Home Loan Bank Head to Talk at Economic Conference

Air Force brass, industry captains and the controversial head of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board will be among featured speakers at the 24th annual Orange County Economic Outlook Conference in Anaheim on Tuesday.

The conference will include an overview of the proposed Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” as it is more commonly known, and its impact on the Orange County economy. Air Force Gen. Donald Kutyna and Air Force Col. Thomas Hohman are scheduled to deliver the afternoon address.

Edwin Gray, FHLBB chairman, will deliver the luncheon address to the approximately 1,200 local business people expected to attend the all-day meeting sponsored by the Orange County Chamber of Commerce.

Appointed to his post in 1983 by President Reagan, Gray is considered an opponent of thrift deregulation. Gray recently disclosed that an Irvine-based savings and loan association had offered him employment in an attempt to “get me out of my job.”

Thomas Swanstrom, chief economist for Sears, Roebuck & Co., will be the first of seven speakers in the morning session who will deal with the theme of this year’s conference: “Expanding Economic Horizons.”

Other speakers will include Thomas W. Field, president of McKesson Corp.; William Niskanen, a former member of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers; Oliver Delchamps, chairman-elect of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Clark Wallace, president of the National Assn. of Realtors; David Cooney, president of Goodwill Industries of America Inc., and Orange County Supervisor Ralph B. Clark.

The conference, which will last from 7:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m., will be held at the Anaheim Hilton & Towers. Information can be obtained by calling the Orange County Chamber of Commerce, organizers said.