A Remembrance of John Alfred (Al) Broaddus, Jr.
1939–2025
John Alfred (Al) Broaddus, Jr., the sixth president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, died on Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025. He served as president from 1993 to 2004.
A Richmond native, Broaddus attended Thomas Jefferson High School before earning a bachelor's degree in political science from Washington and Lee University in 1961. As a Fulbright Scholar in France the following year, he received a graduate degree from the Center for Advanced European Studies at the University of Strasbourg. He served in the U.S. Army from 1962 to 1964 and then spent two years at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency before completing his doctoral studies in economics at Indiana University in 1970. Broaddus returned to Richmond and began his career at the Richmond Fed that same year. He was appointed director of research in 1985, a position he held under President Robert Black until succeeding him in 1993.
During his tenure as research director, Broaddus and his team of economists, led by Marvin Goodfriend, advocated increased transparency by the Fed at a time when its deliberations and decisions were largely kept behind closed doors. They argued that clear signals from monetary policymakers regarding their goals and intentions would enhance credibility, showing the public their decisions were based on sound macroeconomic arguments free from political influence.
As president, he forcefully, but always respectfully, brought those calls for reform before the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the body responsible for setting interest rates. Chief among those changes was the establishment of an explicit inflation target, which he argued would anchor expectations about the Federal Reserve's commitment to long-term price stability.
"Famously, two FOMC meetings in the mid-1990s featured organized debates on the subject of inflation targeting, with Al advocating in favor and then-Gov. Janet Yellen taking the skeptical view," recalls John Weinberg, former research director and policy advisor at the Richmond Fed. "These debates were an important first step in the building of the consensus for the committee's eventual adoption of its 2 percent target."
Broaddus' principled argument gradually gained the support of his FOMC colleagues, and inflation targeting is now a fundamental principle of U.S. monetary policy.
Broaddus also furthered President Black's work in elevating the intellectual profile of the Richmond Fed's research department. He recruited high-caliber economists committed to cutting-edge research that shaped monetary policy debates, and he hired influential monetary and banking economists as consultants who helped create a rich environment that strengthened the Bank's reputation as a thought leader across the Federal Reserve System.
Broaddus was actively engaged in the civic life of Richmond, where he served on numerous boards, including the board of trustees of Virginia Commonwealth University, the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, the Richmond SPCA, the Virginia Council on Economic Education, and the United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg.
"Al was a prince: always positive, always gracious, determined to give credit to others, and relentlessly focused on the Bank's people and their personal success," says current Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin. "I know longtime employees recall his steadfast leadership the morning of 9/11, as well as his affection for and service to his native Richmond. Many of us also enjoyed seeing Al here at the Bank after his retirement and around town. We will miss him, and Richmond will miss him."