Bill Gilmer, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, El Paso Branch, was the speaker. And he had a lot of good things to say about Houston.

Here are some highlights:

• Jobs: Houston has created 325,000 jobs between 2003 and 2008, outpacing the country.

“The jobs market has been the most disappointing part of the (overall) economic picture,” Gilmer said.

• Economy: The city has been able to recover to pre-recession levels. Houston hit bottom in August 2008. No other area in Texas has gotten back to pre-recession levels.

• Reasons why Houston has not done better: The end of NASA’s role in manned space flight, health care reform (“This is the first time ever there is no construction planned at the Texas Medical Center,” he said), the deepwater drilling moratorium and the threat of cap and trade proposals.

• Auto sales: Still in recovery. Look for nationwide sales to get back to the 16 million mark in 2014.

• Housing: Market is still weak. Plan to see a turnaround in Houston real estate by the end of the year.

• Construction: In 2000, there were 1.2 million housing permits. Now there are 400,000. In Houston, we saw a 60 percent decrease in the number of housing permits.

• Oil: He said that for the first time since 1995, there are more rigs looking for oil than natural gas.

• Gross Domestic Product: The country’s growth over the next several quarters is expected to be in the 3 percent to 3.5 percent range.

• Endgame: “Houston is doing OK by Houston standards, by U.S. standards doing well and by Texas standards, it is in the middle of the pack,” he said.

Diane Delgado LeMaire | Senior Managing Director, Accounting & Finance Recruiting | Creative Financial Staffing, a division of Fitts, Roberts CPA Firm | 5718 Westheimer Suite 800 | Houston, TX 77057 | 713-260-5238 | dcd@fittsroberts.com| Blog| Twitter| LinkedIn