Bill Poole Retires from St. Louis Fed

Bill Poole

Bill Poole, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retired March 31, 2008, after serving 10 years as Bank president. A search is under way for his successor.

As president, Poole directed the Bank's activities at its headquarters in St. Louis and its three branches in Little Rock, Louisville and Memphis. In addition, he represented the Bank on the Federal Open Market Committee, the Federal Reserve's chief monetary policymaking body.

In recent years, Poole spoke about the economic impact of community development and about the Bank's role in gathering and disseminating information on the topic to its constituents.

"It's important to learn what some communities are doing well in order for us to bring the knowledge back to our own districts," he said at a 2007 conference convened by the Bank's Community Affairs Office.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, one of 12 regional Reserve banks, serves the Eighth Federal Reserve District. The regional Reserve banks, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., constitute the Federal Reserve System.

Before joining the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Poole was the Herbert H. Goldberger Professor of Economics at Brown University in Providence, R.I. He joined the faculty at Brown in 1974 and twice served as chairman of the economics department. He served on the economics faculty at The Johns Hopkins University from 1963 to 1969. He was inducted into The Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars in May 2005.