Sharing the Same DNA: How For-profit and Faith-based Corporations are Converging

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CHHSM 2010 Annual Meeting: Opening Plenary

Riess Potterveld
Dr. Riess Potterveld began as the tenth president of Lancaster Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion on July 1, 2002. He is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and has standing in the Lancaster Association of the Penn Central Conference of the UCC.

Dr. Potterveld teaches courses in transformational leadership and the practical skills of ministry. He preaches and speaks widely throughout the Middle Atlantic region on issues of church and society and offers workshops on the interface between spirituality and art.

Under Dr. Potterveld’s leadership, Lancaster has developed an ecology of theological education that offers learning opportunities to youth, lay leaders, congregations, newly ordained pastors, and seasoned pastors in addition to persons enrolled in regular degree programs. Over 2,500 persons from North Carolina to New York study in LTS’ special programs each year.

Prior to LTS, Riess served for ten years as Vice President and Dean of Pacific School of Religion, a seminary of the United Church of Christ in Berkeley, California. He previously served as senior minister of The Congregational Church of Northridge, California for 18 years and was the co-founder and president of The Valley Shelter, a large multi-service shelter for homeless people in the San Fernando Valley for three years beginning in 1986.

Riess graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he earned a B.A. in religion. After being named a Booth Ferris Fellow by the Rockefeller Theological Foundation, he attended Yale University Divinity School. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Yale, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Claremont Graduate University in philosophy of religion.

Riess is married to Tara Potterveld, a sign language interpreter for the Deaf and sculptor and they share four adult sons.