Lan Bentsen is a Texas based civic entrepreneur with a lifelong passion for the health and education of at-risk children. He builds coalitions with organizations and providers to improve outcomes.
Embracing March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation research led to the creation of the eighteen member Healthy Mother healthy Baby Coalition and to the State of Texas passing the Maternal Child Health Improvement Act (MIHIA) and a 50% reduction of infant mortality. Texas improved from 23rd to 9th lowest infant mortality rate in the nation.
Embracing the Children’s Defense Fund’s development of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (known as CHIP), the Texas CHIP Coalition enrolled 586,000 children in 18 months, taking Texas from worst to first nationally in the lowest rate of uninsured children, earning recognition from the World Health Organization.
While exploring for oil and gas in the Former Soviet Republic of Georgia, Lan brought three Ob-Gyns to the University of Texas Medical School in Houston for a refresher course and sent them home with a mobile obstetric clinic to deal with their high-risk rural pregnancies, leading to a fifty percent decline in the Republic of Georgia’s infant mortality.
Lan Bentsen subsequently served as Trustee for the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, the Board Chair of the Children’s Defense Fund, and as the Republic of Georgia’s Honorary Consul to the United States. He is a National Fellow of the American Leadership Forum and past President of the Houston Chapter of the World Presidents Organization.
Lan was awarded a B.A. in English from the University of Texas at Austin and MBA from Harvard Business School. His business background includes twenty-five years developing real estate across the country and fifteen years pursuing oil and gas in the Former Soviet Union. He has served on the boards of five companies listed on the New York Stock and London Stock Exchanges.
Lan was raised in South Texas, lives in Houston with his wife, Adele, and has been blessed with three daughters and four grandchildren.