The Author
Stefan Bean
Born Nam Le Thanh. Adopted at four. Elected by a county.
Leadership is forged not in a boardroom, but in the purpose you are called to serve.
He was born Nam Le Thanh, abandoned twice before the age of four, and left paralysed by polio in a country coming apart. In April 1975 he was carried onto the second Operation Babylift flight out of Saigon. The first never landed.
He grew up in Southern California in a family of twelve children, ten of them adopted, learning a new language and a new country in a body that did not work like anyone else's. He has spent thirty years in public education since, classroom to county office, and Orange County elected him its Superintendent of Schools.
1975
Carried out of Saigon.
Operation Babylift, April 1975. The first flight crashed. 138 died, 78 of them children. He was on the second.
1970s
A family of twelve.
At four, taken in by the Beans: twelve children, ten of them adopted. Greg and Judy did not shield him from difficulty. They taught him how to meet it.
2000
A promise kept.
He married Janet in 2000 and they raised four children. Cancer took her in 2020. She asked him to keep serving.
He kept serving.
