ABOUT
Johnson Economics
Johnson Economics is a consultancy serving a diverse mix of clients, including government and public agencies, corporations, developers, institutional investors, financial institutions, and non-profit organizations. The variety of our client base has allowed our firm to approach the development process from a wide range of perspectives.
Johnson Economics was founded with the intent of assembling the most technically capable and knowledgeable consulting professionals in the Northwest. We have assembled a staff of highly qualified and experienced individuals, with over 50 years of combined experience. Our firm offers a full range of real estate and economic development services, with extensive experience in a wide range of land uses and development forms.
Our Team
Brendan Buckley, Senior Project Manager
Senior Project Manager Brendan Buckley has 20 years of experience consulting on the interface of public policy, urban planning, and private real estate development. He has a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning, and a graduate-level certificate in Real Estate Development. His prior experience includes urban renewal and long range planning for the City of Gresham, Oregon, and policy for the Everett Housing Authority. He specializes in bridging the gap between public policy and private market activity.
Brendan has personally managed and/or contributed technical analysis to hundreds of market analyses, economic, and housing studies over the past two decades. He has experience leading all facets of these projects including project management, feasibility and highest-and-best use analysis, economic trends and employment forecasting, stakeholder and business outreach, public facilitation, target industry analysis, buildable lands and land need analysis, economic development policies and strategy.
Brendan regularly consults on development feasibility and market conditions for plan areas, town centers, and transit-oriented development, including identifying financing gaps for dense and mixed-use housing, and estimating the potential amount and timing of development types that meet plan goals. Brendan works with communities ranging from small towns across Oregon to some of the largest and most complex local economies in the state, including Portland and Hillsboro.
In all his work, Brendan’s goal is to help private and public sector clients achieve successful projects that become tangible, livable places.
Jon Spikkeland , Senior Project Manager
Jon Spikkeland is a Senior Project Manager with Johnson Economics. He specializes in real estate economics, market research, financial feasibility, and economic development. Over his 13 years at the firm, he has managed hundreds of feasibility and highest and best use studies across residential, commercial, hospitality, and industrial sectors. His clients include many of the most active developers and port districts in the Pacific Northwest, as well as landowners, Tribes, and jurisdictions. He has extensive experience as Project Manager and Technical Lead on multidisciplinary teams, integrating the work of planners, engineers, and other professionals to support strategic planning. He is frequently retained to evaluate economic and fiscal impacts and to support land use and zoning decisions, negotiations, and underwriting.
Jon has spent much of his professional career studying the interconnection of economic factors that determine real estate development patterns, including business locations and industry clusters, the impact of job growth on housing demand across demographic segments, the demographic impact on retail and amenity support, and the impact of public investments, regulatory constraints, and policy tools. He has extensive experience with large and complex mixed-use and master-planned projects, with particular expertise in placemaking, catalytic development, and amenity planning. His tools include predictive models that incorporate GIS, employment data, demographic modeling, and pro-forma financial analysis.
Mr. Spikkeland holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance from Washington State University as well as Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Religious Studies from MF Norwegian School of Theology. Prior to joining Johnson Economics in 2013, he worked for an asset management group and managed a real estate development partnership. He has extensive experience in financial asset analysis.
Henry Ortiz-Johnson, Associate
henry@johnsoneconomics.com
Henry is an associate with Johnson Economics, completing market and economics research for the firm. Henry has previous experience as a research assistant for the Levy Retail Group Marcus & Millichap, where he managed extensive private databases and further developed his skills working with rental contracts. At Johnson Economics, Henry completes feasibility analyses and assesses the financial viability of various development projects.
Henry's areas of specialization include economic base analysis, retail analysis, multifamily residential analysis, econometrics/statistical analysis, and hotel and entertainment research.
Henry is a licensed real estate sales agent and holds a Bachelor of Science in economics from the University of Houston.
Ariel M. Hardiyanto , Analyst
Ariel Hardiyanto is an analyst with Johnson Economics, specializing in housing needs analysis, employment and population forecasting, land need and buildable lands analysis, and economic development strategy. He has contributed technical analysis to housing studies, economic opportunity analyses, and strategic plans for jurisdictions across Oregon, ranging from small cities to communities within the Portland metropolitan area.
Much of Ariel's work involves building analytical tools and reproducible workflows in R and Excel for economic datasets. His technical work includes industry-level employment analysis, analysis of housing equity and homelessness data from state and federal sources, and spatial analysis in QGIS. He works regularly with the American Community Survey, LEHD, HUD, and BLS QCEW data, and applies econometric methods to questions of housing demand, labor market change, and the distributional effects of public investment.
Ariel holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Oregon, where he graduated cum laude with departmental honors and received the economics faculty's award for best solo honors thesis.
Kenadi Browne, Associate
Kenadi is an associate with Johnson Economics, specializing in development feasibility, market research & analysis, and agricultural economics.
Her recent work has included speculative industrial analysis in rural communities, de-designation determination studies for agricultural resource lands, and multifamily feasibility analysis. She also conducts econometric and GIS analysis for a variety of development types.
Kenadi has been with Johnson Economics for over 5 years. She holds a Master of Science degree in economics from the University of Oregon, and a B.S. in economics. Her previous professional experience was in public and private education.
Daniel Beauchaine, Data Scientist
Daniel Beauchaine is a data scientist who assists the firm with programming and refining land use models. He has extensive knowledge in database enhancement and management; his prior experience includes leading teams of researchers developing and maintaining data visualization in Looker.
Dan's programming uses multiple coding languages, including SQL, R, TypeScript, C, C++, C#, JavaScript, and Python.
Dan holds a Bachelor of Science in economics from Portland State University, with minors in computer science and history.