Donald Kohn

Donald Lewis Kohn (born November 7, 1942) is an American economist who served as the 18th Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2006 to 2010, having joined the Board in 2002.

Kohn began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in 1970 after earning a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan in 1971 and a B.A. from the College of Wooster in 1964. He advanced through various staff positions at the Federal Reserve Board, including as Director of the Division of Monetary Affairs from 1987 to 2001, where he advised on open market operations and served as liaison with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Kohn's parents both worked in the nonprofit public-service sector; his mother served as an elementary school art teacher, while his father was comptroller at the YMHA and Jewish Community Centers of Philadelphia. He has one sister, who retired as a public school teacher in the suburbs of Detroit, and one brother, who transitioned from the hippie movement to entrepreneurship, operating wood and pellet stove shops along with a chimney sweep business in southern Oregon.