Chris Thornberg, a noted economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast, has decided to leave the school and start his own firm.

Thornberg spent the past six years at UCLA as an economist as well as a professor and quickly rose to prominence as one of the chief economists in the region.

Thornberg’s firm, Beacon Economics, will focus on providing regional economic forecasts and studies, as well as speaking engagements, conventions as well as some consulting, he said. Thornberg said he will be based in Los Angeles and also will remain on the UCLA faculty and will continue to teach economics courses in the college’s MBA program.

“I really enjoyed my time at UCLA, it provided me the best environment available for leaning about the California economy,” Thornberg said. “But I essentially found myself saying ‘What now? Where do I go from here?’ I really wanted the chance to be entrepreneurial and saw now as the time to pursue that.”

Thornberg is best known in the area for warning of an extremely overvalued real estate market in L.A. over the past year and has often disagreed with many prominent economists who suggest a “soft landing” will occur for the market.

He started Beacon with a partner who currently works in the Bay Area and said that most of the work Beacon will do won’t differ much from what he did at UCLA.