The Rev. David E. Baker
Executive Director, 2008-2016
David E. Baker is the current Executive Director of the Augustana Heritage Association. The product of an Augustana parsonage, David was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, spent his early childhood years in Minnesota and his teen years in South Dakota. He is a graduate of Luther Junior College in Wahoo, Nebraska; Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois; and Augustana Theological Seminary in Rock Island. He holds advanced degrees from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California (Th.M.) and San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California (D.Min.). He was ordained into the ministerium of the Augustana Lutheran Church at its Centennial Synod in Rock Island in 1960 and has served parishes in Edmonton, Alberta; Yakima, Washington; Corvallis, Oregon; and San Jose, California. In 1994 he became Assistant to the Bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He and his wife, Gloria, have served on the staffs of Holden Village, the international Lutheran Retreat Center in the Cascade Mountains of north central Washington, and Spirit in the Desert, the Lutheran Retreat Center in Carefree, Arizona. David was elected as Executive Director of AHA at the AHA Board meeting in Lindsborg, Kansas in June of 2008. He and Gloria currently reside in a 'retirement community,' Rockwood South Hill in Spokane, Washington, and are members of a former Augustana church near where they live, St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Spokane.