The Seamen’s Church Institute of New York & New Jersey (SCI) selected Rev. Mark S. Nestlehutt as its new President & Executive Director, succeeding the Rev. David Rider, effective February 18, 2020.
With more than two decades of church experience in Massachusetts, Illinois, Maryland, Australia and South Africa, Mark joins SCI from Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania where he serves as Rector. His previous employment and interests include service as an officer in the U.S. Navy, Director of Planned Giving at Opera Philadelphia, various positions for five years in the field of commercial banking and asset planning as well as engagement as an enthusiastic rugby player from 1980-2012. An avid one-design sailor, Mark spent 12 years as the Rector of Christ Church in St. Michaels, Maryland, a waterfront community on the Chesapeake Bay where his parishioners were comprised of Chesapeake Bay Pilots, Delaware River Pilots, tugboat captains, ship engineers, students at the Calhoon MEBA Engineering School, and others.
“One of our Search Committee members expressed it well,” says Craig Philip, Research Professor at Vanderbilt University and SCI Selection Committee Chair. “This position is the perfect job for the right person, and in Mark we found exactly the right person – very knowledgeable and passionate about mariners and we felt that his work experiences were somehow all intended to prepare him for SCI.”