Coming full circle: Lyndon Olson gives back through service, leadership
By Regina Dennis
Thursday January 28, 2010
Lyndon Olson Jr. stands tall as a symbol of how adversity can grow into success, success into gratitude, and gratitude into compassion.
Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children photo
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The 62-year-old Waco resident served as U.S. ambassador to Sweden from 1997 to 2001, following a 20-year career in the insurance industry that culminated with his appointment as CEO and president of Travelers Insurance holdings. But his early health problems didn’t necessarily foretell such triumphs.
Born with club feet, Olson endured more than 10 operations as a child to correct the disability, but then began to suffer circulation problems in both legs that Waco doctors could not alleviate. At age 11, he sought treatment at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas, where doctors amputated both his legs because of gangrene and taught him to walk using prosthetics.
Now Olson holds the distinguished title of being the first former patient of the hospital to be named chairman of the board, a position he has held for about four years.
“I have a deep, abiding love for the place, and I wanted to give back to an institution that has given me so much and my family so much,” Olson said. Being board chairman “is one of my dreams. I’m sure ’til I die, I’ll be trying to give back in some capacity.”
The Scottish Rite Hospital specializes in pediatric orthopedics, and has never charged patients for services in its 87 years of operation. Its medical staff has treated more than 190,000 patients since its inception in 1921, and performed 2,100 surgeries and 40,000 outpatient visits in the 2008 fiscal year.
J.C. Montgomery Jr., president of the hospital, said having a board chairman who understands the needs of the young patients and the medical staff, and who has a personal interest in seeing the hospital thrive, has been a major plus.
“His leadership has been dynamic. He is a remarkable individual, and I think he has been a real good fit for us,” Montgomery said. “A lot of times when you’re talking about needing to design something or having to spend so much money to take care of the patients, Lyndon relates to that, so you don’t have to really explain it to him. He has a great empathy for our patients and it gives him a much better feel for our operation.”
Giving back to the hospital that provided him with life-changing medical care has been a priority for Olson for as long as he can remember. His decision to become a Scottish Rite Mason, following in the footsteps of his father and uncle, was partially motivated by the fact that only Masons can serve on the hospital’s board.
Olson recalls that when he was named ambassador to Sweden by President Bill Clinton, he had to give up all board positions and club and organization memberships to serve. But there was one he simply could not part with.
“I wouldn’t resign from Scottish Rite Hospital board,” Olson said. “I went straight to the president, and Clinton gave me an exemption. He understood what it meant to me personally because of my life experiences, and he said he didn’t see any conflict between the hospital and being ambassador.”
Treatment and lessons learned
Seated in a plush leather seat in the sun-washed boardroom of Central National Bank in Waco on a rare day when he’s not out of state on business, Olson talked with great fondness about his memories at the hospital, where he was treated off and on for seven years.
His first stay in 1957 lasted about six months. Other stays in the years before he turned 18, the age at which the hospital no longer sees patients, would range from days to several weeks as he received continued treatment and follow-up surgeries.
The hospital had separate wards for boys and girls, each including large rooms filled with a dozen beds. The young patients bonded like school-time pals, uninhibited by their physical difficulties or bed confinement, overlooking even their racial differences in what was then a segregated America.
“We were black and white and brown, and this was significantly before the Civil Rights Movement. At home we were living segregated lives, but at that hospital, we were totally integrated,” Olson said. “Skin or physical handicap, it didn’t matter, because we were all in the same boat. We were there, we were alone, we all got shots, we all had surgery, and we all needed to survive.”
The mischief committed by the young patients was endless. One child who was a double-amputee would grab the rails over his bed and swing his body onto a neighboring bed, moving around the room. Once, a fellow patient asked to “buy” Olson’s leg — so he could use it to beat up another youngster. After one of the boys had a bad reaction to a shot a nurse had given him, the room conspired to throw chicken bones at the nurse in the dark during night checks.
“When my parents would come to visit, they would bring me PomPoms (chocolate-covered caramel candies), and they would bring them for everybody,” Olson said, a gleeful smile spreading across his face. “And after they left we had a ball, throwing them across the room in PomPoms fights, and the nurses would come in and slip because we got caramel all over the floor.”
The days weren’t always filled with fun and laughter. Patients could have family visits only once a week, for two hours on Sundays, and Olson recalls feelings of loneliness and sadness at the separation. Some boys would never get visits because their families could not afford to travel across the state. And each endured days when treatment and surgery would leave them weakened or in intense pain.
Still, these experiences taught Olson lessons in self-reliance and being compassionate to others.
“You helped the guy in the bed next to you. You shared with the person across the room,” he said. “When somebody was hurting and needed a pillow, you threw him your pillow. If you had a candy bar, you shared your candy bar. If you didn’t share your candy bar, well OK, but nobody shared their candy bar with you. It was a subculture and a whole world unto itself.”
Olson said after his legs were amputated, he never let the disability define him or limit him in any way. Almost as soon as he received the orthopedic legs, he began playing Little League baseball, his favorite childhood sport. He said he is often surprised by how many people don’t know about his legs — and even more surprised when he finds that it doesn’t matter much.
“Smart, good-looking, bright, orange, purple, physically impaired, genius, drinks too much, we put everybody in these buckets,” Olson said. “And sometimes when people don’t need to be put in these buckets to deal with their humanity, there is a richness to that acceptance that is a blessing.”
A growing hospital
The Scottish Rite Hospital has changed dramatically since Olson’s years seeking treatment. Now, patients can be referred by doctors instead of being sponsored by Masons, and instead of those multi-bed wards, each patient is given his or her own private room in a state-of-the-art, 100-bed facility across from the original location. Those parental visits? Unlimited.
The greatest change has been in the hospital’s image. Whereas the facility primarily served poor children with orthopedic disabilities who couldn’t afford treatment anywhere else, the hospital now has garnered an international reputation as being the best medical center to treat any orthopedic disorders in children.
“It’s the leading pediatric orthopedic hospital, by any measure, of the world,” Olson said. “And I’m not just blowing steam here. It truly is the best.”
Montgomery said that with Olson as board chairman, the hospital has been focusing increasingly on research. It is developing a Center for Excellence in Hip Disorders, adding to its other specialized study areas including scoliosis, club foot and dyslexia.
“We’re going to be more specialized and more focused in these areas,” Montgomery said. “We call ourselves ‘niche players.’”
Olson said researchers at the hospital recently isolated the gene for scoliosis, a critical step toward finding a cure for the spine-curvature disease and improving treatment in the interim.
The hospital is funded by donations and gifts, often from former patients who might send in $50 or $100 regularly as a way of saying thank you, Olson said. Still, the hospital has had to make careful spending choices and operate leaner in recent years, grappling with the economic times like other charities.
Olson said the board is weighing whether the hospital will begin accepting insurance from patients who are covered, especially since Congress is dealing with insurance reform that likely will cover tens of millions of the uninsured.
“When I first came here, 80 percent of our patients were indigent and poor, and most of them were referred here because they didn’t have money. Today, 90 percent of the patients are referred here for expertise,” Montgomery said. “Therefore, the model has changed, and if most of your patients are here for expertise, you start looking at how are you going to cover these charges, and it’s only logical that you will look at their insurance.”
Olson said at least one thing will remain constant as the hospital moves forward.
“The Scottish Rite Hospital will never turn away any child because of inability to pay.” |
