About Bert Lance

Thomas Bertram "Bert" Lance (June 3, 1931 – August 15, 2013) was an American businessman who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Jimmy Carter in 1977. He is known mainly for resigning from the Carter administration because of a scandal during his first year in office. However, he was later cleared of all charges.

Lance was born in Gainesville, Georgia. His father, Thomas Jackson Lance, had served as president of Young Harris College, in northeastern Georgia, and in 1941, the family relocated to Calhoun, Gordon County, when Lance's father became superintendent of Calhoun schools.

After graduating from Calhoun High School in 1948, Lance attended Emory University for two years before he transferred to the University of Georgia. In 1950, he married LaBelle David, whose family owned the Calhoun First National Bank; they had four sons. Under pressure to support his wife and their first son, Lance dropped out of the University of Georgia, where he had been a member of Sigma Chi, before graduating.

He became a teller at the bank and, within a decade ascended to its presidency after he had acquired a controlling stake with a consortium of investors in 1958. Meanwhile, he completed American Bankers Association-accredited executive education programs at Louisiana State University's School of Banking of the South (1952–1954) and the Stonier School of Banking at Rutgers University (1961–1963). He later served as president of the National Bank of Georgia in Atlanta from 1975 to 1977.