Executive Presbyter
The Rev. Ruth Santana-Grace

A recent transplant to the west coast, Ruth began her ministry to the San Gabriel Presbytery as their Executive Presbyter in October 2005. Prior to that, she served as Pastor for Adult Discipleship at First Presbyterian Church, Bethlehem, PA for more than a decade. A cradle Presbyterian, Ruth began her journey of faith in NYC at the Church of the Crossroads, the largest Hispanic Presbyterian Church in that area. Her path to the ministry followed a rich professional journey in international and national economic development. With her Masters in Public Administration, she used her gifts of "bridge builder" in Washington, DC and Rome, Italy. In 1994, after graduating from Princeton Theological Seminary, she would embark on a new kind of bridge-building, one that is manifested in her current call in southern California. Her commitment to the "theology of the table" shapes her leadership decisions and actions as she seeks to lead and walk along side the congregations and leadership in southern California. She is known to be not only linguistically trilingual but theologically bi-lingual. She loves the church of Jesus Christ as embodied by the Presbyterian Church (USA) and believes that God's plans for it are far greater than our ability or inability to understand and see its future.

Ruth is married to the Rev. Dr. Edward Santana-Grace. They are the parents of Dakota Daniel (15 years old) and David who lives in Italy. She loves to write and as part of her ministry, she writes a weekly devotional entitled "Spirit Soundings" that currently is emailed out to more than 400 people.

Stated Clerk
The Rev. Bob Wendel

Rev. Bob Wendel has served as the San Gabriel’s Stated Clerk since 1992. Bob is also the Pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of La Puente, where he has served since 1974. He was born in Inspiration, Arizona and graduated from Arizona State University and Fuller Theological Seminary. He was ordained by the Presbytery of Grand Canyon in 1974. He and his wife, Carol have two grown children, a son and a daughter. For fun he likes serving as Pastor at St. Andrew’s and serving as Stated Clerk, but he also enjoys growing miniature roses and listening to old time radio shows.

Office Administrator
Elder Twila French

Twila became a member of the presbytery staff in July of 2001 when she was hired as Secretary and became the Office Administrator in January 2004. As Office Administrator she has a wide variety of responsibilities and especially enjoys the daily contact with our clergy and congregations.

Twila is a member and Elder at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Ontario where she is a long time member of the choir and where she and husband Steve are the co-financial secretaries. Twila has two grown children; a daughter, Vicki who is a registered nurse working in the neonatal intensive care unit at JFK Memorial, and a son, Rick who attends Citrus College.

Bookkeeper
Elder Pat Collins

Pat joined the Presbytery staff on a part-time basis in August of 2004 as a bookkeeper. Her love of people and 'numbers' makes this a perfect job for her. She enjoys being a part of the link between congregations and pastors within the Presbytery. Because she is a life-long Presbyterian, doing her job "decently and in order" come naturally. When not in the Presbytery office, she also does financial record-keeping for a machine shop, a consultant, and a chemical manufacturer.

Pat is a member of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Temple City and is currently serving as an Elder. She volunteers as the Treasurer - handling payroll, budget planning and bill paying. She also serves on the Mission/Stewardship Commission as well as on the Personnel Committee.

Pat has two married children and five beautiful grand-children. All this manages to keep her busy and active.

Resource Center Director
Betty Crowell

A NATIVE CALIFORNIAN! who after graduation from Occidental College taught public school and received a "Life Achievement Certification."

In 1950 she began working professionally for the Presbyterian Church in the local church and in staff positions of Presbyteries. Her work included Program Development, Education and training of Leaders, creating and directing Resource Centers. During this time, her Continuing Education included: courses designed for Certification of Christian Educators and Certification of Resource Center Directors .

She made contributions to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) by participation on the Team for the first Youth Triennium, Providing training for the Adult Advisors of The Triennium Events, Writing for "Journey of Faith" confirmation curriculum, and Editing a Resource Center tool "How to Choose Resources for Resource Centers."

Mission Advocate for Hunger, Poverty, and Peacemaking
Wendy Gist

Wendy has served as the Mission Advocate for Hunger, Poverty, and Peacemaking Issues for the Presbytery since December 2005.  This is a part-time role that she has happily taken on for our Presbytery and the Presbytery of San Fernando.  As Mission Advocate, Wendy works to be a resource to congregations on mission ministries, projects, and events.  She’s happy to participate in worship, lead adult education classes, speak with committees, or attend other church and Presbytery events.  

Prior to this, Wendy and her husband David served as PC(USA) mission workers in Nicaragua from 1994-2000.  Wendy and David are the proud parents of Nicolás (Nico) and Tasha, both of whom were born in Nicaragua while they served there.  Between parenting; working for justice and peace in her home, community, nation, and world; and church responsibilities her days are pretty full.