Dr. Lange Approved as Founding President, New Dean of TTUHSC at El Paso
Dr. Richard Lange (high-res photo)
Dr. Richard Lange will begin as president and dean on July 1, 2014.
May 21, 2014 | Written by Dailey Fuller
As recommended by Chancellor Kent Hance, the Board of Regents of the Texas Tech University System approved Dr. Richard Lange as the founding president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) at El Paso and new dean of the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine.
He will begin his duties July 1, 2014.
“There has never been a more exciting time for Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso, and Dr. Lange will be instrumental in shaping the future for our institution,” Hance said. “He is an outstanding leader with an impressive record of achievement, and I am confident we found the ideal candidate to build upon our continued success in El Paso. We are thrilled to officially welcome Dr. Lange.”
Hance named Lange as the sole finalist on April 18, after regents and TTU System officials conducted a nationwide search working in consultation with a search committee. Lange will be the first president of TTUHSC at El Paso, which was founded as a comprehensive university in May 2013.
Lange said he is excited about the opportunity to lead the fourth and newest university in the TTU System.
“It is truly an honor to join the Texas Tech family and become a part of the exciting history that is happening in El Paso,” Lange said. “Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso has a rich tradition of excellence in health care education, research and patient care. I look forward to a great future for our university and to building on this momentum with our outstanding administrators, faculty, staff and students, as well as community partners.”
Lange, 58, currently serves as vice chairman of medicine and director of educational programs at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center (UTHSC) at San Antonio. In his current role at UTHSC at San Antonio, Lange has oversight of 12 medicine subspecialty divisions, including clinical, research and educational efforts. The department is comprised of 250 faculty members with an annual budget of $50 million.
A tenured professor at UTHSC at San Antonio, he was formerly tenured and continues to hold a faculty appointment at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. Beginning in January 2004, he served as chief of clinical cardiology and the E. Andrus Cowles Professor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland. At Johns Hopkins, Lange led the drive to increase research funding by 60 percent to $39.5 million and establish new satellite clinical programs, and spearheaded the effort to raise funds for a new hospital.
He has been president of the Texas American Heart Association Affiliate and an active and productive clinical investigator publishing more than 300 journal articles and book chapters dealing with ischemic heart disease, valvular heart disease and congenital heart disease in adults.
Lange obtained his B.S. in biochemistry from the University of North Texas and M.D. from the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern medical school in Dallas.
After completing his internship and residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he returned to UT Southwestern for fellowship training in cardiology. He subsequently joined their faculty, where he became director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory.
At UT Southwestern, he served for many years as the Fellowship Program director, held the Jonsson-Rogers Chair in Cardiology and was director of the Bernard and Audrey Rapoport Center for Cardiovascular Research.
Lange is married to Joy Bobette. They have three children and two grandchildren.
Dr. Tedd Mitchell has served as interim president of TTUHSC at El Paso since its establishment as a comprehensive university in May 2013. He will continue to serve in his role as president of TTUHSC in Lubbock.
About the Texas Tech University System
The Texas Tech University System is one of the top public university systems in the
state of Texas, consisting of four component institutions—Texas Tech University, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Angelo State University and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso—and operating at 12 academic sites and centers. Headquartered in Lubbock, Texas,
the TTU System has an annual operating budget of $1.7 billion and approximately 17,000
employees focused on advancing higher education, health care, research and outreach.
In 2013, the TTU System’s endowment passed $1 billion, total research expenditures were approximately $200 million and total enrollment exceeded 44,000 students. Whether it’s contributing billions of dollars annually in economic impact or being the only system in Texas to house an academic institution, law school, and medical school at the same location, the TTU System continues to prove that anything is possible.