22 Facts About Bert Lance

Thomas Bertram "Bert" Lance was an American businessman who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Jimmy Carter in 1977.

Bert Lance is known mainly for resigning from the Carter administration because of a scandal during his first year in office.

Under pressure to support his growing family, Bert Lance dropped out of the University of Georgia before graduating.

Bert Lance became a teller at Calhoun First National Bank and, within a decade, ascended to its presidency.

Bert Lance acquired a controlling stake of the bank with a consortium of investors in 1958.

Bert Lance served as president of the National Bank of Georgia in Atlanta from 1975 to 1977 before serving in the Carter Administration.

Bert Lance introduced himself to Jimmy Carter at the 1966 annual meeting of the Coosa Valley Area Planning and Development Commission.

Bert Lance aided Carter in campaigning in the northwest part of Georgia for Governor that year.

Carter did not qualify for the general election, but after running again and winning in 1970, he invited Bert Lance to become State Highway Director.

Bert Lance ran to succeed Carter in 1974 but lost a bid for the Democratic nomination, finishing third in the first primary behind Lester Maddox and the eventual winner, George Busbee.

Bert Lance was an adviser to Carter during his successful 1976 presidential campaign.

William Safire's article written during this time, Carter's Broken Bert Lance, earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1978.

In 1981, Bert Lance returned to the Calhoun First National Bank as chairman; he left in 1986.

Bert Lance then made something of a political comeback in 1982 when he was elected Chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party.

Bert Lance was an advisor to Jesse Jackson during Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign.

Bert Lance is credited with popularizing the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", which he was quoted as saying in the May 1977 issue of the magazine Nation's Business.

Bert Lance was implicated in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Bert Lance was involved in deals with notable BCCI luminaries Agha Hasan Abedi, Mochtar Riady, and Ghaith Pharaon and with BCCI's largest borrower, Ponnapula Sanjeeva Prasad, and joined with Arkansas-based power investor Jackson Stephens in facilitating BCCI's takeover of Financial General Bankshares.

The next month, Bert Lance helped BCCI's hostile bid for Financial General Bankshares of Washington.

On Saturday Night Live, September 24,1977, the day Bert Lance resigned from the Carter administration, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd appeared in an advertising parody of an American Express credit card commercial.

Bert Lance died on August 15,2013, at his home in northwest Georgia at age 82.

Bert Lance had been in hospice care due to recent declining health, caused by aging.