[1] In 1969, Truan successfully sponsored the Texas Bilingual Education Act, which allowed for the first time some instruction in the Spanish language to non-English-speaking pupils.

[1] Truan pushed successfully for legislation to regulate the flow of fresh water into South Texas bays and estuaries.

He sponsored the Texas Open Beaches Act and was instrumental in the establishment of the Coastal Bend Bays Foundation.

[3] In 1981, Truan conducted a one-man filibuster and spoke nonstop for twenty hours to kill a bill related to the shrimping industry, important to the economy of his district.

[3] In 1993, Truan was chairman of the legislative conference committee that allocated more than $200 million for new construction and renovation at several universities in South Texas.

[3] Despite his long-term accomplishments, the magazine Texas Monthly in June 2001 added Truan to its annual list of "Top 10 Worst Legislators".

In 1959, he had begun his career with New York Life Insurance Company and was a member of the Million Dollar Round Table.

[1] In December 2003, the Carlos Truan Natural Resources Building at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi, a facility for which he had obtained funding a decade earlier, was named in his honor.

[4] The Democrat Hugo Berlanga, who succeeded Truan in the Texas House and served there from 1977 until his resignation in 1998,[5] recalled his mentor, accordingly: "He was as tough as they came, but he had a soft heart.