WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said Monday he is planning to resign when his four-year term ends on June 23.
His departure leaves a third vacancy on the seven-member Fed board of governors, offering the Obama administration a chance to have a long-term impact on the central bank.
Kohn, 67, is the second highest ranking official at the Fed, and helped coordinate the central bank's response to the financial crisis. Among other things, he helped to lead the stress tests of the largest financial institutions and directed the Fed's efforts to increase transparency.
"At no time since the Great Depression have this ability and dedication been tested as they have been over the past several years," Kohn wrote in his letter to President Barack Obama announcing his resignation.
Expressing confidence, Kohn said history will judge the Federal Reserve, under the leadership of Chairman Ben Bernanke, to have met these challenges with great speed, imagination and effectiveness.
Kohn began his 40-year career at the Fed as an economist in Kansas City in the early 1970s. Appointed by President George W. Bush, he has been a member of the Fed since August 2002.
