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Dan Hanson

Summary

Dan Hanson has over 25 years experience addressing education, public policy, public health, and economic development issues. His professional experience includes public private partnership establishment, investment portfolio management and risk management, capital raising through the bond and securitization markets, and public policy and program development for various government agencies.

Dan has a keen interest in leveraging art, science, and education infrastructure to promote economic development in regional economies. He helps build sustainable engines by forging partnerships among business, government, and nonprofit corporations. These partnerships often are a mix of organizations operating on a local, national, and international level. His efforts are realized through a combination of business and volunteer activities.

Dan is noted for his outstanding analytical and his commitment to promoting regional economic development and achieving equitable outcomes of government policy and program initiatives across communities. Dan’s academic qualifications include a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science from the University of the Oregon. He also attended the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and graduated with a Master of Science degree.

Professional Activities

Dan is currently a principal with Technology Innovation Group, Inc. (TIG), which he co-founded in 2002. His company’s mission is to connect innovation to societal needs. TIG pursues it mission through two primary service offerings: advising entrepreneurs, researchers, academics, technology professionals, and communities wanting to build technology based economies; and serving as participant advisors with institutions and private companies to commercialize specific technologies, primarily those with public health benefits. TIG clients include local, regional, and national governments and economic development agencies, large corporations that manage portfolios of intellectual property, young companies that are developing products and services based on complex technologies, and universities and research institutions that desire to move discoveries from the laboratory to businesses.

Dan also is currently a member of the governing board of the State of Texas Product Development and Small Business Incubator Fund Board. This fund was created to finance Texas-based companies with emerging technologies. The goal of this fund is to facilitate high value economic development throughout the state. Dan was selected by other board members to chair the Finance Committee of the Fund’s Board.

Nongovernmental organizations often serve as innovation leaders and play an important role in economic development. As a result, Dan has served as an active director on the governing board of several NGOs. To promote the development of life science companies in the Dallas, Texas region, he co-founded the North Texas Life Science Society in 2002. This advised fund of the Communities Foundation of Texas was a charitable organization that provided a platform for scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers interested in forming and advancing new biotech, medical device, and healthcare companies.

Dan recently served as volunteer Board Chair of Big Thought, in Dallas, Texas. This nonprofit’s mission is to make imagination part of everyday learning, and Big Thought is pioneering the creation of education systems for children and families in one of the largest urban school districts in the country. Big Thought’s flagship program, Thriving Minds, is a unique partnership with the Dallas Independent School District, the City of Dallas government, and over 100 arts and cultural organizations in Dallas. Big Thought is the managing entity of this partnership and also assists these local arts and cultural organizations design and deliver Thriving Minds programs which are integrated into elementary schools’ core courses, such as history, math, science, and language arts.

During Dan’s tenure as Board Chair of Big Thought, three large, multiyear grants were obtained from new donors: the Ford Foundation awarded its first ever arts in education grant to Big Thought; the U.S. Department of Education announced $1 million in grants over three years; and Nokia chose Big Thought as its U.S. implementation partner for Nokia’s global Make a Connection program. In addition, Dan led efforts to reorganize and rebrand Big Thought, while enlarging its mission. These changes were made to reflect the growing role that Big Thought was playing in Dallas, Texas and nationally.

Dan also conceived of and created Big Thought Institute, then a new service within Big Thought. The Institute assists other communities with creating innovative education partnerships, and the most significant result to date is managed by Portland, Oregon’s Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC). Big Thought’s engagement with RACC helped spark the creation of the Right Brain Initiative, which continues to expand in the tri-county Portland region despite the economic downturn.

Finally, Dan established a new governance committee at Big Thought while he was Board Chair, and the structure and impact of this new committee led to Big Thought’s receipt of an Award of Excellence from the Center for Nonprofit Management in Dallas.

Other recent civic efforts include serving on the board of TACA, which raises money to fund performing arts organizations in Dallas. While on the TACA board, Dan served on the finance committee as well as several grants committees. Another volunteer position was the finance advisory committee to the City of University Park, Texas, which was responsible for a broad range of financial management recommendations to the city manager of University Park, Texas. Dan also served on the advisory board of the North Texas Enterprise Center (NTEC), a business incubator for new companies developing medical technologies. Dan and a colleague established NTEC in early 2003, and this nonprofit recently expanded into its own building and now offers electrical and wet laboratories for companies with emerging technologies.

Prior Experience

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur in the business and nonprofit arenas, Dan was a consultant with Touchstone Financial Group. This company is based in Washington, D.C. and provides financial management advisory services to government agency clients. While at Touchstone, he advised on projects for the Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA), the US Department of Treasury, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Dan also served as Senior Vice President of First USA Bank for seven years. In this position he managed the Bank’s treasury functions and was responsible for a staff that controlled the funding, cash management, investment portfolio, and risk analysis for this company that grew rapidly from $1.5 billion to over $25 billion managed assets before it was purchased by Bank One (now JP Morgan Chase) in 1997. He worked on creating innovative financing conduits to fund the bank as well as policies for liquidity and investment portfolio practices for the bank. These policies were critical for the bank, which grew at a compounded annual growth rate of nearly 50% during his tenure.

While managing the treasury functions for First USA, Dan oversaw the creation of a powerful and detailed cash management system that integrated the bank’s current assets and liabilities with forecasted funding and new assets. Due to the insights these forecasts provided, the proprietary software analytics became a frequent destination for review by the company’s credit providers, including Bank America, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, and Citibank.

Before joining First USA, Dan held senior positions in the capital markets groups of several financial services companies. At MBank Capital Markets, he traded mortgage securities for the bank’s portfolio and a broker dealer operation. For Drexel Burnham Lambert, Dan developed portfolio strategies for large financial institutions in the southwest United States. At InterFirst Bank, he served as an advisor to public organizations on their capital budget strategies and issuances of bonds. His efforts lead to capital financing for the Texas Veterans Home Mortgage Program, Dallas Independent School District, East Texas Community College District, and the City of Grand Prairie, Texas. He also managed U.S. treasury bond trading activities.

Dan began his career in 1981 with the Budget and Research Department at the City of Dallas, Texas. While at the City of Dallas, he held several positions with responsibilities for preparing policy papers for the City Council, managing the City’s risk analysis and insurance program, and providing financial management oversight functions for the City’s executive management.

Education

Bachelor of Science, Political Science, University of Oregon, 1977.
Master of Science, Industrial and Labor Relations, University of Oregon, 1979.
Master of Science, City and Regional Planning, Harvard University, 1981.