McTeer's business, academic background major selling points
Regents unanimously choose Dallas executive
By BRETT NAUMAN
Bryan/College Station Eagle
October 14, 2004
Robert McTeer has a strong business and academic pedigree that regents are banking on to bring the Texas A&M University System success under his leadership as chancellor.
McTeer has spent the past 13 years as president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, one of 12 federal banking districts with 1,500 employees that covers Texas and parts of New Mexico and Louisiana.
The Dallas district has thrived under his leadership and developed a reputation for free-market and fiscally conservative policies, giving it a unique identity, Regent Erle Nye said.
While McTeer rose within the Fed ranks from economist to bank president, he continued to teach and lecture at public universities and civic organizations across Texas and the nation.
The 61-year-old career public servant is well-known among businesses, civic and political organizations across the state and will command respect as he deals with lawmakers during the legislative processes, Nye said.
“He’s a person of substance and he carries weight,” Nye said. “When you get a call from Bob McTeer, I think you’ll return it. When he talks, you listen because you know you’ll learn something.”
McTeer grew up in rural Georgia and attended the University of Georgia for his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in economics during the 1960s, according to a biography on the Federal Reserve Web site.
After serving on the university’s faculty for two years, McTeer joined the Federal Reserve’s Richmond district in 1968. He was an economist for several years and was given management duties in the early 1970s.
But McTeer stayed in the academic world as he taught economics courses twice a week at the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University.
When he became manager of the Fed’s Baltimore branch in 1980, McTeer continued his teaching at Johns Hopkins University and several state and regional banking schools.
McTeer has been credited with transforming the Dallas-based Federal Reserve District shortly after he arrived in 1991. It is considered one of the most productive of the 12 federal banking districts, Nye said.
Nye said the district’s performance in recent years can be measured by the fact McTeer has been mentioned as a possible successor to Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chairman.
McTeer sits on the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s principal monetary policy-making body. His advocacy for free enterprise has many referring to the Dallas district at the “Free Enterprise Fed.”
The identity achieved for the Dallas Fed is the same type of definition regents seek for the A&M System with McTeer as chancellor, and change inevitably will be part of the equation, Nye said.
“I think Bob McTeer may be something special for this system,” he said. “I think he will bring some of the freshness, energy and enthusiasm to the system that [President] Bob Gates has brought to Texas A&M.”
Brett Nauman’s e-mail address is bnauman@theeagle.com.
Reprinted with permission of The Bryan/College Station Eagle