INDEPENDENCE — Sheila Bair, chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and among the most influential persons involved in the global economy, will return to her hometown of Independence in late October for the Neewollah celebration.

Generalissimo Fred Meier announced on Saturday that Bair has accepted an invitation to serve as Honorary Grand Parade Marshall for the Neewollah Grand Parade on Saturday, Oct. 30.

Referencing the words of another famous Independence native – Pulitzer-prize winning playwright William Inge – Meier noted the pivotal role Bair has played in recent years as head of the FDIC.

“Sheila is definitely proof that Inge was right when he said that ‘big people come out of small towns,’” Meier said.  “Her leadership during this country’s recent financial crises is a testament to her sound Independence roots.”

In addition to participating in Saturday’s Neewollah Grand Parade, Bair will address several local civic groups during a joint luncheon meeting on Friday, Oct. 29.  She is also scheduled to attend the Queen Neelah breakfast for candidates and their parents on Saturday morning, before the parade.

During her visit to Independence, Bair will have time to show off her hometown to her two children, Preston, age 17, and Colleen, age 10, and attend a private get-together with her former Independence High School classmates on Friday evening.

Bair’s husband, Scott Cooper, will not be able to make the trip to Independence due to a prior commitment.

Sheila C. Bair was sworn in as the 19th chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) on June 26, 2006. She was appointed chairman for a five-year term, and as a member of the FDIC Board of Directors through July 2013.

Chairman Bair has an extensive background in banking and finance in a career that has taken her from Capitol Hill, to academia, to the highest levels of government. Before joining the FDIC in 2006, she was the Dean’s Professor of Financial Regulatory Policy for the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst since 2002. While there, she also served on the FDIC’s Advisory Committee on Banking Policy.

Other career experience includes serving as Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury (2001 to 2002), Senior Vice President for Government Relations of the New York Stock Exchange (1995 to 2000), a Commissioner and Acting Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (1991 to 1995), and Research Director, Deputy Counsel and Counsel to Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (1981 to 1988).

As FDIC Chairman, Bair has presided over a tumultuous period in the nation’s financial sector. Her innovations have transformed the agency with programs that provide temporary liquidity guarantees, increases in deposit insurance limits, and systematic loan modifications to troubled borrowers. Bair’s work at the FDIC has also focused on consumer protection and economic inclusion. She has championed the creation of an Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion, seminal research on small-dollar loan programs, and the formation of broad-based alliances in nine regional markets to bring underserved populations into the financial mainstream.

Since becoming FDIC Chairman, Bair has received a number of prestigious honors. Among them, in 2009 she was named one of Time Magazine’s “Time 100” most influential people; awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award; and received the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award.

In 2008, Chairman Bair topped The Wall Street Journal’s annual 50 “Women to Watch List.”  In both 2008 and 2009, Forbes Magazine named Ms. Bair as the second most powerful woman in the world, after Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Chairman Bair has also received several honors for her published work on financial issues, including her educational writings on money and finance for children, and for professional achievement.