WASHINGTON–Jennie Chin Hansen of San Francisco, California, a nursing educator and for over 20 years a leader in the health care field, is the new president of AARP.

She is the first Asian American to head AARP, the nation’s biggest membership organization of seniors age 50 and over. AARP is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. But with about 40 million members, this powerful group is understandably attractive to the country’s top politicians, as well as major companies.

Ms. Chin Hansen is one of the keynote speakers at the 35th anniversary of the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA), to be held here on July 31-August 3.

“We are indeed delighted that she had graciously accepted our invitation,” OCA Executive Director Michael Lin said. “To be sure, the community is extremely proud of her election as the first Asian American to head AARP, a major and prestigious organization. I join those who wish her all the best in this leadership position.”

AARP (www.AARP.org) has staffed offices in all 50 states. It is proud of its record of helping seniors exercise “independence, choice and control in ways that are beneficial and affordable to them and society as a whole.”

Over the years, Ms. Chin Hansen has been actively involved in AARP in several leadership posts, and served as its president-elect for 2006-2008. She assumed the position of AARP president last May, replacing Erik Olsen. Her term ends in 2010.

“It is an honor to continue my service at AARP as president of the Board of Directors,” she said. The Board is AARP’s governing body, charged with approving all policies, programs, activities and services for its members.

Ms. Chin Hansen told Asian Fortune: “I am truly honored and humbled to be the first Baby Boomer and first Asian American president of our nearly 40 million member non-partisan AARP.”

She added: “It’s an incredible time to be in this post, given the significant issues of health care and economic concern in our country, the energy of the upcoming elections this fall, as well as the fact that AARP is marking its 50th anniversary, which will culminate this September in Washington with one of special events occurring at the Lincoln Memorial.”

“Even though our membership is for the 50 and older population, we have a diversity of generations membership, as many as three in a given family, in addition to other forms of diversity,” she said. “In fact, we estimate there are about 550,000 Asian Americans!”

“I hope that in my two-year term, I can contribute the multiple dimensions of who I am in terms of experience in health care, long term care and health systems, as a boomer, and as an Asian American,” she stressed.

Ms. Chin Hansen also serves on the Board of Director’s audit and finance committee, the governance review committee and the AARP Services, Inc. Board. In the past, she served as chair of the AARP Foundation Board. She was also a former vice chair of the Board’s membership committee.

AARP Chief Operating Officer Tom Nelson told Asian Fortune: “We are indeed extremely fortunate to have Jennie Chin Hansen as AARP's president in this our 50th anniversary year. Jennie has deep substantive knowledge and experience. She is an innovator, teacher and a leader as demonstrated by her work with the On Lok program in building a model for community based delivery of primary and long-term health care services. This work has resulted in a national program that is now funded by Medicare and Medicaid.”

He added: “Her leadership style is one that allows her to connect with a wide diversity of audiences and constituencies in ways that convey passion and compassion. She is the right leader at the right time for AARP and all those that we seek to serve.”

Leadership roles

Her role as AARP’s chief volunteer spokesperson is to support and advance the strategic initiatives and movement that AARP has committed, called Divided We Fail: health care access and quality, as well as long-term economic security, for the nation’s older members and the coming generations.

She said, “I will help to also put a face on these issues that will further highlight how safe use of medications, preventing falls, and encouraging important conversations around later life are personal issues that we call can take action and responsibility on even now, regardless of who will win the election this fall, that relate to health care and economic security. These issues are also ones that involve our close family and those who help in the care of elders.”

Because of her own obvious background, she said she would have “the added opportunity to enhance the understanding of our growing diverse country, both in racial diversity and aging diversity, example, being a member of the boomer generation.”

An AARP news release traces Ms. Chin Hansen’s outstanding career. It noted she was the executive director of On Lok, Inc., a non-profit family of organizations, for nearly three decades. On Lok provides integrated, comprehensive primary and long-term care and community-based services in San Francisco. On Lok is the prototype for Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE). A federal law enacted in 1997 made PACE’s Medicare/Medicaid program available nationwide.

Currently, Ms. Chin Hansen teaches nursing at San Francisco State University. She also chairs a nurse leadership grant focused on acute care hospitals and safety at UCSF’s Center for the Health Professions.

She is or has been involved with leadership selection and development programs for the Robert Wood Johnson, John A. Hartford, Gordon and Betty Moore, California Health Care, and Kellogg Foundations and the White House Fellows Program.

She serves as a board member for both Lumetra, California ’s Medicare Health Care Quality Organization and CalRHIO (California ’s Regional Health Information Organization). In 2005, she was appointed by the Comptroller General as a Federal Commissioner to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which reports to Congress.

Ms. Chin Hansen has received various awards. Among them: the 2005 Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator’s Achievement Award; the 2002 Gerontological Society of America's Maxwell Pollack Award for Productive Living; and the Women’s Healthcare Executive Woman of the Year of Northern California in 2000. In 1997, the League of Women Voters of San Francisco named her one of the Women Who Could Be President Honorees. In 2005, she was inducted as a Fellow into the American Academy of Nursing.