Pat Creech

Education: Bachelor’s degree in building construction and contract management, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

Resume: George Koch Sons, 1982-2003; strategic outreach pastor, Crossroads Christian Church, 2003-2018; executive director and CEO, Welborn Baptist Foundation, November 2018-present

Family: Wife Martha and children Fred, Sam, Joe, Daniel, and Molly

Pat Creech has had a varied career, from working with the systems engineering and manufacturing company, George Koch Sons, and in ministry with Crossroads Christian Church to leading Welborn Baptist Foundation today as its executive director and CEO. The Evansville native doesn’t see this experience as disjointed. Creech actually says each position has taught him universal lessons, leading him to an organization where he can apply a global mindset to improve the local community through high-quality early learning, Christ-centered living, healthy eating and active living, and nonprofit excellence.

What led you to get into ministry?
I’ve always had an interest in other cultures, places, peoples, and countries, and my work at George Koch Sons allowed me to travel to many different places. It reinforced my curiosity of other cultures. In early 2000 I took a mission trip, and that trip caused me to pause and ask the question, “God, what do you really want me to do for the next 20 years of my life?” I am super grateful for all the time, lessons, and opportunities at Koch, and I took all that with me to Crossroads to help them develop their global outreach ministries.

Were there many similarities between your work at George Koch Sons and Crossroads?
The amount of crossover between what I learned at Koch through the years in terms of leadership, project management, project development, team building, coaching, and just collaborative effort was all 100 percent transferable into the ministry world. The context was quite different, but the application of sound leadership and people principles was right on the money.

Has that been the same coming in to the Welborn Baptist Foundation?
Moving from Koch to Crossroads, obviously there was a steep learning curve in terms of specific subject matter. The same has been true in my transition from Crossroads to here. In many ways my responsibilities here at the foundation — it’s a merging of what I learned in the business world at George Koch Sons and in the ministry world at Crossroads.

What is one of the biggest issues in the area people should work to improve?
We know from research that a person’s opportunity for success long term is dependent primarily on their zip code. We tend to think things like heredity, genetics, or a host of other factors would have more of an impact on you, but the reality is where you live and the circumstances you were born into plays a huge factor in what the rest of your life looks like. Housing affects your health, your education affects your housing, your education affects your ability to have a living wage job, a living wage job affects where you live and where your kids live, which affects their health. It’s an interconnected world. I’m curious, the foundation is curious, and I think many other organizations are becoming more curious about asking the question: What might it look like if we can find some collective approaches to solving the root causes that are common in these different areas?

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