Lansing E. Crane served from 1995-2007 as CEO of Crane & Company – his family’s 217-year-old business known for its fine cotton stationery; high performance, non-woven materials for filtration and insulation; and high-security currency products, including, since 1879, the only paper used by the Treasury Department for U.S. currency. He served as Chairman of Crane from 1993 to 2006 and as a board member from 1985 to 2007. During his tenure, Mr. Crane led the professionalization of Crane & Company’s board, management, and family governance structures, driving growth of the company from its historic niche as a domestic, New England paper manufacturer to a diversified, global technology company. Mr. Crane was instrumental in Crane & Co.’s expansion into the international market, leading the charge to buy Sweden’s currency paper maker and printer from Sweden’s Riksbank and turning it into a platform for international contracts with India, China, Mexico, Canada, Iraq, Egypt, Peru, Chile, Sweden and others for printed currency, banknote papers, and other security products.
He now serves as chair of the board of two fourth-generation family businesses: Wells Enterprises, Inc. of LeMars, Iowa, the makers of Blue Bunny ice cream; and Canal Insurance Company of Greenville, South Carolina, a leading insurer of independent truckers. He is an executive-in-residence at the Family Business Center of the Loyola School of Business in Chicago and on the Editorial Advisory Board of Family Business Magazine. He is currently a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and previously served as a director of the Family Firm Institute, the professional association of family business advisors and scholars.
Since 2000 he has been a director of the Austen Riggs Center, an internationally recognized psychiatric treatment center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Mr. Crane is a graduate of Yale University and Boston University Law School. He practiced health care law for 25 years and taught in the medical school at Yale University before joining Crane as CEO. He was born and raised in Dalton, Massachusetts, a town of 5000 people where eight generations of the Crane family have been vital members of the local community.
Mr. Crane and his wife, Katie, now live in Boulder, CO.