Alfred A. DelliBovi, the outspoken deputy secretary of housing and urban development, has been named CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York.
The appointment, effective Nov. 23, puts Mr. DelliBovi at the helm of the most prestigious of the 12 Federal Home Loan banks, which channel funds to thrifts and mortgage-minded banks and credit unions.
It also transforms Mr. DelliBovi, 46, from a regulator of the Home Loan banks to the regulated -- at a time when his bosses are themselves girding for a transition.
Since 1989, he has been stand-in for HUD Secretary Jack Kemp on the Federal Housing Finance Board, the five-member panel that supervises the Home Loan banks. Mr. Kemp had been expected to step down no matter who won Tuesday's presidential election.
|A Very Smart Move'
Mr. DelliBovi's background could be crucially important to the New York bank, since the finance board is widely expected to press for consolidation of the 12 regional banks.
"It's a very smart move to have someone as your CEO who was there when the finance board was created," said Paul A. Schosberg, president of the Savings and Community Bankersl of America. "It gives the New York bank a terrific leg up."
A Life in Politics
As HUD's second-in-command since 1989, Mr. DelliBovi pushed hard to increase regulation of the Federal Home Loan Bank Corp. and the Federal National Mortgage Association, the giants of the secondary market.
A native New Yorker, Mr. DelliBovi began working part-time for the state Assembly's Republican delegation after graduating from Fordham University in 1967. In 1971 he won the first of four Assembly terms. But in 1978 he lost a race for Congress to Geraldine Ferraro.
In 1981, after working on the staff of the Assembly, he was appointed to run the Middle Atlantic regional office of the federal Urban Mass Transit Administration. He moved to Washington in 1984 as deputy director and was named direction in 1987.
Mr. DelliBovi gained prominence earlier this year when President Bush appointed him co-chairman of the emergency task force on the that was dispatched to Los Angeles in the aftermath of riots.
Mr. DelliBovi succeeds Brian Dittenhafer, who left in August to run a savings bank. The acting president, Harold J. Fletcher, will resume his duties as the bank's chief financial officer.
