The Honorable Lyndon L. Olson, Jr., was appointed by President William J. Clinton as U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Sweden and served from 1997-2001. From 1979-87, Olson was Chairman and Member of the Texas State Board of Insurance. In 1982-83, he served as President of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
He is Vice Chairman of the Board of the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation in Austin, a member of the Bernard & Audre Rapoport Foundation in Waco. From 1990-98, he was President and CEO of Travelers Insurance Holdings in New York. He presently serves as Chairman of the Board of the Scott & White Health Plan and is on the Board of the Baylor Scott & White Health Care System in Dallas. He has served as Chairman of the Meadows Foundation Mental Health Policy Institute, Texas Mental Health Association, the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, the Texas Lyceum Association, the Texas Opera Theatre, and the Texas Arts Alliance. He presently serves as Secretary and a member of the Philosophical Society of Texas. Both the Texas Municipal League and the Texas Medical Association have conferred on Olson their Distinguished Public Official awards.
He is an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Council of American Ambassadors. He is a recipient of the Gates of Jerusalem Award from the State of Israel, serves on the Board of the Jerusalem Foundation, and he was on the International Board of Advisors for the Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is a Trustee of the American Scandinavian Foundation in New York City. In addition, Olson was named Swedish American of the Year in 2002 by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. He has served as a member of the Presidential Commission on Public Diplomacy, appointed as a Democrat by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
A native of Waco and a former member of the Texas House of Representatives, Olson is a graduate of Baylor University and attended Baylor Law School. He is a past president of the University’s Alumni Association, has served on the Board of Visitors of its School of Business and School of Music, and was on the Board of Visitors of Yale University’s Music School. In 1999, he received Baylor University’s Distinguished Alumni Award and in 2002 its Price Daniel Distinguished Public Service Award. He currently serves as Trustee Emeritus of the Baylor College of Medicine.
A cattle rancher and banker, Olson resides with his wife, Kay Woodward Olson, in Waco, where he serves as an Elder in the Central Presbyterian Church.
