Born to wonderful, but “creatively challenged parents,” Spence was given the same first, middle, and last name as three other men in his family. To make matters even more perplexing, his parents decided that calling him by his last name was the best way to handle the situation. To this day, Spence goes by his last name as if it were his first, confusing everyone who meets him.   After earning a BA from Williams College, Spence held economic research positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the University of Chicago. Spence briefly flirted with a PhD in economics before deciding he prefers to spend his days sharing his love for math and economics with New York’s best and brightest students.