Mortgage Agency Regulator Dies at 56

Marianne D. Wright, who headed examinations and regulatory oversight at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, died Saturday of complications from breast cancer.

Ms. Wright, 56, joined the oversight office in 1994 and conducted the government's first comprehensive examinations of the Federal National Mortgage Association and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.

Before that, she had spent seven years as assistant regional director in San Francisco for the Office of Thrift Supervision. During this time, she examined dozens of troubled thrifts.

In a 1993 interview, Ms. Wright said that experience had formed her regulatory philosophy. "The worst thrifts and the biggest failures" stemmed, she said, mostly from "greed and incompetence, not fraud."

A petite and intensely energetic woman, Ms. Wright loved to hike and bike by herself. She moved to the United States from Berlin in 1959.

She is survived by her children, Anita Hollingsworth of Tracy, Calif., and Bryan Wright of Washington, as well as by a grandchild.

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