[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 36 (Monday, March 19, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E388-E389]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TRIBUTE TO YOLANDA TOWNSEND WHEAT

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. JOE BACA

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 19, 2001

  Mr. BACA. Mr. Speaker, I rise to salute one of the Inland Empire's 
own, Yolanda Townsend Wheat.
  A Board Member of the National Credit Union Administration, and 
native of the 42nd Congressional District of California, Yolanda will 
be visiting the area this month, making a number of presentations to 
schools, businesses, and academia.
  We feel in our hearts great pride for Yolanda's achievements, and 
hope she will inspire a new generation of young people in our area. 
Yolanda truly embodies the American dream that if you work hard, if you 
persevere, there is nothing you cannot achieve. I hope the children in 
the Inland Empire will look to her as a role model and mentor.
  I offer my best wishes to Yolanda, her husband, Alan Wheat, former 
Congressman from Missouri, and their two children. I know they are 
proud of all she has attained.
  Yolanda's achievements are remarkable for their great breadth and 
depth. An attorney specializing in corporate finance, President Bill 
Clinton named her to the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) 
Board in April 1996. She served as NCUA chairwoman for a short time in 
early 2001.
  The three-person NCUA Board is responsible for overseeing more than 
10,000 federally insured credit unions with assets totaling over $400 
billion. The NCUA is the independent federal agency that insures the 
deposits of more than 76 million credit union members in the nation's 
federal credit unions and most state-chartered credit unions.
  During her tenure on the NCUA Board, Yolanda has been a champion for 
the interests of consumers, focusing on such issues as access to 
financial services, privacy and predatory lending practices. She has 
been instrumental in developing incentives that help credit unions 
expand their membership base so that as many consumers as possible have 
access to credit union services. She has worked to empower credit 
unions to provide more services in the financial marketplace in order 
to remain competitive and thrive in the 21st Century.
  Yolanda was raised in a multicultural household in California. Her 
mother, (the former Mary Sanchez) worked in a law firm and was the 
inspiration of Yolanda's desire to pursue law as a career. Her father, 
Art Townsend, was the founder and publisher of The Precinct Reporter, a 
weekly African American newspaper in my district.
  As an attorney, Yolanda has nearly ten years of specialized 
experience in real estate and corporate law. She represented commercial 
lending and financial institutions at several law firms. She worked in 
both the Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. offices of the law firm of 
Morrison and Foerster from 1986 to 1992. She practiced law from 1993 to 
1995 with the former law firm of Smith, Gill, Fisher & Butts in Kansas 
City, Missouri.
  A native of San Bernardino, California, Yolanda holds a J.D. for 
Harvard Law School and graduated with distinction from Stanford 
University with an A.B. in International Relations. She is a member of 
the bars of California, Maryland and Missouri.
  All of this adds up to a truly remarkable record of achievement and 
public service. And so, as Yolanda visits the people of the Inland 
Empire, we wish her God's blessings, good wishes, and our proudest 
thoughts.

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