Steve is President Emeritus of Iowa Wesleyan University.  He currently serves as Senior Fellow and Special Assistant in the Office of Mission and Ministry at Creighton University exploring the intersection of leadership and spirituality.  Steve is a passionate and seasoned certified executive coach called to form, develop and companion conscious leaders.  He holds a particular concern for the interiority and well-being of executive leaders in higher education.  A seasoned higher education executive, Steve previously served as the 13th president of Midland University. Additionally, Steve has held executive roles at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, Pacific Lutheran University, and Gustavus Adolphus College.

Steve is past associate with the Center for Leadership Formation at Seattle University and he is co-creator and former co-director of the Thrivent Fellows Program (now LECNA Fellows), a national executive development program designed to identify and equip candidates of promise for executive roles in Lutheran agencies and institutions.  Steve earlier served as a tenured professor of leadership studies and organizational behavior at Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) in Marshall, MN, where he founded and directed the leadership studies program and the Leadership Development Institute.

An attorney and commissioned officer, Steve served in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1990-1995. He held several positions while on active duty, including legal advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army, labor and employment law attorney on the Department of the Army Staff at the Pentagon, and as civil law attorney and criminal trial defense counsel with the 3d Infantry Division in Wuerzburg, Germany during Operation Desert Storm.  Steve was appointed by U.S. Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera to serve as Minnesota’s Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army (CASA) from 1999-2002, and he was awarded the United States Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal in 2002.

Steve holds the B.S. degree in business administration from Southwest Minnesota State University, the J.D. degree from Marquette University Law School, and the Ph.D. degree in higher education and strategic leadership from the University of Virginia, where he was a Governor's Fellow.  He holds a certificate in Jesuit Studies from Boston College.  Steve holds a diploma from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School and certificates from the Advanced Leadership Education Program at the Kennedy School of Government and the Institute for Educational Management at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.  Steve is a certified practitioner of The Leadership Circle, a professionally certified executive coach through The Coaches Training Institute and the Center for Executive Coaching, a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, and a trained spiritual director.  Steve is a member of the International Coach Federation, the Institute of Coaching and the Center for Executive Coaching.  

Steve and his wife, Sara, have two daughters, Emma (17) and Lilian (14) and are members of St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Mount Pleasant, IA.

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