Doris M. Drury 1926-1999

Doris M. Drury (1926-1999), daughter of Ursula Pearl (Darst) Drury (1904-2002) whose great-great-great grandfather was John Paul Derst (1713-1775) our Pfeddersheim immigrant, was outstanding in her field of endeavor:

BANKING PIONEER DORIS DRURY DIES AT 72

Doris M. Drury, who opened the door for Colorado women to get bank loans in the late 1970's and was the first female chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, has died. She was 72.

Drury was a longtime professor at the University of Denver and Regis University, educating several of today's Colorado bank presidents and vice presidents.

Drury, who died Tuesday, served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank in Denver in 1979 and 1980. She was a board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City from 1980 to 1984 and was its first female chair.

"My concern is not that I'm the first, but that I'm not the last," she said at the time.

She was a prominent member of the DU faculty for more than two decades. A generation of students learned about money and banking from her as professor of economics from 1965 to 1989.

"I continue to run into people who took her classes. Her influence was quite large in that respect," said Bill Kendall, vice president of the Center for Business and Economic Forecasting, of which Drury was president. "For a woman of her generation, her influence in banking was very significant. She was a member of a number of corporate boards and for many of them, she was the first woman on the board."

A memorial mass will be celebrated 1 p.m. Tuesday at All Souls Catholic Church, 4950 S. Logan St., Englewood, by the Rev. Michael Sheeran, president of Regis University.

She was the first female full professor at DU, serving as chair of the economics department, the chair of the public affairs program and director of the division of research at the school of business. She was named an Outstanding Educator in America in 1972 and 1973. Drury was director of the master of business administration program at Regis University from 1990 to 1997.

She was born Nov. 18, 1926, in Louisville, Ky. She earned a doctorate in economics from Indiana University in Bloomington, and a master's of business administration and a bachelor's in economics from the University of Louisville.

She was a founding director of The Women's Bank, now Colorado Business Bank, which opened in 1978 to help women get loans without husbands or fathers as co-signers. It was considered to be one of the most successful banks of its kind in the country.

"She was one of the founders of this bank and one of its missions was to help women be accepted into the mainstream," bank President Virginia Berkeley said. "Women in Denver were being denied credit because of their gender."

She was on the board of Premier Bank of Denver and served as a board member of the Public Service Company of Colorado until 1997. She served on the Governor's Blue Ribbon Panel on Economics Growth and the Colorado Insurance Board and was a consultant for the Employment and Standards Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor.

March 20, 1999 - The Denver Post, Denver, Colorado