Don Alden Adams
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Don Alden Adams is the current president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, the oldest and most important of the corporations of Jehovah's Witnesses.
[edit] Biography
Born in about 1925 in Illinois, U.S., Adams grew up in a big family, which originally had connections to the Episcopal church. His mother had shown interest in Jehovah's Witnesses at one point and gradually the children also became interested. Don's father initially showed no interest, but involved himself in a legal case against the government when one of Don's younger brothers was not exempted from military service; he later also aided other Jehovah's Witnesses. Subsequently, their father eventually became a baptized Witness.
Don Adams entered the full-time ministry as a pioneer minister in January 1943. He was invited in late 1944 to serve at the world headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses in Brooklyn, New York; by 1951 three of his siblings had joined him at the facility and a fourth sibling served as a Gilead-trained missionary in foreign service.[1][2][3][4] Among his early assignments, Adams was secretary to Society president, Nathan H. Knorr. By the 1960s, Adams served directly under the Governing Body as a zone overseer, visiting foreign countries to audit branch offices and meet with Witness missionaries.[5] Later, Adams directed world missionary activities, and served on the "Bethel Home Committee".[6] He also participated in administrative works and visited places around the world together with his wife.[7][8][9]
Although not a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, Adams became president of the Watch Tower Society after Governing Body member Milton G. Henschel stepped down from that office in 2000. In that year, members of the Governing Body resigned from their executive positions of the corporations of Jehovah's Witnesses.
[edit] References
- ^ The Watchtower, June 1, 1985, page 28
- ^ The Watchtower, December 15, 2000
- ^ The Watchtower, April 1, 1957, page 200
- ^ The Watchtower, March 1, 2003, page 23, "Seeking First the Kingdom—A Secure and Happy Life"
- ^ "Ivory Coast", 1981 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, page 174
- ^ "New Missionaries Urged: “Stay Loyal!”", The Watchtower, November 15, 1982, page 27
- ^ "Guyana", 2005 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, page 196
- ^ "Venezuela", 1996 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, page 226
- ^ "Mozambique", 1996 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, page 165
| Preceded by Milton G. Henschel |
President of Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania October 7, 2000 |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
