A Kansas University alumnus soon will be advising the chairman of the Federal Reserve in matters related to energy markets, oil prices and other variables that affect America’s economy – all thanks to the advice of one of his former KU professors.

Steven Agee, who earned a master’s degree and doctorate in economics at KU, recently was appointed by the Fed’s Board of Governors, including Chairman Ben Bernanke, to the board of directors for the Oklahoma City branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

The appointment came at the recommendation of Gordon Sellon, a research economist for the Fed in Kansas City and a former KU professor. Agee had Sellon as a macroeconomics professor while pursuing the doctorate he would earn in 1982.

Now Agee will be putting his expertise to work by following the industry he knows best – oil and natural gas – as one of 36 branch directors in the Federal Reserve System.

“What they’re interested in, for us branch directors, is to keep our ears to the ground of economic activity that’s going on right now,” Agee said. “A lot of the data that they use is two or three months old. They want a current sense of what’s going on in the economy.”

Agee is president of Lee & Agee Inc., an oil and gas company based in Oklahoma City. He also is chairman of the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board.

Normally directors serve three years; Agee is finishing an open term that ends in December 2007.

Agee already is starting to crunch numbers that may be of use to Fed policymakers. Drilling activity for oil remains intense, he said, and it doesn’t look to let up anytime soon.

Agee has been working in the oil-and-gas business for 24 years.