Presenters
Walter Wright
Walter Wright is a Senior Fellow at the Max De Pree Center for Leadership in Pasadena, where he served as executive director from 2000-2012. He came to the De Pree Center after twelve years as the President of Regent College, a graduate school affiliated with the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Prior to this he served twenty years on the management team of Fuller Theological Seminary in California.
During Dr. Wright’s tenure as president, Regent College doubled in size, established a solid financial foundation and endowment, was twice affirmed strongly by peer accreditation teams, and emerged as one of the top schools of its kind in the world, so much so that an independent study was conducted to determine how the college was able continually to attract and retain world class scholars on its faculty. A relatively young institution Regent College has developed a reputation around the world for its academic excellence and at the same time is known to be an unusually relational community of faculty, staff, students, board and donors.
As one who believes passionately that effective organizations should also be flourishing relational communities, Walt is invited to speak to diverse groups around the world—religious, non-profit, professional and corporate. Dr. Wright is the author of five books, Relational Leadership, Crossings, Mentoring: The Promise of Relational Leadership, Don’t Step on the Rope! Reflections of Leadership, Relationships and Teamwork and The Third Third of Life: Preparing for your Future. He has written many monographs, articles and chapters for edited volumes.
Walt was invited to California in September 2000 to develop the leadership center established in honor of his long time friend and mentor, Max De Pree, the highly respected former CEO of Herman Miller, Inc. Max De Pree, the author of Leadership Jazz, Leadership is an Art and Leading without Power, wrote the forewords in Dr. Wright’s books on Mentoring, and The Third Third of Life.
The De Pree Leadership Center serves as a resource to leaders promoting belief-based, values driven relational leadership and mentoring as an effective tool for personal renewal and leadership development.
Walt lives in Pasadena with his wife Beverly. They have two sons, Damon and Aaron, three grandsons, Brendon, Lucas and Owen and a granddaughter, Tegan.
Tom Nees
Tom has been an executive and leadership development consultant/coach in the nonprofit and faith-based world for over 35 years. Since 1975 as the founding director of the Community of Hope, a low-income neighborhood organization in Washington, DC, he has been involved in identifying as well as creating opportunities for others to serve as volunteers and leaders in their own neighborhoods.
- 1973 – Founding board member of Jubilee Housing in Washington, DC
- 1975 – Founder and executive director of the Community of Hope
- 1985 – Developed Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, USA/Canada
- 1990 – Organized the Institute for Racial Reconciliation
- 1992 – Created Nazarene Disaster Response, USA/Canada
As the first director of Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, USA/Canada he designed organizational development resources, including leadership training for over 200 neighborhood-based organizations now located in every major US and Canadian urban center with a combined budget of over $25 million.
In 1995 he became a director at the International Center of the Church of the Nazarene with responsibilities for leadership development for more than 5,000 parish clergy and judicatory leaders.
In 2005 he became an advisory member of FASTEN, the Faith and Service Technical Education Network for the National Crime Prevention Council. FASTEN is funded by the PEW Charitable Trust as part of a $6 million program to provide training and technical assistance to faith-based organizations.
Published books and lectures:
- Compassion Evangelism – 1997
- The Changing Face of the Church – 1997
- Best Practices of Growing Churches – 2007
- Lectures on Social Justice – 2007
Ed Robinson
Dr. Ed Robinson is the Director of Leadership Studies and Servant Leadership at Northwest Nazarene University’s Wesley Center, where he is pursuing the challenge of integrating the foundation and practice of servant leadership across the University’s academic programs and operations. Prior to returning to NNU, his alma mater, in 2010, Ed served MidAmerica Nazarene University for six years as President. From 1986-2005, he served at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri as Dean of the Faculty and director of two academic programs while teaching in the areas of Christian Education and Leadership and Administration. Before entering the arena of higher education, Ed served local churches in San Diego and Long Beach, California.
He is noted teacher and preacher with extensive experience beyond North America, including Latin America, Africa, and Europe. He has extensive experience as a consultant for colleges, churches, denominational agencies, and service organizations in curriculum development and strategic planning. He has served on executive boards for national organizations like the North American Professors of Christian Education and the Association of Youth Ministry Educators as well as local non-profit agencies like the Kansas City Urban Youth Center in Kansas City, MO.
Ed holds degrees from Northwest Nazarene University (B.A), Nazarene Theological Seminary (M.R.E.) and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Ph.D.) as well as post-doctoral studies in urban studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston. He resides in Nampa, Idaho with Nancy, his wife of 39 years.
Tammy Condon
In more than 25 years of active ministry, Dr. Tammy Condon has served as cross-cultural church planter, pastor, non-profit director, college professor and administrator. She received her PhD in Education with a specialization in Leadership in HigherEducation from Capella University and currently serves as Program Coordinator for Strategic Projects for the International Board of Higher Education, Church of the Nazarene.
Along with her husband Joey, she co-pastors the multi-cultural Grace Church of the Nazarene in Kansas City’s urban core in the historic Northeast neighborhood of downtown. She has three children: Anastasia who is preparing for ministry, eight year old Amadeus, and a very precocious Amaziah at age five. Tammy also holds an MDiv in Missiology from NTS and is also a graduate of Northwest Nazarene University.