Anaheim : New City Auditor Carries a Lot of Weight on His Shoulders

Jack Lano puts on a Lawrence Welk album, sets the clock and the egg timer and then proceeds to entertain himself.

The 63-year-old Cerritos resident lifts weights--lots of them.

To show for it, he’s got four shelves full of trophies, a jacket full of patches and a 220-pound body many a younger man would envy.

And last Sunday, the new Anaheim city auditor broke his own records by placing first in the National Master Weight Lifting championship in the 60-64 age group.

Lano is no stranger to weight-lifting competitions. He also holds records in the 55-59 group and a gold medal in power lifting from the Senior Olympics.

“What I do is entertain myself,” he said. Big-band or classical music helps. Lawrence Welk tunes are among his favorites.

After that, it’s just concentration, he said.

“I think about technique. Henry Ford said, ‘If you think you can, you might. If you think you can’t, you’re right.’ I concentrate on pulling it as close to my body as I can and then let nature take its course.”

To Lano, that course has led him to packing up to 265 pounds in the clean-and-jerk style and 200 pounds in the snatch weight-lifting style. To keep up the hobby he began more than 40 years ago, Lano practices three times a week, usually while his wife, Beatrice, is out bowling.

The former Marine has a degree from Ohio State University and is the father of two sons. He moved to Orange County last month from Ohio after accepting the city auditor’s job.

Now that he’s living in California and has an opportunity to enter more competitions, Lano said he intends to press on--not slow down.

“I feel good, if not better than when I was a kid. I don’t intend to stop,” he said.

“You gotta wanna. Someday, when I don’t wanna, I’ll quit.”