Jumping into the deep end: Washington hand, Sheila Bair, guides the FDIC through minefields of controversy with her strong policy background and a sense of humor.(CAPITAL PROFILE)(Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.)

ABA Banking Journal, November, 2006 by Cocheo, Steve

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has extraordinary credentials. But, then, achievers, not slouches, are generally named to head the agency that insures most of the nation's savings. But she does have a unique "first" to her credit, something that Bair has done that no other chairman of the agency has ever done. She caused a bit of a bank panic.

This wasn't actually a run, nor even a long-lived case of jitters, but a momentary lapse into looniness in a lobby. Let's say that a busy bank manager grew a few more gray hairs; a few citizens' pulse quickened;, and a future FDIC chairman learned a key lesson about banking--one that she later put into print.

"When I was small, I went into a local bank with my father," Bair, 52, explains in an interview with ABA...

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