05013
January 7, 2005

Helen Locklear named GAC deputy executive director

Detterick taps veteran national staffer for number two post

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE — General Assembly Council Executive Director John Detterick announced today that he has named the Rev. Helen Locklear as the new deputy executive director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s mission program arm. She will serve a two-year term.

Locklear, a 14-year veteran on the national staff of the PC(USA), is currently associate director for social justice in the National Ministries Division (NMD). Detterick’s announcement of her appointment in the atrium of the Presbyterian Center here was greeted with sustained applause.

Rev. Helen Locklear, GAC Deputy Executive Director
Photo by John Sniffen

     She succeeds Kathy Lueckert, who was fired in November for her role in an Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy delegation’s visit with representatives of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on October 17.

     “I was looking for a specific set of skills,” Detterick told the Presbyterian News Service after the announcement. “I needed a good process manager with excellent supervisory and interpersonal communication skills.

     “Helen is one of our better supervisory managers in the building and her interpersonal skills have made her very popular at the Presbyterian Center, as you could tell by the ovation she received,” he said.

     Locklear, a Native American member of the Lumbee/Tuscarora tribe in North Carolina, is a graduate of Pembroke State University in North Carolina and Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Ordained in 1989, she worked as a pastor and pastoral counselor in North Carolina before joining the PC(USA) national staff in 1991.

     In Louisville, Locklear has served in the NMD as associate for racial justice leadership and diversity training, as executive director of the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association, as associate director for racial ethnic ministries and in her current social justice position.

     “The church needs the voice I can bring,” Locklear said, explaining her decision to accept the new post. “I’ve worked with specific constituencies in the church but those voices haven’t gotten out enough.”

     Locklear said she welcomed the opportunity to be involved in decision-making at the highest level of the PC(USA). “I’ve never run from a challenge,” she said, “and I’ve discovered over the years that there’s always something new and interesting for me to learn.”

     Locklear starts her new job Jan. 31.