Richard E. Besser Biography
Richard E. Besser is an American physician and businessman who has been the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation since April 2017. He was previously ABC News’ top health and medical editor.
Richard E. Besser Age
Besser was born on August 29, 1959, in the United States of America. He is 63 years old as of August 2022.
Richard E. Besser Education
In 1986, Besser earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Williams College and a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Richard E. Besser Career
Besser joined the Epidemic Intelligence Service, which is overseen by the CDC, in 1991. He was sent to Boston to look into a minor E. coli outbreak. Officials were dissatisfied with the investigation’s duration and cost, which included collecting deer excrement from apple orchards, but Besser eventually discovered the source of the outbreak, which was apple cider. During the 1990s, Besser worked as a health reporter for a local television station in San Diego, California. Besser was named acting director of the CDC and ATSDR on January 22, 2009. In April 2009, before the incoming Obama administration chose a permanent director for both organizations, a swine flu outbreak in North America dominated the news.
Besser began holding daily press conferences to describe the US government’s response to the outbreak, which began in Mexico but has already expanded to over twenty countries, with the US being the most affected by the virus’s spread. Dr. Mehmet Oz and David Satcher, both notable American doctors, praised Besser’s handling of his news briefings. Besser was denied a speaking engagement at Case Western Reserve University in October 2014 because he had recently returned from a trip to Liberia. His scheduled session was titled “Pandemics, Public Health, and Political Change: The Critical Importance of Communication,” and it would explore the 2009 flu pandemic, “when fear outraced the disease.”
Besser’s work at ABC News required him to deliver medical analyses and reports for all ABC News programs and platforms. His weekly social media health discussions reached millions of people. Besser delivered the Provost’s Lecture at Oregon State University in April 2015. Besser took over as president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey, in April 2017.
Richard E. Besser Net Worth
Richard has an estimated net worth of 2 million dollars.