Ted N. C. Wilson was elected as president of the Seventh-day Adventist world church in July 2010 during the General Conference Session in Atlanta
Wilson began his church career as a pastor in 1974 in the Greater New York Conference. He married Nancy Louise Vollmer Wilson, a physical therapist, in 1975. The couple has three daughters: Emile Louise, married to Pastor Kameron DeVasher; Elizabeth Esther, married to Pastor David Wright; and Catherine Anne, married to Dr. Robert Renck. The Wilsons have 11 wonderful grandchildren. Born in Takoma Park, Maryland on May 10, 1950, the son of former Adventist world church President Neal C. Wilson and Elinor E. Wilson, Wilson spent part of his childhood in Egypt.
Wilson served as an assistant director and then director of Metropolitan Ministries in New York from 1976 to 1981. He went on to serve in the church’s then Africa-Indian Ocean Division, based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, until 1990. There he served as a departmental director and later as executive secretary.
Following his post in West Africa, he served for two years at the Adventist world church’s world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, as an associate secretary. He went on to accept the position of president of the church’s Euro Asia-Division in Moscow, Russia, which he held from 1992 to 1996.
Pastor Wilson returned to the United States to serve as president of the Review and Herald Publishing Association in Hagerstown, Maryland, until his election as an Adventist world church vice president in 2000.
An ordained minister, Pastor Wilson holds a doctor of philosophy degree in religious education from New York University, a master of divinity degree from Andrews University, and a master of science degree in public health from the Loma Linda University School of Public Health. In addition to English, he speaks French and some Russian.