Raymond Eugene "Ray" Lombra (born 1946 in Hamden, Connecticut)[1][2] is an American economist and professor at Penn State University, where he is also the senior advisor to the Dean.
[2] Lombra worked as a senior staff economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System before joining the faculty at Penn State in 1977.
[3] In 1990, Americans for Common Cents enlisted Lombra to produce evidence in support of continuing to make the U.S. penny.
He subsequently testified before the Senate Banking Committee that eliminating the penny would “impose a significant and regressive rounding ‘tax’ on the American public”.
[4][6] Lombra and his wife, Bobbi, enjoy drinking fine wine and filling the resulting empty bottles with pennies.