Sam Young Cross Jr.

Sam Y. Cross passed away in Washington, DC. on October 18, 2021 at 94. Sam grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, earning undergraduate and master’s degrees in Economics from the University of Tennessee. He served in the Army Air Force, after which he did post-graduate work at the University of Chicago. He was married to Norma Sigler from1953 to 1980 with whom he had four children. In 1982, he married Nancy P. Jacklin.

Sam joined the US Treasury Department as an international economist in 1953. A large part of his career at Treasury involved dealing with the stresses on the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system and the declining US gold stock in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Those strains led to the US suspending conversion of official balances of US dollars into gold in August 1971, then devaluing the dollar, and finally moving to a floating exchange rate. Sam was part of the core team managing these crises and negotiating historic changes in the international monetary system. He was appointed the US Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund by President Nixon in 1974 and reappointed to that position by President Carter in 1977, where he represented the US in creating the new system.

In 1981, he joined the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As Executive Vice President of the Foreign Department, he managed the Bank’s relationships with foreign central banks and US foreign exchange market operations for the Federal Open Market Committee and US Treasury. During the international debt crises of the 1980’s and 1990’s, he played a major role in crisis resolution, including as a trusted advisor to Federal Reserve Chairman Volcker and to Anthony Solomon and Gerald Corrigan, Presidents of the FRBNY. He also chaired a Study Group of the Central Banks of the G-10 countries on “Recent Innovations in International Banking( the Cross Report)”, published by the Bank for International Settlements in April 1986. It was a thorough exposition and policy analysis of the growing innovation in financial markets and its implications for the financial system.

After retiring from the FRBNY in 1991, he became an Executive in Residence at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. He also completed an extensive revision of a FRBNY publication “All About the Foreign Exchange Market in the United States” which is still in use today. Sam served as a director of Fuji Bank and Trust USA and as an independent director of the Alliance Capital money market funds. He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 2002, Sam and his wife returned to Washington DC where he taught for several years at Georgetown University’s Business School.

Sam had a particular love of language, wordplay, and music, and he was a great wit. He composed the music (on his ukulele) and lyrics for “Ramblin’ Sam’s Greatest Hits”, with the copyright one of his proudest accomplishments.

He is survived by his loving wife Nancy Jacklin of Washington, D.C., daughter Carol Cross (Chesley Sugg) of Cary, N.C., sons Andrew Cross of Estancia, New Mex., Timothy Cross (Cathy) of Williamsburg, Va., and David Cross (Nicole) of Wynnewood, Pa., and his grandchildren Michaela Cross, April Cross Farulli, Natalie Cross and Madison Sugg.

A memorial and celebration will be arranged at a later date. Memories and expressions of sympathy for the family may be shared at www.josephgawlers.com