Price Named Chief Executive at Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh has announced that John R. Price will become president and chief executive officer, effective January 2, 2006. He will succeed James D. Roy, who will retire at year-end as previously announced.

"We are delighted that someone of John Price's caliber and credentials is joining the FHLBank as president," said Marvin N. "Skip" Schoenhals, chairman of the board. "John's unique leadership, complementing chief operating officer Bill Batz and the entire senior management team, combined with his strong passion for the mission of this Bank, make him the ideal president for the FHLBank of Pittsburgh."

Since 2001, Price, 66, has been Senior Advisor to the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in Washington, DC, a global organization with some 340 banks and Central Banks as members. For the IIF, he organizes and presents educational programs for directors of financial institutions on corporate governance issues such as regulatory framework, audit and internal controls, and risk management. He also, through the International Financial Development Corporation of which he is president and chief executive officer, seeks corporate finance opportunities here and abroad.

Prior to his current assignments, Price spent 29 years at what is now JP Morgan Chase & Co. in New York. He joined Manufacturers Hanover in 1972, which later merged into Chemical, Chase Manhattan and JP Morgan Chase. Price held various line and staff positions, including senior vice president of Manufacturers Hanover Corporation, the bank holding company, where he was responsible for the mortgage banking and consumer finance subsidiaries nationwide. While in the Investment Banking Group of the bank, he led the team advising the U.S. government on the securitization of $5 billion of community development and rural low-income housing loans, and created a servicing company to handle the housing loans. Price spent his last years at Chase Manhattan running government relations worldwide, including state, local, federal and international relations.

"I am extremely honored to have earned the trust of the Bank's Board of Directors and to have this opportunity to advance the mission of the FHLBank, which, with its counterparts in the FHLBank System, plays a pivotal role for housing and economic development in this country," said Price. "Because of personal ties and professional interests, returning to the region and to the work of the Bank is like coming home for me. My family roots in West Virginia and the Bank's involvement in community development and housing finance, as well as capital markets, means the Pittsburgh Bank holds powerful appeal for me. I greatly look forward to working with the Bank's members and in the communities in this region."

After graduating from Grinnell College in Iowa, Price became a Rhodes Scholar, earning advanced degrees from Queens College at Oxford University in development economics and diplomatic history. He later received his law degree from Harvard Law School.

Following a couple of years of law practice in New York, Price joined the Bedford Stuyvesant Development Corporation of Brooklyn, co-founded by New York's then U.S. Senators, the late Robert F. Kennedy and Jacob K. Javits, where he worked on housing finance. During the first Nixon Administration, he succeeded Daniel Patrick Moynihan as special assistant to the President for urban affairs, working on welfare, health insurance and urban development.

For 19 years, Price was a member of the board and then chair of the Audit Committee of the Principal Financial Corporation, a Fortune 200 company. He is a life trustee of Grinnell College and was the founding chairman of Americans for Oxford.

He served as president of the Bankers Association for Finance and Trade, was a director of the National Foreign Trade Council, and chaired the Brooklyn Academy of Music Local Development Corporation in New York.

Price and his wife, Svetlana, reside in Woodstock, Maryland, with their two young children. An older son of Price's lives in New York.

The retiring CEO, Jay Roy, 65, served as president and CEO since 1987. During his tenure, the FHLBank grew from $6.1 billion in assets to approximately $76 billion today. The FHLBank's popular Affordable Housing Program and its companion program, the Home Buyer Equity Fund, have provided approximately $130 million in grants resulting in more than 20,000 units of affordable housing as well as assistance with down payment and closing costs for first-time homebuyers. In addition, the Bank's Banking On Business program has put forth more than $20 million in recoverable assistance to create or retain more than 3,400 jobs. Also under Roy's leadership, the FHLBank fostered a values-based corporate culture, established a corporate vision statement and was named one of the 50 Best Places to Work(R) in Pennsylvania.

With assets of approximately $76 billion, the FHLBank of Pittsburgh is a government-sponsored enterprise that uses private capital to provide a steady stream of low-cost funding to nearly 340 member financial institutions in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Created by Congress in 1932 to support housing finance, the FHLBanks' mission in more recent years has been expanded to include financing for a variety of community and economic development needs.