The Executive Director
The Rev. Dr. Stanley N. Olson
Pastor Stan Olson has served since November 2005 as executive director for the Vocation and Education Unit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
From 2002 to 2005, Olson was executive director for the Division for Ministry of the ELCA. Previously, from 1994 to 2002 he served as the bishop of the ELCA’s Southwestern Minnesota Synod. Olson was senior pastor of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota, 1987-1994, and associate pastor of First Lutheran Church in Duluth, Minnesota, 1976-1983. In the years between those
two parish calls, he was a professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Olson was raised on an Iowa diary farm. He is a graduate of two ELCA colleges (Waldorf and St. Olaf) and of Luther Seminary. He holds a doctorate from Yale University where he wrote a dissertation on the rhetorical uses of hope and confidence in New Testament and other ancient letters. He is the author of many articles and of Christian education resources for children, youth and adults.