Maria Gerwing Hampton is the regional executive of the Louisville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which includes southern Indiana and western Kentucky. Branch activities include sponsoring and hosting community-development seminars, providing economic education, conducting regional economic research and gathering monetary-policy input from business leaders within the local community.

Before joining the Fed in 2005, Ms. Hampton was president of the Housing Partnership Inc., a nonprofit corporation focused on creating affordable housing in the Louisville metropolitan area. She also was employed at Bank One Kentucky (formerly Liberty National Bank) for 26 years as an executive in the areas of retail banking, operations, marketing and strategic planning.

Ms. Hampton currently serves on the following boards: Norton Healthcare Board of Trustees, Jefferson Riverport Authority (chair elect), Gilda's Club Louisville and the Kentucky Council on Economic Education (chair). She is a member of Leadership Louisville, Rotary Club of Louisville (chair of Rotary Leadership Fellows) and the Consensus Forecasting Group for the state of Kentucky.

Ms. Hampton graduated from Sacred Heart Academy in Louisville and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala. She also has attended graduate programs at Darden and Harvard colleges. She is married to John Weeks Hampton and has a daughter, Gretchen Gerwing.