WASHINGTON – The Bush administration on Friday announced it plans to nominate Michael Fryzel, a Chicago attorney and former director of the Illinois Department of Financial Institutions, as chairman of the NCUA Board.
Fryzel has a long background with credit unions, having succeeded Ed Callahan as Illinois’s financial institutions regulator when Callahan was appointed NCUA Chairman in 1982, and he was a finalist for the seat on the three-member NCUA Board eventually awarded to Rodney Hood three years ago.
Fryzel, a current member of the Illinois Credit Union Advisory Board, would succeed JoAnn Johnson, the current NCUA Chairman whose six-year term on the panel expired in August.
The prospects of Fryzel, a Republican, being confirmed by the Senate are clouded. With the 2008 presidential election looming the Democrats, who control the Senate, may choose to delay a vote in hopes that a Democrat will win the White House next year and appoint a member of the same party to head NCUA.
