Brent Lang

Brent Lang

Personal information
Full name	Brent Dennis Lang
National team	United States
Born	(1968-01-25) January 25, 1968 Phoenix, Arizona
Occupation(s)	Business Manager, CEO
Height	6 ft 6 in (1.98 m)
Weight	181 lb (82 kg)
Spouse	Beth Van Schaak
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Strokes	Freestyle
Club	Tualatin Hills SC
College team	University of Michigan (BS Engineering 1990) Stanford University MBA
Coach	Jon Urbanchek (Michigan)
Medal record Men's swimming Representing the United States Olympic Games 1988 Seoul 4x100 m freestyle World Championships (LC) 1991 Perth 4×100 m freestyle Pan Pacific Games 1989 Tokyo 100 m freestyle 1989 Tokyo 4×100 m freestyle Summer Universiade 1987 Zagreb 4x200 m freestyle

Brent Dennis Lang (born January 25, 1968) is an American former competition swimmer who competed for the University of Michigan and was an Olympic gold medalist at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. In his business pursuits, he became a President and CEO of Vocera Healthcare in 2013.

Lang was born January 25, 1968, in Phoenix, Arizona to John Lang, a central Oregon native, Engineer, and Data Processing manager. After a family move, Brent lived through sixth grade in the Portland, Oregon area. Beginning to compete at the age of seven in Portland where he won a blue ribbon at his first meet, Lang credited Ty Steinbeck as his first influential swim coach. Steinbeck had also coached Oregonian Don Scholander, before he became a 5-time freestyle Olympic gold medalist.

When he was eleven, Lang's family moved to the English Channel's Island of Guernsey, where unable to make the soccer team or play the more American sports of basketball or baseball, Lang began to focus on swimming, winning the British National Age Group Championships at 13 in the 100 fly and 200 IM. In Guernsey, Lang's father worked as an Operations Manager for Tektronix Electronics Manufacturing.

High School swimming

By his late teens, Brent returned to Portland, Oregon, graduating Beaverton, Oregon's Sunset High School in 1986. As a youth in Beaverton, he swam for the Tualatin Hills Swim Club by the age of seven. Lang was an All American in High School, competing in all four strokes, and was particularly skilled in butterfly and IM. Despite his preference for butterfly, he placed sixth in the nation in the 100-yard backstroke at the 1986 Senior Nationals with a time of 50.94. His 50.94 was the second best 100-yard backstroke High School time in the nation among High School swimmers, and was second only to Jeff Rouse of Virginia who swam a 50.54.

In his Senior year in High School, he was granted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Michigan sponsored by the Tektronix Foundation.

1988 Seoul Olympics

At the August, 1988 U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Austin, Texas, Lang was selected as an alternate.

At the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, Lang earned a gold medal by swimming the leading leg with the fastest 100-meter time for the U.S. team in the preliminary heats of the men's 4×100-meter freestyle relay. Later in the finals, the U.S. relay team won the event with a record time of 3:16.53, with Matt Biondi swimming the fastest leg as the anchor swimmer to secure the lead by nearly two seconds over the Russian team who took the Silver medal.

University of Michigan

Coach J. Urbanchek

Beginning in the Fall of 1986, Lang began attending the University of Michigan where he was a member of the Michigan Wolverines swimming and diving team under Head Coach Jon Urbanchek, an Hungarian-born Hall of Fame honoree who had formerly competed in swimming for the University, and captured an NCAA Championship in the one mile freestyle event. Lang's Freshman class of swimmers had 15 exceptional recruits which added considerable depth to the growing Michigan team. In National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) competition, Lang won four NCAA national championships as a Michigan swimmer—twice in the 50-yard freestyle (1989, 1990) and twice in the 100-yard freestyle (1988, 1990).

An exceptional scholar, Lang graduated Michigan with a degree in Industrial and Operations Engineering and earned summa cum laude honors. He was a 1990 finalist for the Rhodes Scholarship, and later earned a Master of Business Administration from Stanford. At Stanford, he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, awarded only to the highest 10% of the graduating MBA class.

International competition

In international competition, Lang captured a gold medal in the 100 freestyle and the 4x100 free at 1989 Pan Pacific Games in Tokyo. He was a 1991 World Champion in Perth, Australia in the 4x100 free relay. At the 1987 Universiade, he claimed a gold medal in the 4x200 freestyle relay.

Careers

In his career pursuits after college graduation, Lang was a Strategy Consultant for Monitor from 1991-1993, then worked as a Director of Marketing for 3M Corporation for six years. He worked in Healthcare Communications for Vocera beginning in 2001 where he started as a Vice-President of Marketing, and eventually became a Chief Operating Officer in 2007, before becoming President and CEO in 2013. As a Chief Operating Officer at Vocera in 2012, he led the company to a successful Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Wall Street, a noteworthy accomplishment.

Lang has most recently resided in the San Francisco Bay Area with wife, Beth Van Schaak, son, Miles, who plays baseball, and daughter, Brook, who plays soccer.

Honors

In December 2014, Lang was announced as one of the six recipients of the 2015 Silver Anniversary Awards, presented annually by the NCAA to outstanding former student-athletes on the 25th anniversary of the end of their college sports careers. The award is based on both athletic and professional success.

Lang became a member of the University of Michigan Athletics Hall of Honor in 2015.

He has been recognized for his business achievements, particularly at Vocera, with the CEO World Award. He was an EY Entrepreneur of the Year® Award finalist and is a Forbes Technology Council member.

See also

• List of Olympic medalists in swimming (men)
• List of University of Michigan alumni
• List of World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming (men)

External links

• Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Brent Lang". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on November 14, 2012.
• Michigan Men's Swimming and Diving All-Time NCAA Champions
• Olympedia Biography, Brent Lang
• USA Swimming News, Brent Lang, Olympic Champion In The Pool And In Business