February 18, 2000
Jan Hayhow, chair of the Michigan Retailers Association (MRA) Board of Directors, has been appointed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's Advisory Council on Agriculture, Labor and Small Business.
Hayhow is president and general manager of Michigania, Inc., a retail business with stores in Lansing and Birmingham that sells unique gifts and merchandise made in Michigan or about Michigan. She is serving her second year as chair of the Board of Directors of MRA, which nominated her for the position.
"Jan is an extremely qualified candidate for this position because of her business experience in all aspects of retailing and her statewide perspective through her service with MRA," said Larry Meyer, MRA's chief executive officer.
The Advisory Council meets twice a year and provides firsthand information to the Federal Reserve System on conditions and trends in the agriculture, labor and small business sectors of the economy. Members are selected from the Seventh Federal Reserve District, which includes the lower peninsula of Michigan, most of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin and all of Iowa.
"The information gained from the Advisory Council is critically important to our Bank in meeting its monetary policy responsibilities," said Michael H. Moskow, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
The most recent MRA board member to serve on the Advisory Council was D. Larry Sherman, retired president of Sherman Shoes in Birmingham, who held the position from 1991 to 1993.
The Michigan Retailers Association is the unified voice of retailing in Michigan and the nation's largest state trade association of general merchandise retailers. MRA's more than 5,000 retail business members operate more than 12,000 stores across the state.