The Rev. Richard Van Horn was Chief Executive Officer of Mental Health America in Los Angeles from 1980 through 2009.  (From 1980 through 2006, the organization name was the Mental Health Association). He graduated from Harvard in 1961 and earned a Master in Divinity from the General Theological Seminary of New York in 1965. Ordained as an Episcopal priest and assigned to the Diocese of Los Angeles, he took an extended leave from the Church in 1980 to pursue his work with MHA. He became an active force in Mental Health Services in Los Angeles, presiding over the creation of the Village, the first Integrated Service Agency, and playing an important role in the passage of the Mental Health Services Act of 2005 (Prop 63). Although Van Horn stepped down from his post as CEO of MHA in 2010, he continued to serve on the MHSA Oversight and Accountability Commission and on other important boards and task forces through much of the decade.  He died in 2021.

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