Don Kohn’s infamous ‘death march’ hikes were referenced in Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech—now the Fed veteran is weighing the chairman’s path ahead

A couple of years after the financial crisis, Kevin Warsh, Mark Carney, and Donald Kohn laced up their hiking boots and headed out of the hubbub that is the Jackson Hole Symposium. In the wilds of Wyoming, they might have hoped—though couldn’t have known—that one among them would go on to lead the Federal Reserve, and another would become the Prime Minister of his native Canada. At the time, Kohn was the vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and, for his part, was unaware that his famously rigorous expeditions had earned the nickname of “death march” among his peers.A little over a decade later, Kohn watched on as Warsh, his close former colleague, invoked the spirit of these hikes in his inaugural speech as central bank chairman at Jackson Hole in August.

“As I learned years ago, you can take two different kinds of hikes on the trails around Jackson Hole,” Warsh opened with. “I can sum up my hikes with former Vice Chairman Don Kohn in two words: I survived. These steely marathon death marches revealed a side of Don I wasn’t ready for.”

“There’s another kind of hike—one I associate with Chairman Ben Bernanke, my old colleague. With Ben, it’s a much more leisurely pace, an easy stroll along the wandering trails at the Rockefeller Preserve. So before setting out, do a wellness check and ask yourself: ‘Is this a Kohn day or a Bernanke day?'”

Kohn had been largely unaware that he would be featured so prominently in the speech, he told Fortune.

Warsh had approached him moments before taking the stage to say he hoped he didn’t mind the reference—a little humor, Kohn believed, to break the tension. He added: “I thought the whole speech was very good and moved in a constructive way, laid out some principles … and then, importantly, discussed the economic situation, which he had refused to do in July.”

Kohn had........

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