In Memoriam: Dr. James E. Hansen (1926-2017)
Richard Casaburi and Kathy Sietsema

 We mourn the passing and honor the life of Jim Hansen: educator, researcher, clinician, scholar, humanitarian and friend.
James Edward Hansen was born September 4 1926 in Green Bay Wisconsin. He was an undergraduate at St. Norbert College, University of Wisconsin and Marquette University, and received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University. After medical school he served his internship and Medical residency at Letterman Army Medical Center and a one year fellowship in pulmonary medicine at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center.  He served in the U.S. Navy for two years, and in the Army for 26 years with service in four continents and in a number of medical leadership positions including Chief of the Physiology Division at the US Army Medical Research & Nutrition laboratory in Denver, Commander and Scientific Director of the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick and Chief of the Clinical Investigation Service at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu.  During his military service he also held academic appointments at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and at the Medical Schools of the University of Hawaii and the University of Colorado.
He continued his academic career on separation from the military, taking a pulmonary fellowship at the UCLA Center for Health Sciences, where he worked with Dr. Donald Tashkin.  From there, in 1977 he was recruited by Dr. Karlman Wasserman and joined the faculty of the Division of Respiratory and Critical Care Physiology and Medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance where he worked for the rest of his life.
At Harbor-UCLA Jim directed the pulmonary physiology laboratories, training and inspiring scores of post- graduate physicians in the physiology of lung function and its application to evaluation and care of patients.  He published widely in exercise testing, and was co-author of 5 editions of the seminal text Principles of Exercise Testing and Interpretation.  He developed a special interest in arterial blood gas analysis and was one of the founders of the California Thoracic Society’s Proficiency Testing Service in the late 1970s and 1980s.  He published a dozen papers on blood gas analysis, developing the principles of proficiency testing and served for many years on the Administrative Committee of the CTS Proficiency Testing Program.
Jim “retired” from his Harbor-UCLA position at the tender age of 60 years.  He donated his time over the next 30 years, serving as teacher, mentor and collaborator to faculty and trainees alike.  Jim published roughly 110 papers over the span of his career.  Tellingly, he published 22 papers in his 70’s and 29 papers in his 80’s.  In his late 80’s he was the sole author of a text on pulmonary function testing.  In his work, he often took an unconventional approach and never hesitated to challenge authority.
Jim was beloved by his colleagues as an utterly genuine and forthright presence.  He saw clearly and was known for speaking and acting with a mixture of candor and compassion.  His sense of fairness was manifest in his passion for serving the underserved, and speaking for the under heard.  He was a vocal promoter of initiatives to make housing available to those in need in his own community in Southern California and to improve the quality of the air we breathe.
Jim was married to his beloved wife Beverly for over 50 years until her passing in October 2016.