International Ministries (IM), American Baptist Churches USA has announced the hiring of three new executive staff persons, including two new team leaders.

Reid Trulson, executive director of IM, said Catherine Nold joined staff as team leader and director of communications and marketing on May 14, 2007. David Worth will join IM as team leader and director of development on June 4. And Ray Schooler, current president of the IM board, will step down from that position and join the development team as director of church relations on June 29.

"IM is fortunate to have identified strong, seasoned and strategically placed leaders to serve this historic mission agency of American Baptists," said Trulson. "I am confident these new team members and leaders will help us further usher in an era of growth and excellence for global missions through International Ministries."

Nold comes to IM with more than 20 years of marketing communications and sales promotion experience. Nold spent six years at JP Morgan Chase, working as vice president of marketing and communications in consumer financial services, and other roles. Since 2003, she has served on the board of directors of KenCrest Centers, a non-profit, with administrative offices in Plymouth Meeting, PA., which serves over 6,000 people with disabilities in Pennsylvania and Delaware. KenCrest is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Nold is also helping to raise money for SEKUCo, a proposed college in a region of Tanzania along the Indian Ocean. The college would be the first in this east African nation to offer instruction in teacher education with a focus on special education.

Worth joins IM after more than 35 years of experience with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in the US, Canada and abroad. Worth led development for the MCC, for more than six years, as director of the resource generation network. Prior to his development position, he served as executive director for MCC-Ontario for nine years. Between those two positions, Worth served as interim executive director of Habitat for Humanity Jamaica.

Worth also is a missionary kid. His parents served as Presbyterian missionaries in South Korea for 24 years.

Schooler will join IM staff after having served as its board president since November 2005. An ordained clergy person for nearly 35 years, Schooler has served as pastor of the Kenmore Baptist Church in the Buffalo, NY, area since March 1998. He will step down later this year as pastor. Working bi-vocationally, Schooler also brings 15 years of sales and administrative experience to his new position.

Schooler and Kenmore Baptist have been at the heart of the renewal of IM's mission, as the church welcomed dozens of ethnic Karen refugees into their congregation from Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) in the spring of 2006. This was followed by a mission trip by Schooler and IM staff to Myanmar that fall.

What is known today as IM began when Adoniram and Ann Judson left the U.S. as missionaries, only to embrace Baptist teachings and arrive in Burma in 1814. They sent Luther Rice back to the states to help organize support for their mission, and this led to the creation of the mission board now known as International Ministries.

IM serves the more than 5,800 churches of the American Baptist Churches USA. Globally, IM relates to more than 500 educational institutions and 125 hospitals and medical facilities. Missionaries work in partnership with some 15,000 trained national workers, who serve about 22,000 congregations and nearly 3,000,000 baptized members.