Lee E. Mortenson: Academic & Professional History

Lee attended Elmhurst College (BA in History/Political Science) and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism (MS in Advertising/ Marketing) and later received a second Masters from the University of Southern California (Public Administration) and a Doctorate, also from USC (Health Policy and Evaluation Research Methodologies). 

Interested in politics at an early age, Lee managed a number of political campaigns in the Midwest, founded his own campaign management / advertising firm when he was 19 and eventually worked as a Regional Director for the American Medical Association and the American Medical Political Action Committee.  At age 24, he moved to Washington, D.C., worked for several health care consulting firms and served as Project Manager on an evaluation of the National Cancer Institute's new Comprehensive Cancer Centers program.  This lead to several consulting engagements with medical schools and to a position at The Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Cancer Center as a Division Director, managing the information, outreach, cancer control and some of the grant writing activities of the Center.

After several years at the Hopkins, Lee founded ELM Services, Inc. in 1977.  For the next 30 years, he served as the firm's CEO and as Executive Director of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC).  ELM eventually grew to a 60 person professional firm with three divisions while the Association's membership grew to 700 member hospitals and more than 40 affiliated state medical oncology societies.  

Lee's Written Works:

During his time at ELM, Lee served as Journal editor of Oncology Issues, wrote and edited 40 books and more than 150 papers, articles and chapters in publications ranging from The

New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, The Wall Street Journal, and publications of the Institute on Medicine.  He assisted community and university cancer centers to develop clinical research efforts, cancer center organizational and planning programs and authored grants which received more than a hundred million dollars in NIH funding for these programs.  He also authored legislation adopted by Congress and 39 state legislatures which assured Medicare patients of access to new and current cancer technologies.

In 2005, Lee retired as Executive Director of ACCC and at the close of 2006,  sold his interest in ELM Services, Inc.

Publications, Legislation & Honors:

Oncology Publications 
Publications on Aging 
Legislation Developed  
Appointments & Honors