Andrew Brimmer, a US economist and prominent advisor to the Bermuda Government, has died at the age of 86.Dr Brimmer is widely recognised as the first black American to serve as a governor of the US Federal Reserve System.In Bermuda, he is best known for serving since 1999 as Principal Policy Advisor to the Ministry of Finance.Premier and Finance Minister Paula Cox hailed Dr Brimmer as “one who believed in Bermuda, and was proud of what we had achieved as a Government”.She said the Louisiana-born economist had “become family” through his relationship with her father, the first Progressive Labour Party Minister of Finance, Eugene Cox.Taken on by Mr Cox to “represent the financial interest of the Country”, Dr Brimmer continued his appointment up until his death.Ms Cox commended Dr Brimmer as a champion of Bermuda’s evolution as a premier financial services jurisdiction.Coming from a sharecropper family in the segregated South, Dr Brimmer was ultimately appointed a governor of the Federal Reserve in 1966, by President Lyndon Johnson.He served also on the Tuskegee University board of directors, from 1965 to 2010, and taught at Harvard University.Dr Brimmer is survived by his wife Doris, and a daughter, Esther Dianne Brimmer.Ms Cox called his passing both a personal and a professional loss for her.“Although he can be succeeded, his shoes cannot be filled,” she said.