As a stay-at-home mom raising four daughters, Tucker Hart Adams audited an economics course in 1973 to understand how the federal government could spend more money than it took in.
While she never received an answer that made her comfortable, she did end up with a Ph.D. in economics and a platform to share her forecasts with tens of thousands of people across three decades.
Adams, 69, will leave her post as the regional economist for U.S. Bank, ending her reign as Colorado’s best-known economist.
She departs with words of warning: A recession will come soon, if it isn’t already here.
Such downbeat predictions, often early and contrarian, have earned her the nickname “Duchess of Doom.” But for Adams, it is more important to be right than popular.
“Your best friends are the ones who don’t tell you what you want to hear; they tell you what you need to know,” said Marcel Arsenault, chief executive of Colorado & Santa Fe Real Estate in Broomfield, who has used Adams’ forecast to guide real estate investment decisions over the years.
Adams is the first to admit that she never thought taking that one course would so dramatically alter her life or give her influence over the lives of those who follow her forecasts.
Her background made that course seem unlikely. Adams grew up in a sheltered Southern family in Camden, Ark., close to the Louisiana border.
Her father was so protective that he didn’t even let her babysit to earn extra money.
She enrolled with a friend at Wellesley, an all-women’s college in Massachusetts, but, at first, didn’t tell her family, who wouldn’t have approved of her moving so far away to attend a Yankee institution.
In college, she married Dan Adams, a Presbyterian minister. The two eventually moved to Colorado Springs, where Tucker focused her time on raising their children.
When the girls got older, she decided to take an economics course at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs to study one of the hot topics of the day – deficit spending.
She ended up liking the subject so much she kept with it. One of her first economic studies was on a bill backed by then-Gov. Dick Lamm to require businesses moving to Colorado to locate in rural areas.
However noble the intent, dictating where businesses could set up shop is a nonstarter from an economic development perspective.
Adams said as much in her report, causing Lamm’s chief of staff at the time to pull her aside.
“Young lady, I don’t think you understand politics,” Adams, with a smile, recalls him saying.
That independence and a willingness to buck convention is something Adams has demonstrated throughout her career, winning both friends and critics.
Although he hasn’t always agreed with Adams’ more pessimistic forecasts, fellow Colorado economist Bill Kendall, with the Center for Business & Economic Forecasting in Denver, said Adams has a good track record.
“Her conveying the message that the good times won’t last forever is important,” Kendall said.
Colorado economists – including Adams and Kendall – failed to foresee the severe recession that shook the state in the 1980s and caused people to leave. Since then, Adams can’t be accused of being caught flat-footed.
“Telling a client there will be a recession is like telling them their child is ugly,” Adams said.
Still, she has done it twice in the past decade, in 1999, predicting the 2001 recession, and again last September, calling for a recession late this year.
Predicting the future is hard by any measure, but Adams has done better than most, Arsenault said.
“Some economists are cheerleaders,” Arsenault said. “She is sensible, independent and not too close to one system.”
Adams started her career working at United Banks of Colorado, when banks and corporations still kept economists on staff.
One of the toughest calls she had to make was whether to take a promotion at United Banks after she had accepted a job offer with Martin Marietta.
She stayed with United Banks. That decision gave her a platform to provide public forecasts and, after United Banks eliminated its economics department, enough fame to break off on her own in 1989.
For the first big client of The Adams Group, she landed Colorado National Bank, which would eventually become known locally as U.S. Bank.
“I always looked forward to her forecasts,” said Daniel Yohannes, who headed U.S. Bank in Colorado during much of the 1990s. He and his successors also gave Adams the independence to call things as she saw them.
Adams’ success came from her ability to make complex economic topics understandable to a variety of audiences.
Although economic modeling using computers was coming into vogue when Adams was in school, she didn’t rely solely on them for her forecasts.
“I decided early on the economy is far too complex to model it well,” she said.
Adams describes her approach to economics as big- picture. Trips throughout the state and conversations with people inform her predictions.
Her advice remains basic. Economies move in cycles. One of the phrases that should set off alarm bells is “It is different this time.”
She warns that people and businesses can’t spend more than they make indefinitely. Excessive consumer debt is behind her calls for a recession.
“Sooner or later, consumers have to get their financial house in order,” said the housewife turned economist.
Her plans include spending more time with her husband of 50 years, who also recently retired, and her grandchildren.
She also plans to write a book about her numerous experiences in Russia, where she consulted with businesses and taught at Moscow State University as the country moved from communism to capitalism.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
A look into Tucker Hart Adams’ crystal ball
Sept. 4, 2001: “It will be well into 2002 before we see positive growth return to Colorado.”
Sept. 4, 2002: “When I look at the consumer, I see a nervous and uneasy individual.”
Sept. 3, 2003: “This is the first time since the 1930s we’ve had two consecutive years of job losses.”
Sept. 14, 2004: “With a little bit of luck, we will see a year of growth in 2005, of job creation.”
Sept. 13, 2005: “At some point, American consumers must bring their debt under control and housing prices must reflect demand for living space rather than Ponzi- scheme speculation.”
Sept. 12, 2006: “This year, I am saying there are problems and giving you a date. We will have a negative quarter before the year (2007) is over.”
Sept. 11, 2007: “We have the same overindebted consumer in Colorado as we have everywhere else. Consumers will have trouble spending here and concentrate on the necessities.”
