative and qualitative research that supports evidence-based decision making. Mr. Borges has worked with a wide variety of public and private organizations to conduct research in the areas of economic development, workforce development, program evaluation, economic impact analysis, market feasibility, and public health. Most recently he was the principal analyst and author of FXM’s report on the economic and fiscal impacts of the Padanarum waterfront on the economy of Dartmouth, MA.
Prior to founding Springline Research Group, Mr. Borges spent over twenty years at UMass Dartmouth’s Public Policy Center, building that institution into the leading applied public research institution in Southeastern Massachusetts. With a foundation built on his experience conducting research in an academic setting, rigorous and replicable methods, transparency, objectivity, and the presentation of clear and actionable results are the ethos of his work. Among his many projects with the Public Policy Center were Blue Economy studies for Southeastern Massachusetts, the Massachusetts North Shore, and an assessment of economic impacts attributable to water dependent and related economic activities throughout Massachusetts.