1996 Annual Report

From the Boardroom

This Report takes a look at one of the innovative ways we are using to serve our customers. We in the Twelfth Federal Reserve District have always felt a special challenge in finding efficient ways to serve constituents spread over 1.3 million square miles, 35 percent of the nation's area. In addition to covering these vast geographical expanses, we enjoy a diverse client base which ranges from rural to urban locations, small to large institutions, with varying needs and opportunities for interaction with the Federal Reserve. The World Wide Web gives us yet another vehicle for interacting with and providing timely information to many of these people. It is a medium which lets us, and our customers, react quickly to changing events. The site can be continually evolving and changing, making it a more dynamic medium than traditional publishing.

In a District as large and varied as this, we place a strong reliance on the input of our directors to keep us in tune with their areas and industries as we perform the important tasks of formulating monetary policy and managing the nation's financial system. We would like to thank all Twelfth District directors for their invaluable counsel and assessments of economic and financial conditions throughout the West during 1996.

We want to express our sincere thanks and appreciation to those directors who completed their terms of service during 1996: on the San Francisco Head Office Board, 1996 Deputy Chairman and immediate past Chairman of the Board, James A. Vohs (Chairman, Retired, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Oakland, CA), and Richard L. Mount (Chairman, President and CEO, Saratoga Bancorp, Saratoga, CA); on the Los Angeles Branch Board, Chairman, Anita E. Landecker (Western Regional Vice President, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Los Angeles, CA), William S. Randall (President, Retired, the former First Interstate Bancorp, Los Angeles, CA), and Thomas L. Stevens, Jr. (President, Retired, Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, Los Angeles, CA); on the Portland Branch Board, Chairman, Ross R. Runkel (Professor of Law, Willamette University, Salem, OR), Cecil W. Drinkward (President and CEO, Hoffman Corporation, Portland, OR), Elizabeth (Betsy) K. Johnson (President, TransWestern, Inc., Scappoose, OR), and Marvin R. O'Quinn (Chief Operating Officer, Providence Portland Medical Center, Portland, OR); on the Salt Lake City Branch Board, Constance G. Hogland (Executive Director, Boise Neighborhood Housing Services, Inc., Boise, Idaho); and, on the Seattle Branch Board, Chairman, George F. Russell, Jr. (Chairman, Frank Russell Company, Tacoma, WA), and Thomas E. Cleveland (Chairman and CEO, Access Business Finance, Bellevue, WA). We also note here, with much sadness, the untimely loss in 1996 of a good and gifted friend and counselor, Seattle Branch Director Dr. William R. Wiley (Senior Vice President, Science and Technology Policy, Battelle Memorial Institute, Richland, WA).

Robert T. Parry, President

Judith M. Runstad, Chairman