Frank E. Morris

Frank E. Morris became the tenth president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in August 1968.  He retired from the Boston Fed in December 1988, becoming the longest serving president in the Bank’s history.

Morris was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1923. After graduating from high school, he attended the General Motors Institute of Technology. He served as a navigator with the rank of first lieutenant in the US Air Force from 1943 to 1945.

Returning from the war, Morris earned his bachelor’s degree from Wayne University and then worked from 1948 to 1951 as a consultant on airport planning and management for Leigh Fisher and Associates. From 1951 to 1955, he was an economist with the Office of Price Stabilization and the Central Intelligence Agency.

After receiving his doctorate in economics from the University of Michigan in 1955, Morris worked as research director for the Investment Bankers Association in Washington, DC, until 1961 and then as assistant to the secretary for debt management at the US Treasury. Moving to Boston in 1963, he became vice president at Loomis Sayles and Co.

In 1968, Morris was appointed president of the Boston Fed, a position he held for twenty years. He was instrumental in the conception and construction of the Federal Reserve Plaza, the Bank’s current facility, which was dedicated in 1978. Shortly after arriving at the Bank, he established the Bald Peak economic conferences, where officials from the public and private sectors and economists meet to examine economic policy issues. The conferences have been widely used as a model by other Reserve Banks and continue to be an annual offering of the Boston Fed. 

Morris was a highly respected figure throughout New England.  He was the first Boston Fed president to be asked to join the prestigious “Vault,” an informal group of influential area business leaders who advised government on important economic and policy issues.

In retirement, Morris consulted for the Central Bank of Indonesia, and he served until 1994 as Peter Drucker Professor of Management at Boston College.

Morris died in 2000 at his home in Florida.  He was married to Geraldine Elizabeth Colthorp and had three children.

Written by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. See disclaimer.