In Uncategorized

Bishops: A Thoroughly Unscientific Poll

Author KatyaPosted on 81 Comments

What does your current bishop do for a living? Bonus: What did your last bishop do for a living?

(Please note: I have vague ideas for where I’m headed with this information, but I also reserve the right to do nothing with it at all.)

81 comments

  1. My bishop oversees maintenance & grounds operations at a liberal arts college. Last bishop? I think he worked at some kind of power train manufacturing facility, but I am not sure.

  3. Current Bishop is a carpenter. Last Bishop owned his own business selling a specialty software product.

  11. professor of electrical engineering, purchaser for an auto parts manufacturer, translator in the army, high school teacher.

  14. current bishop: professor of humanities
    past bishop: professor of family science

    previous bishops: high school teacher/coach, professor of biology, some kind of executive/company owner (not sure), high school math teacher

  15. Current: 3rd grade teacher
    Prior: owned small appliance shop
    2nd Prior: dentist
    3rd prior: landscaper

  16. Present furniture salesman
    Previous retired plumber
    Previous previous textbook bookstore manager
    Previous previous previous in construction
    Previous previous previous previous managed students at a overseas campus of a University
    Previous precious previous previous previous I think worked in construction contracting of some sort
    Previous previous previous previous previous previous professional artist university professor
    Previous previous previous previous previous previous lawyer

  17. I don’t know how precious slipped into there I was just having way to much fun with the predictive keyboard, also I’m missing a previous on the last line.

  18. Real estate. (Agent I assume, on possibly a larger scale?) Can’t remember what any of the previous have done, though. Counselors are a gynecologist and a mortician, which is kinda fitting.

  20. current – self employed
    last – medical doctor/grad school student

    current RS president – wife of the last Bishop, and SAHM (yeah, its a small ward!)

  22. Insurance sales (own business)
    Own business selling fencing and other stuff direct from China to wealthy countries

  24. Current: electrical consultant (I only kind if understand, but it seems to require a number of trips which often end in a weekend in Utah with his parents)
    Former: Dentist

    We moved in two weeks before our current ward changed bishops

    Former Ward:
    Current: Auto mechanic
    Former: lumber delivery
    Former: contractor
    Former: Spanish teacher

    My all time favorite Bishopbric:
    Bishop: Mechanic
    1st Councilor: Chiropractic Student
    2nd Councilor: Water Treatment Specialist
    Executive Secretary: President of Major Manufacturing Plant
    (For the first few months he had His executive secretary at work scheduling appointments for the bishop. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the meeting that preceded the announcement, over the pulpit, that he had a new private cell phone that would be used for scheduling appointments, and that appointments could now be scheduled on evenings and weekends since “Amy” would no longer be handling that for him. 🙂 I am sure Amy was grateful.)

  25. I recall: 3 lawyers, 1 tradesman, 2 obviously wealthy (but profession uncertain), and 2 modest-living (profession uncertain).

  28. Current: don’t know (just moved).
    Previous: middle-school teacher.
    Previous: manager/salesman.
    Previous: chemistry professor.
    Previous: IT director.
    Previous: don’t know.
    Previous: commercial pilot.

  32. current: no idea as I’ve just moved in

    previous bishops were a contractor and an auto mechanic

  33. .school administration
    going back
    .exec with beneficial until it ceased then self-employed in the financial/insurance industry
    .self-employed maker of dental devices and artificials
    .public utility (natural gas) management

  35. My last bishop was a long time ago, but he was a dentist.

    When I lived in rural Arizona, I had a bishop who was a cotton farmer. That was a standard occupation for church leaders–several stake presidents and high councilmen were also cotton farmers.

    The same stake also had a stake president who was head custodian of a community college.

  36. Current: real estate agent

    Previous (going back): industry training consultant, banker, temple recorder, printer, university audio-visual specialist.

    Relief Society presidents (current and going back): accountant, preschool teacher, preschool teacher, homemaker, office manager.

  37. Current: mid-level MBA guy for a credit card company.
    Last: Accountant turned FBI agent. (We used to have two handguns on the stand, as a counselor was also an FBI agent.)

  39. @37: in the mid 1970s, when I was a little girl, we had a bishop who was an FBI agent. We all found it thoroughly novel.

  40. last three:

    air traffic controller

    employee of a local information storage company

    freelance photographer

  44. Current: PhD microbiologist working in industry
    Previous: Owned a landscaping business
    Before that: Retired sailor (with many tattoos)

  46. current — chemistry professor, though that doubles one of Eve’s, so don’t let it skew your data.

    previous branch president — I think he owned a fencing company.

    before that — Dude sold diamonds. I asked him once if they were blood diamonds, mostly kidding, and he kind of got upset, which suggested to me they probably were.

  47. Current – Manager of Bishop’s Storehouse

    Past – Branch manager for Customs Brokerae firm

  52. Current unknown, just moved
    Music professor at local college
    Dentist
    Butcher at grocery store, but has since left the church. He was cruddy all around.
    Retired military, spent his time hunting
    Construction company manager
    Doctor
    and I was too young to remember the rest.

  53. Doctor (Radiology at a teaching hospital)
    Health Administrator
    Contractor
    Chemistry Professor (at a public university)

  54. I’ve got quite a list because I’m getting O-L-D. From the most recent:
    Food supervisor at the county jail
    Hardware store owner
    dentist
    seminary teacher
    motel manager
    electrician
    high school teacher
    curio shop owner
    opthalmology resident
    college professor
    cement plant owner
    high school teacher and rancher
    cement plant owner (sold to the above bp)
    saint (first bishop I can remember, I thought he walked on water)

  55. My last bishop a managed a university facility, and the bishop before that was a music teacher. My dad is currently a bishop, and he runs an IT department at a paper mill.

  56. current: rich guy, don’t know what he does
    previous: vp of something at big huge IT related company
    previous: engineer
    previous: MD, I think he was a cancer doc of some sort
    previous: can’t remember, some kind of businessman
    previous (way back to newlywed days): worked at a school for troubled kids, started his own such school

  58. Business executive.
    Previous-owned an auto body shop, business executive, wealthy business executive, unemployed sawmill worker, electric company executive, owner of a meat (beef) company, high school math teacher, retail appliance salesman.

  59. Current: Engineering Professor
    Previous: Administrator state funded home for disabled
    Previous: Accountant

  61. Some interesting stuff here. But I would also like to see some demographics about the state and city for each of these wards for these bishops

  63. Current Branch Pres: Regional manager for USA Today
    Former Branch Pres: Software Systems Analyst/Consultant

  64. current – baker (sells delicious bread to local grocery stores)
    previous – lawyer
    before that – banker
    before that – lawyer

    In past wards: 3 bishops in a row who were business school professors.

    All in all, I’ve been really impressed with the humble, earnest way all of these men have served their wards.

  65. 1. Current: Retired from college police (retired career military)
    2. Immediate past: Physician
    3. Machinist
    4. Lawyer
    5. Highway patrol trooper

  66. Current bishop: works for a local, family-owned (the family is big LDS) company

    Previous bishop: worked in the same place

    Bishop before that: worked in the same place

    (this is all the same ward)

  67. In reverse order (most recent first):

    1. Facilities manager for Church (Australia)
    2. Teacher (Australia)
    3. Ran own roofing business (same bishop as 1 due to boundary changes and a move) (Australia)
    4. Insurance agent (India)
    5. PE Teacher (India)
    6. Executive for oil company (Qatar)
    7. (Unsure) (India)
    8. CFO for IT firm (India)
    9. (Unsure…executive for an multi-national) (Singapore)
    10. PE Teacher (UK)
    11. Entrepreneur (India)
    12. Ran own engineering firm (US)
    13. Retired Colonel in US Marines (US)
    14. Teacher (US)
    15. Cameraman for local TV station (US)

    These are all my bishops/branch presidents since I joined the Church in 2002.

  68. Wow! I’m impressed people know this about their bishops. And even more impressed by the 4th, 5th, 6th, etc. removed bishops! I had one bishop when I was growing up that was a financial executive for a company, and I only know that much because I dated his son a little while after that. I had another bishop that worked for an airline (an office job, but I don’t know what), and I only know that because I had a family member that worked there and knew him. Yikes! 30+ years of bishops, and I don’t know what any others did for their careers.

  69. In reverse chronological order. Some of these are YSA branch presidents:

    – sales rep for large IT company selling software/services to federal govt

    – works for education-related conservative think tank

    – biomedical engineering post-doc at large private university

    – IT manager at pharma company

    – former physician, then exec at health insurance company over relationships with hospitals

    – recent law school grad, then junior attorney at small firm

    – construction company owner

    – philosophy professor at private university

    – IT manager at financial services company

    – CFO of insurance company

    – research biochemist at chemical company

  71. My current bishop works for a bank, although I’m not sure if he does anything related to finance, or something else.

    My last bishop worked in IT or computer/network security or something like that.

  75. .

    You’ll like this, Katya. He’s a librarian at Stanford.

    My previous one was a real estate developer.

    Don’t remember the one before that.

    The one before that was a safety engineer at a mine.

    Don’t remember the one before that.

    The one before that was a construction-equipment operator.

    The one before that was a bus driver.

  76. Current Bishop-Pharmacist, has almost no social skills but he didn’t ask for the job either.
    Previous-Architect and knew the doctrine and had social skills despite coming from Alberta.
    Absolute best bishops I had were a occupational therapist and a film editor at the CBC

  77. Current: Graphic designer
    Previous: Business V.P. of something or other kind of guy
    Before those: German Professor, Linguistics Professor, M.D., Geneticist

  78. previous Bishops: (see 30 for my present one)
    Laboratory supervisor
    Produce vendor
    Banker
    Nurse
    HR Manager
    ??
    Nurse
    Business owner
    Retired Teacher

  79. 1) wildlife biologist at state fish and game agency (counselors are a carpenter and a property management company employee–whatever they’re called)
    2) chemical engineer in aerospace
    3) motivational speaker/trainer for Franklin Covey (no, I don’t live in Utah)
    4) corporate attorney
    5) corporate attorney
    6) chemical engineer
    7) intellectual property attorney
    8) corporate attorney
    9) professor of agronomy/horticulture
    10) VP-of-something business guy

    In one of the wards I served in on my mission, the bishop ran a company that made frozen juice concentrate. He co-owned the company with his father, a counselor in the bishopric (and also the high-priest group leader) and his brother, the elder’s quorum president. His sister, the ward music director, also worked there, as did the ward mission leader and relief society president (who were married to one another), and a few others in the ward. It made for some really interesting dynamics in ward council meetings!

  80. 1) Business owner (restaurant)
    2) High school principal
    3) Business owner
    4) Business owner
    5) Engineer
    6) Business owner
    7) Vice president of large bank
    8) Banker
    9) Forest Service telecommunications manager
    10) Building contractor

  81. 1. Social worker
    2. Retired military/defense industry, then PT college math teacher.
    3. Telephone linesman

Comments are closed.