Efthemios (“Tim”) Bentas was born on September 3, 1925 in Lowell, Massachusetts. His parents were John E. Bentas and Vaitsa L. Bentas, both of whom were born in Greece and immigrated to the United States around the end of World War I.

Tim was one of four siblings. He grew up in the Greek section of Lowell, and only spoke Greek until age 5, when he attended the Greek-American school run by The Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church of Lowell, where he has been a lifelong member.

Tim took a test for the Army Specialist Training Program at Lowell High School in the spring of 1943, enlisted in the military and was called to duty when he turned eighteen years old in September 1943. Two weeks later, he was at Fort Devens in Massachusetts.

Between September 1943 and early 1945, Tim was at Air Force training camps in North Carolina, Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Camp Barkeley in Abilene, Texas. Early in 1945, Tim arrived in Caserta, Italy where he joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to train for the invasion of Japan.
At the beginning of August 1945, the OSS sent Tim back home to Lowell, Massachusetts for a two-week furlough before deploying for Japan. Tim was on a train in West Palm Beach, Florida en route to Lowell when Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945. After his furlough, he completed his service at Arlington Hall Station in Arlington, Virginia, the headquarters for the Army’s cryptography effort during World War II. He was honorably discharged from the military in March 1946.
After his military service, Tim received his undergraduate degree from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island under the GI Bill and his law degree from Suffolk University in Boston. During and after law school, Tim worked for the District Attorney’s Office in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, where he became an Assistant District Attorney. In 1965, Tim went into private practice with a law firm in Lowell, Massachusetts where he specialized in criminal law. In 2015, Tim retired. Tim and his wife Lily Haseotes Bentas live in Palm Beach, Florida and West Hyannisport, Massachusetts. They are members of St. Catherine’s Greek Orthodox Church in West Palm Beach, Florida, St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church in Centerville, Massachusetts, as well as Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Lowell, Massachusetts. They are also longtime members of Leadership 100.