Michael K. Schonbrun is the CEO of Balfour Senior Living, a company he founded in 1997 in Louisville, Colorado. Prior to founding Balfour, Schonbrun has had a wide-ranging career in health care operations and policy.

He spent five years (1973-79) as staff to the Governors of Ohio and Colorado advising them on matters pertaining to health care costs, quality and access, including two years as the Colorado Deputy Commissioner of Health where he supervised the nursing home and assisted living licensure division, the state’s health planning apparatus, and the certificate of need program. During this time, he authored articles on related topics for The University of North Carolina Law Review and Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.

He served for 13 years (1979-1991) at National Jewish Health – three years as Chief Operating Officer and ten years as President and CEO. During his tenure at National Jewish Health, the nation’s leading respiratory medical, treatment and research center (per U.S. News and World Report), the institute achieved its first operating surplus in decades, doubled its research funding from the National Institutes of Health and tripled the size of its endowment fund.

Following his time at National Jewish, he served as the senior vice president at Rocky Mountain Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada (1991-93), where he managed the plan’s network of doctors and hospitals as well as the plan’s three HMOs. Subsequent to that, he served as Executive Vice President for VITAS Healthcare, the nation’s largest hospice company. In 1996 and 1997, he was a consultant on several international healthcare projects for the venture capital firms, Warburg Pincus.

Schonbrun has chaired the Colorado Alzheimer’s Association, the Health Care Focus Group of the Young President’s Organization, the Denver Metropolitan Air Quality Council, the Colorado
Governor’s Economic Development Council for the Healthcare and Biotech Industries, the Environmental Sub-Committee for the 2002 Colorado Olympic Committee and has served on the boards of the American Senior Housing Association, the Boulder Library Commission, National Jewish Health and the Boulder Country Day School.

A native of New York City, He holds a B.A. degree (political science) from Yale University and a J.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is married to his business partner Susan Juroe and is the father of three sons.