Economy Matters podcast series

Tom Heintjes: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Economy Matters podcast. I'm Tom Heintjes, managing editor of the Atlanta Fed's Economy Matters magazine, and today we're visited by Adrienne Slack, vice president and regional executive at the Atlanta Fed's New Orleans Branch, and Chris Oakley, who is vice president and regional executive at our Jacksonville Branch. They're both integral to our Regional Economic Information Network—or REIN, as we call it—and I wanted to get them on the podcast to talk about how the Atlanta Fed gathers economic information, and how they see their respective regional economies, which are quite distinct from each other. And thanks to both of you for being with us today. It's good to see you in person again.

Adrienne Slack: Happy to be here, Tom.

Chris Oakley: Thanks, Tom.

Heintjes: Adrienne and Chris, can you tell me not only how you gather information about the economy in your areas, but how you assess that information?

The Atlanta Fed's Adrienne Slack and Chris Oakley. Photos by Stephen Nowland

Oakley: Again, thanks for having us. I'll start. So, first off, I think it's important for folks to recognize that the Atlanta Fed has taken advantage of its very large geographic footprint, and the fact that we have five different locations, in addition to our head office, scattered throughout most of the Southeastern United States. We were fortunate to have some pretty forward-thinking leaders a number of years ago—somewhere around 15 years ago—that started to recognize that we've got a unique opportunity to reach out to Main Street to gather information that can help supplement the work that our economists do in thinking about the economy. We've got, as you know, a whole team of economists and analysts that are looking at the data that's coming in, and we layer this outreach to contacts on top of that.

And so, to respond to your question: the approach that we take to gathering information is through relationship building, primarily with business leaders—but as our initiative has evolved and matured, I think we have supplemented what initially was primarily CEOs that we were reaching out to, with people that are running nonprofits, sometimes government officials, members of the academic community, and so on, to really get a full view of how the economy is impacting people from all walks of life. And so, Adrienne and I spend the better part of five or six weeks during what we call an "FOMC period"—which is the policymaking meeting—out talking to people, and learning about what they're focused on, what they're dealing with from an economic perspective, and gathering that information and bringing that back to the table. Maybe I'll let Adrienne talk a little bit about, once we've had those conversations—which I think we'll talk more about in a few minutes—but once we have those conversations, how we go about assessing it.

Slack: That assessment has been an evolution. Just like Chris described who we talk to and how that's broadened to many community leaders, the program—even before my entrance into it—was really about those conversations and building those relationships. As we saw the rich value that our contacts bring to the table and can contribute to the Atlanta Fed's assessment of the economy, we take a very purposeful approach to looking for trends across our six offices, across our geographies, by industry, and we do a lot of comparing with the data that the economists are looking at. Does our information line up with what the economists are seeing—and if it doesn't, why? What could be happening in the economy that would be beneficial for folks to hear? And so we think an awful lot about—and spend an awful lot of time thinking through—each of the meetings that we have, and then us, with our staff and the team that Chris mentioned, thinking through, how is this meaningful for monetary policy? What are these folks telling us that can help our President Raphael make better decisions in that monetary policymaking process, help inform the process, from really the businessperson's perspective of why they're behaving the way they're behaving in the economy? And that assessment—our assessment—is a big key to determining what it is that we push forward.

Heintjes: I know we get a lot of data, but sometimes it's tough to be just talking to other people about what's going on. And like you said, Adrienne, if there is any daylight between what the data tell us and what we hear anecdotally, seeing why that daylight might exist and what it tells us, I think, is really fascinating. Well, that's discussing how you gather information. But can you talk about why you gather it, and what role it plays in what the Atlanta Fed does in terms of policymaking or other areas?

Oakley: I'll start. When we got REIN off the ground, quite honestly it was a pretty significant experiment, and I'm not sure that we would have predicted 15 years ago that it would turn into what it's become, which I view as a pretty sophisticated approach to gathering anecdotal information. So there are a lot of reasons why I think, at a baseline, the relationships that we develop with these various participants is really useful. It's useful from both a "pull" and "push" perspective. And what I mean by that is, us—the Federal Reserve—pulling in information on what's happening in the real world, and then, like Adrienne said, comparing that to the data. But it also provides us an opportunity to push information out as well. As you well know, the Fed is involved in a lot of different things, even if it's just as simple as having a conversation about policy and looking backward as to why certain decisions might have been made, what they were intended to address—all of those things we've found to be very beneficial. Oftentimes when I'm talking to people about REIN, I will share that in ordinary times, at a minimum the information that we gather helps Raphael in his thinking about policy, and as he thinks about his own narrative about how the economy is unfolding. I think it provides color to that conversation. In extraordinary times, we can be the entity that the broader team relies on for information.

An unfortunate but very good example of that would be at the onset of the pandemic. If you think back to the beginning of 2020, the world was beginning to change, we were all reacting to that. But the data that was coming in was still reflective of a prepandemic world, and so the team began to rely on Adrienne, me, and our other colleagues who were no longer out physically interacting with contacts but were actually taking advantage of the fact that travel had been shut down. The people that oftentimes we would spend time reaching out to were available to us, because they were also shut down and sequestered, and so on. And so our contact cadence I would say probably tripled during that period of time. And I think I speak for the broader team when I say that for some number of months, they really relied pretty extensively on the information that we were bringing to the table. So just one obviously significant, from my perspective, example of why we go about doing this, and why it's important.

Slack: I'll just tack a couple of other examples on there: that when there's a crisis, absolutely—this network has come in handy, and we've certainly also used the network in any number of weather crises that our district is exposed to, with the coastal footprint that we have. But what we're able to do there, in addition to pushing economic impact forward, we're also able to connect communities with resources here in the bank that they might not otherwise be connected to. Our Community and Economic Development folks that specialize in some of the areas that communities struggle with in recovering from some of these situations, in addition to our exposure to community leaders in our particular areas, also informs us about challenges that communities face just on a day-to-day basis, even outside of a crisis. And we're able to, again, connect those businesses sometimes to one another. If there's something there that they can be helpful to one another to solve community issues—or even again, back to our Community and Economic Development folks, to help them with resources that we have here in the Bank and can offer communities, from our perspective. So the information we collect—while primarily, it is absolutely for that monetary policy process—in the course of these relationships and conversations, we often come upon things either we know in the moment there's a connection to, or it's something you file away and at a later date, help connect folks to people they may not have and resources they might not have otherwise had.

Heintjes: Well, by now, we all know that you both receive a lot of information about your areas' economies. And as we discussed, there are times when what you hear anecdotally might not exactly line up with what the data or economic models tell us, like gaps, or weak signals. What do you do in those cases? How do you settle on what your outlook is for the economy?

Slack: Sometimes we don't settle on the outlook for the economy. We do look at a lot of trends and try to provide information to that monetary policy process that is about where an industry is headed or where demand or pricing power—where those things are headed. But sometimes things do vary by geography, they vary by industry, and we try to call those out. There are also absolutely weak signals or risks to any outlook that we provide, and so by the fact that we have relationships and meetings with folks from a broad, diverse group of industries, size of businesses, and geographies—every cycle—we're able to, for the most part, separate "what's the major trend?" from "what are the exceptions, and why are businesses making these decisions in some cases and not others?" and present that also in our briefing. Today, even, we ended our session with, "Here are some risks and things we're looking at in the future, for future briefings."

Heintjes: Chris, are there times when you come to a meeting and you say, "I know the data are telling us this, but this is what I'm hearing and I just wanted to bring that to your attention." How do you handle that?

Oakley: For me, personally, that's kind of the most exciting part of the job. It's fine to find things that confirm what you already know. It's those outlier stories that I think get our attention. And as Adrienne alluded to, part of the role that we play is figuring out whether the outlier is just unique to that particular organization that we're talking to, or to a particular industry or geography, or if this is something that really is a signal to us that we need to have our antenna up for additional confirming stories that we may hear from others going down the road. Because as I said, the real value in what we do—if you think about it, data is almost by definition backward-looking, but the folks that we're talking to are having to make decisions based on what they think is going to happen, looking ahead. And so when you hear those outliers, those are the things that get our attention, but we also have to be cautious about not jumping the gun on coming to a conclusion about something that maybe the evidence doesn't confirm. Oftentimes, as Adrienne mentioned, we'll get to the end of a meeting and just say, "We've got these things on the table as things that we really want to pay attention to over the course of this next cycle."

Heintjes: As we've noted today, our region—the Sixth District of the Federal Reserve—is a very diverse region economically. I wonder what makes your regions unique, regionally? What could we observe about the New Orleans and Jacksonville territories that we couldn't necessarily see in, say, Nashville or Birmingham?

Oakley: I'll start. Again, for the listeners, our entire district is comprised of a number of states. It's all of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the eastern part of Tennessee and the southern parts of Mississippi and Louisiana. So we already have a very diverse geography that we're in. My particular zone, the Jacksonville zone, technically is all of Florida with the exception of the 13 southernmost counties—so basically, the northern two-thirds. Adrienne and I came to an agreement some number of years ago that the economy of the far western part of the Panhandle actually is more akin to other parts of her territory, so she's picked that up. But when you think about the markets that I spend a lot of time in—obviously Jacksonville, which is home base, but Orlando and the Tampa-St. Pete area, along with all of those towns, small and medium, that are in between there—it's very diverse. And so, as I think about this question, it's kind of hard to answer because the region itself, I'm not sure is one that's easy to describe. But again, that's what makes this so interesting, the data gathering. Obviously, as you go into these different markets, they are known for certain things—and I'll just pick one, and that would be Central Florida. If you go back a few decades, it was almost entirely agriculture. Fast-forward to today, very much a global tourism magnet. But any economy like that, that has a particular area of focus, the powers that be in those areas are always looking to ensure that it's diverse—so I think it's important to recognize that it goes beyond just what you may think. The first thing that may come to mind may not always be fully descriptive. But back to your question, I think what's most interesting and exciting about this role is the fact that we are exposed to so many different perspectives, different areas of focus, that provide us with really unique thoughts and ideas about how things are going.

Heintjes: Yes. You know, Adrienne, this might be an even tougher question for you, because I know that your zone is not just New Orleans, but New Orleans proper is one of the most utterly distinct places in the whole country. So, I'd love to get your thoughts on that question.

Slack: Well, first I'll start with: while we recognize that, with the Florida Panhandle piece—that the economy was much like the rest of my territory—I would say that we returned it rightfully to the New Orleans Branch where it belonged, because payment services already covered that piece of the Panhandle. But Chris and I will continue to spar on that. But to your point—yes, New Orleans is a very vibrant piece, obviously, of the zone that I cover, but it covers four states. But there are really many things, as Chris has alluded to—from an economic perspective, a cultural perspective, a community perspective, even a weather pattern perspective—that those folks share. It's energy-centric, it's agriculture-centric, a lot of transportation, and then tourism are the things that really weave themselves through that piece of our district. So, I'm speaking of the southern half of Louisiana and that of Mississippi, the coastal counties of Alabama, and then that stretch of the Panhandle just shy of Tallahassee. So from a New Orleans–specific perspective, that tourism even is very different from the type of tourism that I see when I go into the Panhandle of Florida or even the Mississippi or Alabama Gulf coasts. The business and convention concentration, while it happens across that particular footprint, is much more concentrated in the New Orleans area, particularly from a "convention size" perspective. The energy piece is something that is unique to the Louisiana footprint, from a concentration perspective. There's obviously energy in each of those four states, and businesses that work in those spaces, but the concentration of expertise lies in that particular zone. Most of the regional executives in most zones have a council that specializes in a particular piece of the economy, and so for the New Orleans zone that is the Energy Advisory Council.

Heintjes: As you talk to your contacts in these very diverse areas, how do you decide what to ask them about? I know they're all very busy people, and you can't ask them the zillion questions that you might want to. How do you focus your conversations with them and settle on what to discuss?

Slack: Well, we are the Federal Reserve, so we have a process. It's a process, though, that is very agile. The process will actually begin for us next week after the Federal Open Market Committee meeting has concluded. We will meet with not only the other regional executives, but the economists, to talk about what are the trends that we think we need to be looking out for and keying in on, based on what we've learned this cycle and what Raphael [Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic] feels is important for us to be asking our contacts about. Those are special questions that we'll ask, but in each cycle we have also a standard set of topics that we talk with contacts about. We always want to know about demand, labor, pricing pressure, capital investment, financial markets—just to name a few of the things that are always on our agenda. And then, again, we weave in these special topics based on what's actually happening in real time in the economy.

Heintjes: Right. Chris?

Oakley: Yes, I'll add just a couple of things. I think we would probably all agree that sometimes the most important question is, "What didn't I ask you that I should have?" Because what we've recognized is, oftentimes it's the information that the contact is bringing to us without prompting, or organically—that that is the one response or input that is most impactful to us. The other piece of this that I would focus on a little bit would be, I mentioned the word "relationship" earlier, and many of these contacts are now contacts that we've had for years and years and years. And so what I've found is that sometimes I go into a meeting with an individual that I've had a decade-long relationship with, and I basically just have to say, "Hello, how are you? I hope everything's good with your family"—and then I get an hour's worth of information, because they have figured out what is useful to us. And that is something that we are very, very grateful for because it sends signals to us that this effort, which obviously matters to us. But we—I think—have been successful in convincing them that the information that they're providing ultimately is important to them as well—that the better we are at gathering the information, having a positive impact on policy, the better the outcomes are going to be. And so that's just something I've noticed over many years of doing this.

Slack: Let me tack on to the relationship perspective here, and Chris's point about what haven't we asked: those relationships with contacts. They are thinking about what it is that we need to know even when we're not there. Oftentimes our contacts now reach out to us and say, "I'm seeing this trend change and I thought you might need to know." So that is also an incredible gift that they give back to us. They don't wait a year for us to show back up at their door. If it's important, they'll push that information out to us as well. So, sometimes not only do we ask the question, "What didn't I ask?"—but sometimes we don't even need to ask the question.

Heintjes: I wanted to follow up with you about that relationship question. As you formed these relationships with people over the years, do you find that the type of information they share with you gets richer or deeper as they come to trust you and know you? How does that change over time?

Oakley: Speaking for myself, that has been my experience—that as the relationship is developed, there is a trust that is built. We do not share who our contacts are, and we commit to the folks that we're talking to that the information that they share is going to be obviously shared within the Fed, but kept within our relatively small circle of individuals that are involved with this process. And so, it makes for very rich and candid conversations, and I think all of the regional executives would say they know they've hit their stride with a particular contact when you get that type of honesty that is being shared. And obviously, that is going to lend credibility to the work that we're doing.

Slack: And I would add on to that, particularly when contacts are in a space where maybe their business isn't doing so well, and they're really struggling with stresses in the economy. The instinct for those folks can be to withdraw and not accept the meeting. But where you have the relationship, I've met with any number of contacts who have not had fun things to tell me. And they've said, "You know, I almost didn't take the meeting, and then I thought, ‘No, this is exactly the type of information the Federal Reserve needs to know, about why I'm having this stress in my particular business.' " So the confidentiality piece, I think, and the relationships together absolutely feed what is beneficial—and the contacts recognize that.

Heintjes: I'm sure there are no two days that are the same, but can you describe a typical day and how you go about this process?

Slack: My typical day usually starts with the news, for a couple of reasons. I want to make sure that I am keyed in to what is happening in the economy, but also what questions I might be asked—say, if I'm out giving a speech, or even in contact meetings: What are my contacts hearing that might be in their heads that I need to understand, is maybe in some of the questions that they have for me, or even in some of the input that they have for me? So it helps me be prepared to respond to whatever might be on their minds. You're right—there really is no typical day. But after I start with the news, whether I'm headed into a speech or I'm headed into a contact meeting, it becomes about the relationship and the conversation with that person—and then thinking about, "Okay, what did I just learn, and how does what I learned impact what I need to learn next?" So, the meetings that I know I have on my calendar for future dates...are they all the meetings that I need, or do I now want to also add a meeting with a different industry or a different location, to further learn about something maybe I didn't anticipate that I was going to learn? And then there's the administrative piece of the day, and there's the transportation piece of the day—so there's a lot of driving, there's a lot of reliance on Google Maps and driving around parking garages and parking lots. It's not all just about talking to folks. Then it's about writing up that information to put in our system. That is confidential, but we need to get that information to the team so the team can start drawing conclusions across the district, and also coming back to me with questions—perhaps I've written something up in a manner that makes sense to me, but maybe it didn't speak to the reader. And so that push and pull, even with our team, helps me think through what additional questions I may need to ask, or how I need to think about what it is that I'm sharing. But yes—the day begins with news, the day ends with news, and there's information gathering and pushing out of information in the middle.

Heintjes: Chris, what's your experience?

Oakley: Well, it's funny. It's actually quite similar to Adrienne's. We are the two regional executives in our territory that probably have the largest geographies, and so we both tend to be on the road quite a bit. The one thing I think Adrienne failed to mention is the time that we spend in truck stops gassing up the vehicle so that we can complete the journey. I think she did a great job of describing what a day looks like when we are out gathering information. What I would add is, if you think about, again, our world being in these chunks of periods of time between the policymaking meetings: four, five, or six weeks of that looks a lot like what Adrienne just described. And then as we start approaching the end of that period, we're slowing down the frequency of those meetings and beginning to invest more time in thinking about, how do we synthesize all of this information that we've gathered? We talked earlier about outliers—which of these things are we going to discount? And then we start thinking about the narrative that we're going to be creating once we all gather, like we are currently this week in Atlanta, to be thinking about our input to our President Raphael Bostic here. The way our process works, I often describe it as a large funnel of information that Raphael's head sits under, and so over the course of the period, we have lots of information at the top of that funnel that's coming into the process. But as we get toward the end, it's all coming together and we need to get it into a fashion that makes sense and that we feel comfortable collectively sharing. And so an element of a typical day, once we're to this point, is a lot of conversations and really getting the entire team together—because collectively, there's six of us that are out doing this work, thinking through all of those things that we've already touched on a bit. What are the geographic differences? What are the industry or business sector differences? And ultimately, what are we aligning around in terms of the primary narrative that we want to share? So there's an element of the external interactions and then an element of the internal interactions, and I think both are critical to this process being successful.

Slack: And in the internal interactions, what I didn't mention is that somewhere in between all of that, and the truck stops and the fast-food restaurants, you have to fit in Teams meetings and conference calls with all the folks back in the offices doing all the rest of the work at the bank that we need to be involved and engaged with. So it's definitely a balancing act.

Heintjes: Yes, and I'm glad you mentioned that. It's not just the six regional executives. You guys have teams of your own that are out there on the ground, so it's a small army of people doing what you're describing. I wanted to ask you—you mentioned the types of businesses you talk to. How do you balance the types of firms you talk to? I know you want a mix of firm sizes, agriculture versus high tech...how do you balance that?

Oakley: I've been with this initiative from its inception, and when we got this off the ground the idea was, we want to get a fast start. We're thinking, "If this is going to have any chance of success, we want to really create a lot of momentum very early on." And so there was a very intentional focus at the beginning on large entities that are in our territory. These would be companies that either are headquartered in the Southeast, or have a large regional presence in the Southeast. And while I think that served us well, we very quickly realized that's a part of the picture but it's not the entire picture. And so, we worked really hard to supplement that with medium and small businesses, and—as I described at the outset—representatives from other parts of the economy. Economic performance goes well beyond businesses, as we all know, and I think we've done a good job at doing that. But we try to also be smart about how we go about doing it. So, once you get a reasonable number of these entities that are willing to have and maintain these relationships with us, we've been able to do some analysis and make some comparisons. Primarily, we look at a couple of things. One of those is recognizing that this is never going to be a statistically significant collection of contacts. I want to make that very clear. But putting that aside, it still makes sense to have a collection of contacts that looks a lot like the economy. We have a built-in advantage, in that the six southeastern states that we are a part of already proportionally look a lot like the US economy. But beyond that, we do periodic analysis on our contacts to see, do they compare—again, proportionally—to contributions to growth? So we look at, basically, GDP and narrow that down into our various territories. We also look at proportion of employment. So those are a couple of places that we can look to see that, yes, on average, the collection of contacts looks a lot like the economy. And we're also looking at the southeastern United States. For me, I think it's important that we look a lot like the US economy proportionally as well, because our president [Bostic], again, is informed by what's happening in the southeastern United States, but policy is made for the US in total. And so having that broader view, I think, can be helpful in that regard.

Heintjes: Adrienne, how do you think about balancing your types of contacts?

Slack: Absolutely how Chris described. We think about who we need in that pool of contacts. That's, I think, the way we all look at it. But there, to your point, I think there's a practical sense—right?—for I've got four different states I'm across, and so how do I figure out who I'm going to talk to each cycle? So I try to make sure I have a diversity of industries, a diversity of size, and to some extent, a diversity of geography. It's a large geography to cover, so I may not cover all four states every cycle, but over a certain number of months, I make sure I touch each of those four states—again, focusing on a diversity of industry, diversity of size, in each of the places that I visit.

Heintjes: What are the challenges involved in forming these relationships? These are all very busy people. They don't have a lot of spare time, and they have to make time for you. What are the challenges in getting them to not just give you some time, but give you their trust and information that we're going to keep confidential—can you talk about that?

Oakley: My experience is, getting the first meeting is the toughest. Oftentimes after we've identified the target, as Adrienne described, it's a cold call—or if it's an entity that we have some connection to through another contact or through a member of our board of directors or what have you, we'll take whatever approach it requires to try to get our foot in the door. Typically, we are talking to the CEO—sometimes the CFO. And sometimes there'll be particular questions that we're asking that it makes sense for us to seek out another particular expert. But it's usually one of the leaders of the organization, and we use every tool at our disposal to get our foot in the door, as I described. We have worked hard to create various tools so that a potential contact can look at the process. We even have a video where they can go and look at what people that they might actually know have experienced, where they've had a conversation about the experience and the contributions that they've made to the Fed. Once we've had that initial conversation, and we've walked through some of the things that we've talked about today, generally folks realize that this is a public service that I have the potential to provide. And again, you've got to develop that trust, and it is relationship building. But if we are good at what we do—and I think it's important, relying on the, I think, very strong reputation the Federal Reserve has for integrity—by and large, folks are willing to give us that shot and have that conversation. And it's pretty rare that these individuals aren't willing to have the second, and third, and fourth meetings. For me, that is particularly important because making comparisons over a period of time with the same organization and the same contact is also really useful. You gain some really interesting insights once you've had that subsequent meeting. So for me, it's important to get off on the right foot and make them say "yes" to the next meeting.

Slack: The relationships that we have with current contacts and our directors—and if we have a connection—absolutely help, and the reputation of the Fed helps. But there are contacts, and I'll tell a little story about one during the pandemic that we reached out to. The voice on the other end of the phone said, "How do I know you are who you say you are?"—because I couldn't go meet with this person in person. And I'd actually shared the video, we'd shared all types of information, connected her to another contact, but she still did not have that trust that you talked about. And so, you just have to be patient. I waited till I was able to travel. I went and visited this person in person. She turned out to be an incredible contact that has referred additional contacts—because she respects our process so greatly that not only does she now have a relationship with us that she shares information, but there are others because of her that also share that information. So, those relationships and connections I think are really, really key.

Heintjes: You mentioned the pandemic, and I wanted to follow up on that. The pandemic upended the way we work in any number of ways. How did it affect what you do? And also, did it bring any changes that are still in effect now that we're sort of, I'll say, postpandemic? Does it still leave any changes in the way you work?

Slack: Oh, it's definitely left changes on the way that we work. I mentioned earlier, fitting in Teams calls and conference calls while we're on the road. The technology around that makes it much easier. As far as our contacts are concerned, though, it's really opened up avenues beyond just the in-person meeting. While I very much value in person, and that is my preference to engage with folks, sometimes that's just not possible. To your point, they're very busy people. And so, once you have that relationship established, sometimes you can say, "Yes, we'll do this over a phone call this time." It gives you the ability to pull the information and not have to wait for it, but still maintain that relationship, and you'll get with them in person the next time. Not only our comfort with that, but our contacts' comfort with using that technology, I think, is much expanded.

Oakley: Yes. And I would just add, we have to adjust to what their situation is. The approach that we take is we want to be as least intrusive to them as possible. Because, to your point, they are very busy. To get this hour or 90 minutes with them is already a big deal. And I would just say, in a postpandemic environment, their own approach to doing work may be different. They may be working from home on a particular day that we would normally have met in person. And so I think it's actually created an opportunity for us to perhaps be a bit more efficient because, like Adrienne, I personally prefer in-person meetings, especially during that initial relationship-development era, of the various conversations that we have. But there are times where it makes perfect sense to have a phone call or to do a Teams call. And the other thing I would add is, that Adrienne was talking about that I was thinking about, is one of the great things about having this network—and particularly with those that are long established, that will react to us when we have a need—is that it doesn't always have to be an hour-long meeting. A great example is our ability to reach out to a retailer in real time during a particularly busy part of the year for them. So say you're approaching the holidays. Maybe you just want a 10-minute call to talk about, what are your expectations? How are inventories looking? What challenges do you think you're going to face? And then to say, "Hey, I want to circle back in January, and see how it actually turned out." We find that that is something that most of our contacts are very willing to do. And again, it's all about us being respectful of their time, and maybe that conversation takes place on their way home. We'll do whatever we need to do to try to make it work out.

Heintjes: You know, the Fed has always been interested in this sort of "Main Street" perspective, but in your time at the Fed, how have you seen that approach change? You were both at the Atlanta Fed for years before we introduced the REIN method of gathering this anecdotal information. Can you describe the changes you've seen, and the effect they've had on how we think about policymaking?

Slack: I'll start with that one. I actually started my career at the Fed in another Federal Reserve district, in their economic research department. Part of my responsibilities was making Beige Book calls—the Beige Book is this collection of economic information, with a lot of similarities to what we've described today, but it was a very different process at the time. The reason I bring it up is that was really the Fed's connection, outside of the Board of Directors, to the "Main Street" that you're talking about. It was a very small set of business contacts that you called every six to eight weeks, as you're preparing the Beige Book, and you had a certain set of questions you asked this individual. You never met the individual—just very, very different. The Fed was—and I was—certainly not pushing any information out about the economy. It was all about pulling it in. So, when I think about the evolution to this process, it's really mind-blowing. From where I was, when I started with this institution a number of decades ago, to come from a very small set of folks that you asked the same questions to, you were this entry-level employee just really taking notation. I wasn't asked to make decisions about where are trends that we need to look at. Other folks did that. So to see the Fed now value the resources we have in the district in those businesses, and value not only their thoughts but their experiences and why they're making decisions, and pulling that information in in the way that we do, investing the resources that we do in this program, is really quite something. And I think it is a much more fruitful place for the Fed to be in—both from receiving information, and then our ability to also share who we are and what we do, and why we're doing it.

Heintjes: Chris, speaking of several decades ago, you've been with the Atlanta Fed for almost 36 years. In that time, how have you seen the Fed's perception of Main Street policymaking evolve and what we do about that?

Oakley: Obviously, we've been spending the last 45 minutes talking about this effort, and I hope that sends a message to your listeners about just how important it is, how much we value it. Adrienne and I literally spent more than two hours today, along with our colleagues and a bunch of other people, interacting with Raphael to share this information with him. And I've got to give credit to him as well. This is a Federal Reserve president who is very engaged with the communities. If he could be cloned, I think our district would be well-served because he is in demand and he's very interested in what our contacts have to say. I think, Tom, the other point I would want to make is just to provide a sense for how large this network is. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 active contacts, and so we've talked already about the diversity of types of entities and sizes and so on, but it's a lot of different people. And in any given FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] cycle, we're going to talk to somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 of these individuals—and all that work is also supplemented with the work of our Community and Economic Development colleagues, or our colleagues in the survey part of our division. There is a lot of opportunity for us to touch real people, and I know that everybody on the team feels like that's vitally important. And I'm very proud of the fact that the Atlanta Fed has made this investment, because that's what it is. It's an investment in ensuring that we have a good read on what's happening in the real economy.

Heintjes: I really appreciate sitting down with both of you today because you've both been with the Atlanta Fed for so long, and I wanted to ask you: In that time, how have you seen perceptions of the Fed change? Maybe different ways we're perceived, or misconceptions that maybe you've seen evolve over time, and people understand us better. How have you seen the way people view the Fed change?

Slack: There are things that change, and things that don't. If I think back over the course of my career, there are always folks with opinions that do not support, generally, the way that the Fed goes about making monetary policy. Well, Congress has asked us to do that, and that's why we do it. But there's always some contingent that holds that opinion. What I've tried to do, personally, when I'm given the opportunity to share who we are and what we do, is to provide my experience and to come at that from a place where sometimes I'll even say, "I'm not here to change your opinion. I'm not here to convince you of anything. I'm merely here to provide the Fed's perspective, and I'm interested in where you may agree or not agree with that perspective." I am hopeful that that has some impact on folks. I won't go so far as to say I've changed minds, but I think in those interactions, particularly interactions with broader audiences, people generally leave interactions with us learning something that maybe they didn't know before, whether they agree with it or not. I think that's the huge value for me is being in a position to provide that education about whatever the topic is that I might be speaking to on any particular day.

Oakley: We are very humble in recognizing that policy decisions, by their very nature, are never going to be perfect because you can't predict the future. And so, as Adrienne says, our role isn't necessarily to change minds but to provide information. And so, I walk away from those opportunities thinking I've been successful if I've pointed people in the direction of new resources that maybe they weren't aware of that they might want to seek out as they're forming their opinion. But the truth is, it's a tough environment. There are a lot of opportunities for people to get misinformation, and so to the degree that we're able to provide perhaps more objective resources—including some that we provide, or point to those that we look to—I think is helpful. And really, just this entire effort, I think, is useful in that it helps to paint a picture of an organization, which the Federal Reserve is, that is made up of people that are likely your friends and neighbors, or perhaps even family members. We're all human beings, and I think as long as we are humble and work to indicate that our effort is geared toward meeting the mandate that we've been given, and basically drawing everyone's attention to the fact that we have a collection of people at the very top that are really working hard to be sure that they create an economy that works for everyone. That is probably an impossible goal, but it's one that I think is important. And as long as that's the guiding principle, I think we're doing everything that we can do to try to support that.

Slack: Let me just add that the shift that really happened with this program was after the financial crisis. Not just with this program, but the Fed in general has paid a lot more attention to, and put a lot of effort into, transparency where we can be transparent, and communications all the way up and down the chain—from the chair of the Federal Open Market Committee, through folks like Chris and I that are now out there trying to share what it is we do and why we're doing it and provide that perspective. So I think that's the biggest benefit to helping folks understand what we're doing. And there's a flip side. There are definitely folks out there that have opinions about how we're making policy, but there are also folks out there that understand why we're doing what we're doing, and also advocate for us.

Heintjes: You're both in town to discuss economic conditions with our bank president, Raphael Bostic, before he heads to Washington to discuss monetary policy with other members of the Federal Open Market Committee. Can you talk a bit about this point in the cycle, and what you hope to accomplish in your discussions with Raphael? Chris, you mentioned funneling things down to a narrower level. What happens at this point in your discussions?

Oakley: I'll spend a couple of minutes talking about what this week looks like, and the way the Atlanta Fed structures itself from a calendar perspective. We actually back up from the Federal Open Market Committee, so if you take that date and work yourself backwards, the week prior to that the Atlanta Fed Board meets. That's also policy week, so that happens to be the week that we are recording right now. The week prior to that is when the boards of each of the branches meet. We've referenced our directors a couple of times—just by way of a bit of explanation, the members of the branch board of directors serve as key economic advisers. So in many ways, they are super-members of the network that we've been spending this time talking about. These are people that came to us through those types of interactions—so, I guess, fair warning to anyone that is interested in joining the network, that that possibility exists. Obviously, we have to work to fill gaps and so on, but the point being that we have concluded the information-gathering process, as of last week. This week, we all arrive in Atlanta. We began working pretty closely—not only with one another, but with our economist and analyst colleagues. There are forecast meetings that that team is sharing that we're a part of today. As an example, just earlier this morning, we spent time with Raphael and others, providing our overview of what we think we heard over the course of this cycle. And then, over the course of the next 24 to 48 hours there will be the Atlanta board meeting, and we'll be really firming up, collectively, a narrative that we will put into the hands of Raphael. And then, ultimately, he will have the final say. He is very active in this regard. He's very active in all of these meetings, as you well know from your own interactions with him. He is definitely going to take this and make it his own before this is all said and done. But the idea is to arm him with lots and lots of information that he feels very comfortable with, ahead of him going to Washington and, in effect, representing the district at the committee level.

Slack: I really think that sums it up well. The only thing that I will add is, there's also a bit of a debate that goes on in these meetings. We attend the economic forecast briefing really to start thinking about what it is we're hearing from our economic colleagues—and we pop in every now and again with some comments, but the debate happens in the meeting that we had today. You have a group of individuals that was in that forecast briefing, you have us talking about what we're seeing in the economy, and kind of back to the beginning of some of this discussion—sometimes that doesn't mesh. Sometimes what they're seeing in the data or what they think business behavior is going to be, isn't that way. So, there's a push and pull that goes on between us and the economists about, a re you sure you heard the right thing? Are you sure you're explaining it to us correctly? Why would a business behave that way? We describe those things, and there are not necessarily right answers to these things but it's an informative process to think about the trends that we in REIN are espousing. Why are they happening? Because ultimately, they're happening because a business is behaving in a certain way. And so, by us engaging in that debate, it helps inform everyone about why we're seeing the trends that we're seeing, whether they're expected or not.

Heintjes: Chris, I know you'll be retiring from the Bank soon, after a long tenure here—and of course we'll all miss you, but I wonder what advice you've given your successor about how to succeed in this role. Is there any message you'd give to those contacts with whom you've interacted?

Oakley: Yes. First, I'll just make a shameless plug for my successor. Her name is Michelle Dennard. She is new to the Fed, but she is a former CEO that had a statewide role in economic and workforce development. So she comes on board with a lot of relationships built in in the state of Florida—which I think is going to be super helpful to her in her role. We've been very fortunate that this is one of those times when succession planning has actually worked out the way that we intended, and so we've had some overlap and it's allowed for me to pass off some relationships to her. We'll continue to do that through the end of the year. The message to her is very much what I've described to you: that it really is all about relationship building. I'm very confident that she will excel in that regard and will be able to continue to connect central and north Florida to this process. The message I would love to give to my contacts is one of sincere appreciation, because this only works because of their willingness to engage with us. And because we're the Federal Reserve, it's not like we can take them out to fancy dinners or send them on cruises or what have you. That simply doesn't happen. Basically, the compensation that they get from us is a sincere thanks at the end of the meeting for the time that they've spent with us. But if this is an opportunity for me to collectively share that the information that they provide really does matter: we hear stories about how it impacts not only our president's thinking, but via the stories that he tells it impacts perhaps some of his colleagues on the committee and may get them thinking about things in a bit of a different way. I think it's just super important for our participants to recognize that it really matters, and it is a good investment of their time. So that would be my sincere gratitude expressed to them.

Heintjes: And you can tell Michelle that I'll eventually start chasing her down to be on the podcast, so you can tell her how enjoyable it is. And as we wrap up our conversation, I want to close with an opportunity for some civic boosterism, if you will. I'm going to ask you what is the thing you love or really value the most about not only your respective cities, but even the wider regions? Adrienne, this might be an easier question for you, since, as I said, New Orleans is so unique and has a very special culture. But talk a little about what is really special about the regions.

Slack: New Orleans culture is obviously special, and we have great food and I think a lot of it. But engaging in this work has really opened my eyes to things I would not have had line of sight to across that whole Gulf Coast region, just how interconnected it is. But at the root of everything, when we talk about these relationships we have with our contacts, you also wind up with this lens to how they truly care about the communities that they're in and how they engage as individuals in those communities. And that depth of understanding—that gift or window, if you will—into how they think about their business, their businesses' impact on the communities, the well-being of their staff, how they can contribute to some of the social issues that they may be facing, whether it's affordable housing or child care. There's really a window there that I didn't have the appreciation that I have for today.

Heintjes: And Chris?

Oakley: I think I would just add, I mentioned the cities that I spend a lot of time in, but there is a lot of Florida between those spaces as well. That would be the thing that I would maybe point out, that there's an old Florida that is pretty special and maybe isn't the one that people outside of the state might think about when they are picturing Florida. We've got great amenities in the bigger cities, but there's a lot to explore in some of those smaller regions as well. And as Adrienne has mentioned with her very diverse geography, I love driving through some of those areas, and to the degree we're able to connect with some of those folks, that's important as part of our initiative as well. And of course, we're fortunate to benefit from having exposure to some places that people might not think to go, but maybe they should consider.

Heintjes: Well, this has been a really wonderful conversation, and I appreciate both of you taking the time to sit down with me today.

Oakley: Thanks.

Slack: You're very welcome.

Heintjes: And that brings us to the end of another episode of the Economy Matters podcast. Again, I'm Tom Heintjes, managing editor of the Atlanta Fed's Economy Matters magazine, and as always, I appreciate your spending some time with us. On the Atlanta Fed's website at atlantafed.org you'll be able to read about the regional economies we've been discussing, and you can learn more about the REIN team's efforts to further our understanding of the complex tapestry that is the southeastern economy. I also encourage you to follow us on social media as well, so you can get updates on new information. Thanks again for listening, and let's meet again next month.