Curriculum Vitae

Roger W. Coon, Ph.D., has served as an associate secretary of the Ellen G. White Estate, a service agency of the General Conference headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland, since 1981. He also serves concurrently as adjunct professor of prophetic guidance at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan.GVEGW 156.1

Dr. Coon holds the B.A. in history and religion (La Sierra University, 1948), the M.A. in religion (Andrews University, 1959), and the Ph.D. in speech—rhetoric and public address (Michigan State University, 1969).GVEGW 156.2

He entered the service of his church on June 11, 1948, and was formally ordained to its ministry on June 21, 1952. He has served on all six continents, variously as a preacher, pastor, evangelist, hospital chaplain, foreign missionary, and author, but chiefly as educator (34 of his 44 years of service have principally been spent in the college, university, and seminary classroom).GVEGW 156.3

While serving in Nigeria (1952-1964), he was a cofounder of the Adventist Seminary of West Africa at Ilishan-Remo, teaching there during that institution’s first four years of existence. From 1967 to 1978 he taught on the religion faculty of Pacific Union College, at Angwin, California.GVEGW 156.4

Dr. Coon’s writings have been translated into at least 10 languages, and articles from his pen have appeared frequently in the Adventist Review, Signs of the Times, Ministry, Mission, Journal of Adventist Education, Adventist Heritage, and Dialogue, among others.GVEGW 156.5

Dr. Coon comes from a long line of preachers extending back more than 200 years into Scotland. In his father’s family of eight sons, five were ordained Seventh-day Adventist ministers, a record not often matched within his denomination.GVEGW 156.6

In 1948 he married the former E. Irene Strom, a certified public accountant who, in 1978, became the first woman to hold the post of auditor at church world headquarters. She subsequently became the first woman to audit an overseas division of the church.GVEGW 156.7

The Coons have two grown children: Susan, a graduate registered nurse whose husband, Kevin McDaniel, is a minister in the Michigan Conference; and Donald, an electronics engineer.GVEGW 156.8

Biographical sketches of Dr. Coon have been published in A. N. Marquis’ Who’s Who in Religion (first, second, and third editions) and in Jacques Cattell Press’s Directory of American Scholars (sixth, seventh, and eighth editions).GVEGW 157.1