Dr. Ron C. Smith, President of Southern Union Conference

Dr. Smith, a native of Brooklyn, New York, is a product of Christian education. He is the son of Christian parents, and his father was in the Seventh-day Adventist gospel ministry.

Dr. Smith is a graduate of Oakwood University, formerly Oakwood College, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theology and Biblical Languages. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Andrews University Theological Seminary in 1982.

Dr. Smith earned two doctoral degrees. In 1985, the Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Rochester, New York, conferred the Doctor of Ministry degree upon him. In 1995, he graduated with a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology in Pasadena, California.

Dr. Smith has served in the Seventh-day Adventist gospel ministry for 32 years, including work in the Northeastern and Southern California conferences. Among the various pastoral assignments he executed, he served as Senior Pastor of the Berean Church in Los Angeles, California, and the Ephesus Church in Harlem, New York.

Dr. Smith is a registered clinical psychologist and a marital and family therapist.

He served for eight years at the post of Vice President of the Review and Herald Publishing Association and Editor-in-Chief of Message magazine, the oldest Black missionary Christian lifestyle periodical in North America. He has also served as Executive Secretary of the Southern Union Conference for four years.

On September 18, 2011 Dr. Smith was elected President of the Southern Union Conference and currently serves in that capacity.

He has been married to Yolanda for 32 years. They have two children, Dawn and Ron II, who are graduates of Oakwood University.

Dr Paul Dybdahl, Theology Professor, Walla Walla University

Paul Dybdahl was born in Thailand and spent the first eight years of his life in Asia before moving to the Walla Walla valley. He attended grade school and high school in College Place, Washington, and graduated from Walla Walla College in 1992.

He then accepted a call to pastor in the Oregon Conference, where he served for nearly five years. His time as a pastor included a sojourn to Andrews University, where he earned his Master of Divinity degree in 1995. Paul later returned to Andrews University for his doctorate and received his Ph.D. in Missiology in 2004.

His academic interest centers on the issues related to the effective communication of the gospel, especially across cultural barriers. Paul has been teaching at Walla Walla University since 2001.

Paul and his wife, Kristyn (also a graduate of Walla Walla College), have three children: Noah, Alyssa, and Sarah.

Martin Weber is communication director of the Mid-America Union and editor of Outlook magazine. Previously, as a pastor and police chaplain, he ministered amid violent death, search and rescue, sexual abuse and bank robberies. His favorite memory is riding a helicopter during a marijuana raid in Tahoe National Forest.

Weber’s latest book, God Was There: True Stories of a Police Chaplain (Pacific Press, spring 2009), connects human tragedy with divine intervention from heaven’s sanctuary. Dr. Weber has proclaimed the gospel on five continents while serving the Adventist Media Center, and later, the General Conference Ministerial Association on the executive committee of the world church.

Weber is volunteer chairman of the board of The Hope of Survivors, which serves victims of clergy sexual abuse from all denominations. The organization is a self-supporting ministry registered with ASI and Outpost International.

Weber earned his DMin degree researching why clergy children suffer attrition. He, and wife Darlene, live in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Doug Johnson serves as the vice president for administration for the Upper Columbia Conference with headquarters in Spokane, Washington. Prior to this he was an assistant to the president and communications director for the Upper Columbia Conference. He has also served twenty years as a pastor in the Washington and Upper Columbia conferences.

In 1996, Doug published a book with Andrews University Press entitled Adventism on the Northwestern Frontier. The book traces the early history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Pacific Northwest. Currently, he is researching and writing a book on the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the American West, which includes the Great Plains.

Doug is married to Denise, who serves as the administrative assistant for the Ministerial Department of the Upper Columbia Conference. They have two grown sons who live in eastern Washington.