Mark Fagan earned his doctorate in Social Policy, Planning, and Administration at The University of Alabama in 1981. He is Department Head Emeritus for the Department of Sociology and Social Work at Jacksonville State University in Alabama where he taught from 1981-2014. He has researched retiree migration and retirement communities for 35 years. Most of his 134 publications, media articles, and technical writings along with his hundreds of lectures and presentations around the nation since 1981 have focused on the economic impact of retirees and retirement communities. Click here for details on Fagan's publications, presentations, and publicity received.
He is the author of Attracting Retirees for Economic Development; Retirement Development: A How-To Guidebook; The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail: Its History and Economic Impact with a Foreword by David G. Bronner; Coastal Alabama Retirement Guide, and Alabama's Public Pension Fund Growth and Economic Expansion Since 1973. He has worked on economic development projects in Alabama since 1988. Click here for information on Fagan's other books along with photos and videos.
He has received publicity on 38 television programs, in 88 magazines and periodicals and 249 newspaper articles around the nation. He has been consulted by or appeared in the The Golf Channel, CBS News, NBC News, CNN News, ABC News, "Good Morning America," U.S. News and World Report, Governing, Time, The AARP Bulletin, New Choices for Retirement Living, Money, Mature Outlook, Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Business Week, Golf Digest, Smart Money, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, Stars and Stripes, and National Public Radio.
He received an undergraduate minor in economics. He developed an interest in long-term care for active and inactive retirees. He gained knowledge of what economic impact these retirees had on communities. Through the years, he merged these interests and focused them on economic development activity for rural areas needing community development. He began analyzing communities and comparing their assets with the amenities attracting retirees.
In 1983, he began researching and developing literature on the economic impact of retirees on communities. His research was designed to assist any community or state that wanted to attract retirees for economic development. His research topics included the economic impact of retirees, organizing for retiree attraction efforts, community assessment, marketing communities to potential retirees, and the mature market. He also began writing about community efforts to develop amenities for retirees as a form of economic development. He followed these activities with lectures, presentations, consulting, and program development around Alabama and the nation. His interest in retirement development in Alabama and his efforts to establish the first statewide program in the nation to attract retirees for economic development led him to Coastal Alabama.
Coastal Alabama had a history of attracting tourists and retirees. His efforts also got him involved with the conception and development of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama. These activities sharpened his interest in economic history, economic impacts and projected economic impacts.
His professional activities have focused on the tourism and retirement industries in Baldwin County and Mobile County. He has extensively researched and followed the redevelopment of downtown Mobile by The Retirement Systems of Alabama since the early 2000s. He has focused many of his efforts on tourism and retirement on The Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay. All of Fagan's research and involvement in Coastal Alabama increased his interest in economic development and economic history. This interest sustained his efforts to thoroughly research the economic history of Coastal Alabama.
He has been visiting Baldwin County since the mid-1960s. He has lived in Coastal Alabama since 2012.