Who's who on the FOMC

February 1, 2000: 7:57 p.m. ET

Greenspan's supporting cast helps make interest rate decisions

NEW YORK (CNNfn) - While Alan Greenspan is a well-recognized name, the Federal Reserve chairman has an impressive, if relatively unsung, supporting cast when the time comes to set U.S. interest rate policy.
    It is the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets short-term monetary policy for the country's central bank based on a variety of domestic and international economic factors.
    The committee is allowed 12 voting members - including seven members of the Fed's Board of Governors (there are currently two vacancies), the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; and four rotating seats consisting of the presidents of the eleven other Reserve Banks.
    Following are highlights of the current voting members' careers.
    Alan Greenspan, the FOMC chairman, is serving his third four-year term as chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System. He has been appointed by Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton and was recently renominated for a fourth-term by Clinton.

Before joining the Fed in 1987, Greenspan was chairman and president of the New York-based economic consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan & Co. Inc. for 30 years from 1954 to 1987.
    In the middle of that stretch, from 1974 to 1977, Greenspan served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ford, and from 1981 to 1983 as chairman of the National Commission on Social Security Reform.
    Greenspan is famous for his cautious -- if opaque -- public statements about monetary policy. Among his most recognized statements was his 1996 remark that U.S. stock markets were experiencing "irrational exuberance."
    William J. McDonough, vice chairman of the FOMC, has been president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 1993, a year after first joining the bank and serving as its executive vice president as well as manager of open market operations at the FOMC.

Prior to his work at the Fed, McDonough served as vice chairman of the board of First Chicago Corp., where he worked for 22 years in various executive positions including chief financial officer, and as a director of its bank holding company from 1986 until 1989.
J. Alfred Broaddus, Jr., President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, took office January 1, 1993, as the sixth chief executive of the Fifth District Federal Reserve Bank, at Richmond.

Dr. Broaddus joined the Bank's research staff as an economist in 1970, was named assistant vice president in 1972, vice president in 1975, and in 1985, was promoted to senior vice president and director of research.
Roger W. Ferguson Jr., a Federal Reserve governor since 1997, was a partner at the international management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Inc. There he managed studies for financial institutions for 13 years and served as director of the firm's research and information systems, managing its investments in knowledge management technologies.

Prior to that, Ferguson was a lawyer at the firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, where his casework included syndicated loans, public offerings and mergers and acquisitions.
Before joining the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 1997, Edward M. Gramlich served for three years as the dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, where he had been a professor of economics and public policy since 1976.

During his academic tenure, Gramlich acquired extensive governmental experience through a variety of appointments, including chair of the Quadrennial Advisory Council on Social Security, acting director of the Congressional Budget Office and director of policy research at the Office of Economic Opportunity.
Jack Guynn, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, took office January 1, 1996, as the thirteenth chief executive of the Sixth District Federal Reserve Bank, at Atlanta. Mr. Guynn is currently serving a full term that began March 1, 1996.

In 1994 Mr. Guynn was selected to serve as chairman of the Federal Reserve System's newly formed Financial Services Management Committee, which is responsible for developing and implementing an integrated business plan for Federal Reserve payments services as well as coordinating national Federal Reserve activities that support the plan.
Jerry L. Jordan, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland took office on March 9, 1992, as the ninth chief executive of the Fourt District Federal Reserve Bank, at Cleveland. He is serving a full term that began March 1, 1996.

Before becoming president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Dr. Jordan was senior vice president and chief economist of First Interstate Bancorp in Los Angeles, California. He joined First Interstate Bancorp in February 1985. From July 1980 to January 1985 he was dean and professor at the R.O. Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico.
Edward W. Kelley Jr., has served as a Federal Reserve governor since 1987. From 1959 to 1981 he served as president and CEO of Kelley Industries Inc.,

a Houston-based holding company with subsidiaries in manufacturing, distribution and business services. A founding director of three banks in the Houston area, Kelley also became board chairman of Investment Advisors Inc. in the 1980s.

Widely recognized as one of the nation's leading economic forecasters, Laurence H. Meyer joined the Federal Reserve board in 1996, having once served as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In 1982, he co-founded Laurence H. Meyer and Associates, a St. Louis-based economic consulting firm, where he served as president until being named to the Fed. He also taught economics for 27 years at Washington University, where for a time he chaired the economics department.

Robert T. Parry, President, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, took office February 4, 1986, as the tenth chief executive of the Twelfth District Federal Reserve Bank, at San Francisco.
Dr. Parry first became associated with the Federal Reserve System when he joined the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., a position he held for five years. Before his association with the Fed, he was an assistant professor of economics with the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science.
The five non-voting members, made up of the remaining Federal Reserve Bank presidents, are: Cathy E. Minehan, Boston, Michael E. Moskow, Chicago, William Poole, St. Louis, Thomas M. Hoenig, Kansas City, and Jamie B. Stewart, Jr., First Vice President, New York.