Fernand St Germain

Inducted: 1981

Congressman Fernand J. St Germain was chairman of the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs that handles a wide range of issues related to consumers. During his tenure on this committee, he consistently championed consumer cooperatives. It was he who in 1978 introduced legislation to create the National Consumer Cooperative Bank. When federal administrative actions later threatened to end the bank, he led the fight to preserve it. He believed and often said that consumer cooperatives ‘are reaching people that simply have been bypassed by other more traditional programs.’