Steven Ellcessor

Nominee for Trustee of the Diocese (lay)

Please describe your participation in the life of your congregation, the diocese, and the larger community.

I have been a member of St. John’s in Worthington for 18 years. Most recently, I served as senior warden from March of 2020 through February of 2022, thus helping lead the parish through the pandemic. I have also served on the vestry, the finance committee (including as chair), and a number of ad hoc committees. I have been active as well in choir and serve as an acolyte, a lector, and a chalice minister. I am currently the church attorney for the diocese. During my years as an executive officer at The J. M. Smucker Company (general counsel, VP finance and administration, and CFO), I served on the company’s pension plan committee, which had responsibility for managing the company’s retirement funds (17 years). I have also been active over the years on non-profit boards, including a local American Red Cross chapter (board member and chair) and Communities in Schools of Central Ohio (board member and vice chair). During the last 18 years of my career before retiring at the end of 2020, I was a member of the Frost Brown Todd law firm and served for six years as the chair of the diversity and inclusion committee, where I helped to develop and conduct diversity and inclusion training for the firm.

Why do you feel God is calling you to serve in this position?

Our diocese, like churches across all denominations, faces substantial challenges as it attempts to be relevant and fulfill its mission in a time when church attendance continues to fall and the needs of the people in our urban and rural areas continue to grow. We are blessed in our diocese to have substantial funds available for support including, most importantly, the William Cooper Procter Memorial Fund. The trustees of the diocese have a great responsibility to the diocese and its parishes and congregations to manage those funds carefully and properly, in compliance with both legal and fiduciary responsibilities. They also have a responsibility to advise the bishop on the administration of the funds. That latter responsibility is, I believe, of particular importance as the diocese prepares to call a new bishop. The person chosen to be our bishop will come with a vision of how the diocese should be addressing the needs of the people across our diocese, and the trustees of the diocese will need to be prepared to provide advice and support to the bishop’s efforts to implement that vision. I believe that with my experience and background, both as a member of boards and committees with fiduciary responsibilities for managing investments and endowments and as a counselor throughout my career, I could make a valuable contribution as a trustee of the diocese during this time of change and challenge.