Francine I. Neff*
Class of 1976
- Thirty-fifth Treasurer of the United States
You don't know what life is going to offer you, good or bad; so learn all you can. When opportunity knocks, it's nice to be prepared.
Francine Neff was born in 1925 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her father worked in the silver mines of Colorado, then in the oilfields of Mexico as a tool pusher and dresser. When Neff was five, the family left Mexico and spent two years wildcatting in southern New Mexico and southwest Texas, where they lived in a tent near the oilfields. They moved to central New Mexico and Neff's father cultivated beans during the drought and Great Depression years of the 1930s. Their home was a small wooden structure that had once housed a horse.
Neff graduated from her high school class as valedictorian and earned a scholarship to Cottey Junior College in Nevada, Missouri, where she was first in her class. She transferred to the University of New Mexico, majored in English, and received her degree in 1948. On graduation day, she married a college classmate, Edward John Neff.
In 1964, Neff became an active volunteer for the Republican Party, serving as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1968 and 1972. Later, she became a member of the Republican National Committee.
While mopping the kitchen floor one day, she received a telephone call from the White House, asking her to interview for the position of U.S. Treasurer. To prepare for her interview, Neff reported that she read Norman Vincent Peale's Power of Positive Thinking. She was appointed treasurer by President Richard M. Nixon in 1974, and then was reappointed when Gerald Ford became president. She was also appointed national director of the U.S. Savings Bonds Division.
Neff resigned her two federal commissions in 1977 and returned to New Mexico. There, she became vice president of the Rio Grande Valley Bank in Albuquerque. She then served on the boards of Hershey Foods, E-Systems, Louisiana Pacific, and D. R. Horton, Inc. She also served as an officer in her family-owned investment business, Nets, Inc.
"I never wanted a career," said, Neff, who had planned on being a homemaker. But she was inspired by President Dwight Eisenhower when he said, "Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen."
Of her Horatio Alger Award, Neff said, "It is a special honor in my life. All the Horatio Alger members inspire me."