Blake Hastings
Vice President in Charge

Blake Hastings has served as vice president in charge of the San Antonio Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas since January 2007. He is responsible for the Bank’s activities in the Central and South Texas region, which includes working closely with the branch’s board of directors and providing leadership and oversight for the operating and administrative functions at the San Antonio office, with particular emphasis on its outreach activities to banks, businesses and community-based organizations.

Prior to joining the Federal Reserve, he served as executive director of the Free Trade Alliance of San Antonio, a public-private partnership for the promotion and development of international trade and foreign investment. He was also the export sales manager at Dorian International in White Plains, N.Y. Before that, he worked at the United States Trade & Development Agency as an evaluations/regional assistant for Asia-Pacific.

Mr. Hastings holds a master's degree in international business and a bachelor's degree in international economics from George Washington University, Washington, D.C. He is fluent in Mandarin, German and Spanish.

Karen Diaz
Assistant Vice President

Karen Diaz started her career with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in 1980. She was promoted to operations officer in 1993 and transferred to the San Antonio Branch, assuming oversight responsibilities for various departments.

Diaz was promoted to assistant vice president in 1998 and served as interim Branch manager for two years. Her current responsibilities include Building Services, Cash, Financial Management, Personnel and Protection.

A San Antonio native, Diaz is a graduate of Jefferson High School. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Arlington and an advanced degree from the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1992. She was selected to participate in the Leadership Texas class of 1998.

Diaz has been actively involved in civic activities during much of her professional career. She has participated in mentor programs with inner-city school children in Dallas and San Antonio. She also has been a member of both the leadership team for the San Antonio Independent School District and the Adult Basic Education Advisory Board for the Northeast Independent School District’s Community Education Division. Diaz served for five years on the board of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce’s Central Area Business Council.

Branch Economist

Keith R. Phillips
Senior Economist and Policy Advisor

Keith Phillips joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in January 1984. His areas of concentration include regional economics and economic forecasting. Phillips developed business-cycle indexes for Texas and its major metro areas, which he uses to analyze business conditions in those regions. He is a contributing member of the Western Blue Chip Economic Forecasting Group, where he has been the most accurate Texas forecaster for eight out of the past thirteen years. His research and analysis have been covered in media such as CNN, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, USA Today, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, MSNBC and in media throughout Texas.

In August 1996, Phillips was transferred to the San Antonio branch in an effort to improve the regional economic coverage of the Dallas office and to better serve the needs of the South Texas community. He teaches courses in econometrics and forecasting at Trinity, Incarnate Word and St. Mary’s universities. He also teaches courses in managerial economics in the executive MBA program at UTSA. He obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Southern Methodist University and holds a B.A. and M.A. in economics and a bachelor of journalism degree in news/editorial from the University of Missouri at Columbia.