By Bob Allen
Former Carter Center adviser and one-time magazine publisher Gary Gunderson has been named vice president for faith and health ministries at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
Gary Gunderson
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Gunderson comes from a similar post at Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare in Memphis, Tenn. His new job, which begins July 1, includes faculty appointment to Wake Forest Divinity School.
In 1977 Gunderson and former seminary classmate Andy Loving launched Seeds, a newsletter intended to mobilize Southern Baptists against hunger. It developed into an award-winning magazine based in office space provided by Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga.
In 1992 former president Jimmy Carter tapped him as director of the Interfaith Health Program at the Carter Center, a non-governmental non-profit in Atlanta started in 1982 with former First Lady Rosalynn Carter to advance human rights and alleviate suffering around the world.
For the last seven years Gunderson has worked as senior vice president of faith and health at Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare. He also serves on the faculty of Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. He is now a Methodist deacon.
In his new role at Wake Forest Baptist Gunderson will supervise four departments — the Division of Faith and Health Ministries, which includes CareNet Counseling; the Department of Chaplaincy and Pastoral Education, the Department of Church and Community Relations; and the Center for Congregational Health.
Gunderson’s former publishing partner Loving is now a certified financial planner who with his wife, Susan Taylor, runs Just Money Advisors, a firm that specializes in socially responsible investing based in Louisville, Ky.