WHO IS THE MODERNIST ECONOMIST

AARON CROMAR is a mountaineer and snow enthusiast previously based in Salt Lake City, Utah, but currently resides in Phoenix, Arizona, and is the MODERNIST ECONOMIST.

The belief that business should be smarter is at the very heart of modern economics.

As a modernist and an economist, there is a strong belief that making connections — between people, systems, structures, ideas, and resources — is the key to leverage change or adaptation to challenges, while maintaining consistent operational excellence. With a background that is extensive and non-traditional, it is what has made for the successful building of robust and resilient teams, connecting with people, and designing sustainable environments of antifragility in today's globalized world.

It is what allows ME to help us all become better.

Aaron has made a name for himself in business, marketing, healthcare, and consulting by making or increasing the strength of connections between people, structures, systems, ideas, and resources. With experience in building, training, and leading high-performance teams, the primary mission as the Modernist Economist is to: help individuals and organizations develop their high-performance team and execute a winning operational leadership strategy. The goal is to enable people to manage their talents, skills, abilities, and recognize opportunities for success. All challenges are opportunities to find and maintain forward momentum, and foster a culture where people are empowered to serve others.

Aaron is a Project Management Professional and Founder of the Modernist Economist. He is passionate about the effectiveness of the Modernist Economist in building trust and common purpose in organizations. He is an experienced Project Lead, who advises senior leadership on how to improve internal communications and develop organizational alignment. Aaron leads consulting engagements, working with client organizations on leadership, managing cultural change, effective systems management, behavioral economics, and creating cross-functional high-performance teams. Some of his recent focus areas are with client engagements in the healthcare and technology industries.

Aaron completed graduate work at Gonzaga University earning a Masters of Art in Organizational Leadership specializing in Integrating Technology, Learning, and Psychology that integrates psychology and sociology with technology, instruction, and learning to inform research. Aaron completed his undergraduate work at the University of Utah with dual Bachelors of Science degrees in Political Science and Sociology with minor emphases in Criminology & Deviant Behavior, Economics, History, Classical Civilizations, and Geography. He also attended a variety of executive level or certificate courses at Harvard University, Stanford University, MIT, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

WHAT DOES THE MODERNIST ECONOMIST DO

Aaron offers practical, experience-based solutions to complex problems. Offering unique and innovative solutions to help people transform and succeed in a challenging, dynamic environment. Aaron, as the Modernist Economist, serves best in an advisory capacity to help adjunct innate functionality.

ME contributes to scale-up and expands implementation of the effective interventions developed as client solutions while maintaining responsibility for overseeing the growth and development of Modernist Economist by providing strategic direction and managing media management and public affairs.

WHY WE ARE ALL ENGAGING MODERNIST ECONOMICS

One of the crucial things to consider about leadership and transformation is that knowledge is invaluable. Knowledge, like information, is only valuable to someone that can use or leverage it. While it may exist passively in time and space, the pursuit of it is the result of active engagement. Often, in life, energy flows through the path of least resistance. In many ways, people flow like the models of energy in avoiding resistance or difficulty, instead opting for easier routes that afford a more comfortable existence. However, the universe is a cold and calculating place that exists outside the realms of comfort. To pursue knowledge and information means also choosing to explore the unknown and repel processes of support or paths of least resistance. To discover the unknown ways to require more from ourselves, reject the paths of least resistance, and struggle to reach the edges of uncertainty. The essence of life is the simple justification of using the Socratic Method to ask questions continually and that reaching the far edges of the certain only implies that we have not yet asked all the issues. Too often today, we are taught that ignorance and failure are catastrophic problems that undermine our way of life, but they are only problems if they are the endpoints of our exploration. It is at that chaotic sweet spot where the verge of certainty and uncertainty balance that we find just the right conditions for expanding ourselves and society's understanding as a relative whole.

The state of nature or the functions of time will impose their limitations on our process of learning and acquisition of knowledge. Studying the complexity of systems, the collective and collaborative efforts of individuals, and the products that social action produce are fascinating. Complex adaptive systems are ubiquitous in the nature and environments of today's world. One of the most interesting viewpoints from Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline, is that "organizations are like systems" fraught with complexity and quantum entanglement. Systems and their study are challenging because of the types and number of variables or conditions that enable their function or lack thereof. It is not as easy as identifying variables because they exist in many different forms (e.g. known, unknown, and unknowable). Variables are then subject to elements of conditions. From traditional ethics, the Aristotelian premise is that virtuosity is our right and obligation to ourselves and future generations of continual resilience and adaptation culminating in making us better through marginal gains. The geneticist, Jacob Bronowski once said, "knowledge is personal and responsible, an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty" and our challenge is to persevere through adversity, challenge, or change while helping those around us to do likewise.