Richard Creighton Dunn; Headed Federal Reserve Branch

Richard Creighton Dunn, 75, former head of the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve Bank. Dunn joined the bank as a teenager in Salt Lake City and spent 45 years with it before his retirement in 1985. The Independent Bankers Assn., to which he made frequent speeches around the West, dubbed him “Mr. Federal Reserve.” Dunn was named senior vice president and officer in charge of the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in 1975. The branch, among the largest of the nation’s 25 branches, regulates a territory from Bakersfield south to the Mexican border and from the ocean east to Las Vegas and Arizona. Through Dunn’s negotiations, a split between Kansas City and Los Angeles over control over Arizona was resolved, giving complete jurisdiction to the Los Angeles branch. During Dunn’s decade-long tenure, he also oversaw the acquisition of land and planning for a new Federal Reserve Bank building in downtown Los Angeles. Dunn served in the Army in Europe during World War II and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, among others. He studied engineering at Johns Hopkins as part of his Army service, and graduated from the Pacific Coast Banking School and the National Commercial Lending School. Dunn was an avid skier, bowler, runner, golfer, hunter, sharpshooter and snorkeler and he enjoyed playing tennis, basketball, baseball and softball. On Oct. 15 in Sierra Madre.