On August 31, we said farewell to our director, Rich Oliver, when he officially retired from the Retail Payments Risk Forum after 38 years with the Federal Reserve. With his many accomplishments and significant contributions to the Fed, to the Forum, and to research in the payments industry, Rich left behind some pretty big shoes, and we've been looking for someone to fill them. Well, we've found someone more than capable of walking in these shoes, and we'd like to invite you to join the Portals and Rails team in welcoming the Forum's new director, Mary Kepler. On December 1, Mary will step into her new shoes—uh, role—overseeing the Forum and maintaining District and System-level relationships with industry executives and organizations in the payments arena and in payments risk and fraud prevention.

Now, we're not to going to divulge Mary's shoe size, because we're really only speaking metaphorically here and would never comment on anything so personal in such a public forum, but we can tell you about Mary's path that has brought her to us. She certainly comes to her new position with a variety of relevant experience, most recently as the vice president of Financial Management and Planning (FM&P) here at the Atlanta Fed.

Mary originally came to the Atlanta Fed in 1992, moving from the Kansas City Fed, so she has a long history with us. She joined the Atlanta Fed in Supervision and Regulation department and was soon promoted to relationship manager with the AmSouth Bancorporation. In 1998, she moved to the automation operations department, where she was assistant vice president until 2002, when she became vice president. Mary joined the Retail Payments Office in 2003 and for two years served as the Federal Reserve System liaison to the U. S. Treasury Department for retail payment services that the System provides to the U.S. Treasury.

From 2005 to 2006, Mary was senior human resources officer. She chaired the Bank's Human Resources Committee and was an advisor to the Bank's Management Committee. She then became senior officer over FM&P.

As you can see, Mary comes to the Retail Payments Risk Forum well qualified. We look forward to embarking on this next phase of our journey under her capable, proven leadership. So please help us congratulate Mary on her new position, wish her continued success, and tell her she wears her new shoes well.

By Cynthia Merritt, assistant director, Douglas A. King, payments risk expert, and Jennifer C. Windh, payments risk analyst, all of the Retail Payments Risk Forum