Robert P. Mayo was a listmaker.
From his days growing up in Seattle, where he tabulated his bicycle visits to each and every school, to his days as President Richard Nixon’s first budget director and president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, spreadsheets were a way of life.
Mr. Mayo, 86, died of complications from pneumonia Saturday, Jan. 25, in Sherman Hospital in Elgin. He was a former longtime Wilmette resident who had homes in Bartlett and Bradenton, Fla.
After working eight years as a vice president of Continental Bank in Chicago, Mr. Mayo was director of the Bureau of the Budget from 1969 through July 1970, about the time it morphed into the Office of Management and Budget.
During that year he became known as a cost-conscious planner who broke down 2,073 pages of 1970 budget documents as being worth $97 million per page.
In a 1981 Tribune interview he attributed his departure to a rift with John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, over the OMB reorganization.
He returned to Chicago to head the Chicago Fed. His tenure came during a tumultuous time for the nation’s economy.
“He was president during a real difficult time in our economy,” with double-digit inflation and high unemployment, said Carl Vander Wilt, a senior vice president and chief financial officer at the Federal Reserve of Chicago.
The Chicago Fed’s board of directors had representatives from the automobile and construction industries hamstrung by high interest rates during that period.
“I remember Bob needing to walk a very fine line between what some directors wanted–lower interest rates–and public policy” to keep inflation in check, Vander Wilt said. Federal Reserve boards recommend a discount rate.
“He was very willing to listen to various alternatives but made up his mind at the end of the day and would stick with it,” Vander Wilt said.
His son Richard said that despite his distinguished career, Mr. Mayo still made time for family camping trips and jaunts as a collector of experiences.
“He was very analytical,” his son said. “His personal life was reflected very much in his financial background. He kept track of all kinds of things.”
In his retirement he fulfilled a goal to visit every county in the U.S., said his son Robert N. “It required a trip around Texas 10 years ago to pick up some fairly remote places,” he said.
Born in Seattle, Mr. Mayo obtained a bachelor’s degree in economics and business from the University of Washington in 1937. He obtained an master’s degree in business there the following year.
He began his career as an economist and auditor for the Washington State Tax Commission before taking a job in the office of the treasury secretary in Washington.
In retirement he was chairman of the Chicago YMCA Board and vice president of Chicago’s Executive Service Corps.
He also is survived by his wife, Marian; daughters Carolyn Mayo-Brown and Margaret; and two grandchildren.
Services have been held.
