To begin this ceremony I want to thank several groups and individuals for joining us here today. As you can see by looking out to the horizon, we have a breathtaking site to build on for the future, and I want to thank those who are making this possible.

First, I wish to thank our employees, who are working in offices scattered around the downtown area. They do outstanding work and with the completion of this building, will be brought back together in one location. I certainly want to thank our Board of Directors for its support. I want to thank our friends at MainCor, especially Clara Vaughn, and Union Hill, especially Kathy Burke, who have been so helpful and supportive as we have prepared for today’s groundbreaking.

As part of this ceremony, I ask your indulgence to provide a little history to the presence of this Reserve Bank in Kansas City and why we have chosen to build a state of the art facility now.

Nine decades ago, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City was established as part of a system of 12 banks across the United States. It was chartered as a separate, regional institution because those who created it understood that the strength of our nation’s money and banking system would best be preserved if it were not concentrated in any one region or in a select few regions of the United States. As one of the designers noted at the time, the “administration of the Federal Reserve System must be divided between the government, the member banks, and the commercial and broad community interests, in a manner which will safeguard against individual, sectional, or political combination.”

As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, I am sometimes asked, “do we really need regional reserve banks?” I answer, always, that anyone who has a sense of financial and political history, or appreciates the dangers of concentrated power, financial or otherwise, can only answer with a resounding “yes.”

We 12 banks are more than an historical accident, we are part of our nations’ long history of establishing institutions within a framework of proper checks and balances.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City was opened in 1914. Just as importantly for today’s celebration, our current home at Tenth Street and Grand Boulevard was completed and occupied in 1921, over eight decades ago. At its opening, it was a facility for the times and would serve Kansas City and the Federal Reserve Bank extremely well for much of those eight decades.

But the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, like the economy itself, is a dynamic institution, and has changed. These changes now require that the facilities that house us be significantly enhanced.

Since we occupied our completed building in 1921, the nation’s payments system has changed from paper based to more electronics. And our role as banker to the Treasury has changed to a whole different level. Our Bank is part of this payments system committed to ensuring its integrity and reliability through any set of circumstances. But to do this as we must, we require state of the art facilities.

Our discount and lending activities function differently today than they did in 1914. Our supervision of financial institutions and our research, as it involves our knowledge of the regional, national and, now, the global economy, is much more intense and requires enormously more complicated technology. And, of course, our role in monetary policy, in many ways, is more substantial today than it was then.

And finally, we live in a different world as it involves security. The world in 1914 was on its way to war; yes, but not within our borders, not like today. We have a whole new requirement if we are to ensure the financial integrity for Kansas City and around the country.

While our current facility is beautiful, it is unable to meet today’s needs. So, here we are at this spectacular location, ready to begin the construction of a new building, which when completed, will provide us a world class facility; one that will enable us to remain a vibrant part of our 12 bank system for at least the next 80 years.

It is my expectation that upon its completion, we will be prepared to serve our nation, this great city of Kansas City, and the other great cities and towns in the heart of America that define the Tenth Federal Reserve District.