For immediate release: June 21, 2010

Cheryl Venable has been named senior vice president and chief information officer for the Federal Reserve Banks' Retail Payments Office (RPO), and Richard Fraher has been promoted to vice president and counsel to the RPO, announced Dennis Lockhart, president and chief executive officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Lockhart also announced that Jeff Devine has been named vice president with responsibility for District law enforcement and facilities, and John Kolb has been named an assistant vice president in the supervision and regulation division. They will assume their new duties on July 1, 2010.

Venable assumes the new role of chief information officer with responsibility for application development and operations of both check and FedACH for the RPO. Venable joined the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in 1991 and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in 1996. She was promoted to vice president in 2002 and senior vice president in 2008. Most recently she oversaw information technology at the Minneapolis Fed, as well as FedACH operations and automation for the Atlanta and Minneapolis Banks.

Fraher joined the Bank in 1998 as a senior counsel and was promoted to assistant general counsel in 2001 and counsel to the RPO in 2009. Before joining the Bank, he was a senior attorney with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from 1991 to 1998. From 1986 to 1991, he was a professor of law at Indiana University. Fraher also taught legal methods at Harvard Law School and was an assistant professor of history at Harvard University.

Devine joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's New Orleans Branch in 1985 and was promoted to assistant vice president in 1994. In September 2002, Devine transferred to Atlanta as District sales manager. He became regional system sales leader for the Sixth District in addition to having responsibility for the Atlanta Fed's law enforcement unit. He was promoted to vice president in 2008 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, with responsibility for the Customer Relations and Support Office (CRSO) national sales team for the east region (Boston, New York, and Atlanta Federal Reserve Districts).

Kolb assumes responsibility for credit risk and capital markets in the Atlanta Fed's supervision and regulation division. Prior to joining the Bank in 2000, Kolb was a national bank examiner with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta serves the Sixth Federal Reserve District, which encompasses Alabama, Florida and Georgia, and sections of Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. As part of the nation's central banking system, the Atlanta Fed participates in setting national monetary policy, supervises numerous commercial banks and provides a variety of financial services to depository institutions and the U.S. government.