For immediate release: Jan. 19, 2006
Rich Ford, president and chief executive officer of The Sage Group, has been appointed to serve on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Nashville Branch. Michael B. Swain, chairman of First National Bank, in Oneida, Tenn., has been reappointed to the Atlanta Fed’s Nashville Branch board of directors. Their terms begin Jan. 1, 2006, and run through Dec. 31, 2008.
Before purchasing The Sage Group in 2001, Ford was executive vice president and chief operating officer of the National Federation of Independent Business, an association representing small business. Prior to that, he was chairman and chief executive officer of Willis Administrative Services, a division of Willis, where he worked for more than 18 years. Ford is past chair of The United Way of Middle Tennessee, Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville and Leadership Nashville and is the current chair of the YMCA of Middle Tennessee. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington and an M.B.A. at Seattle University.
Swain was recently appointed chairman and has served as president and chief executive officer since 1991. He has served on the board of directors of First National Bank since 1975. He is a member of the board of directors of Scott County Hospital and Big Brothers/Big Sisters. He is a member of the University of Tennessee Financial Institutions Advisory Council and is currently president of Oneida Alumni & Friends for Better Schools. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee. He is a graduate of the Banking School of the South at Louisiana State University and the University of Tennessee Executive Development Program.
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Branch directors provide economic information from their industries and branch territories to the district bank’s president and head office directors, who use the information in formulating monetary policy and making discount rate recommendations. The Atlanta head office directors appointed Swain. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C., appointed Ford. The Board of Governors appoints three of the directors of the Nashville Branch, and the Atlanta head office directors appoint four.