Gerald Bryan Kieschnick (born January 29, 1943, in Houston, Texas) is the Chief Executive Officer of Legacy Deo (formerly known as the Lutheran Foundation of Texas). Kieschnick served as the 12th president of The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), being elected to three terms in 2001, 2004, and 2007. He was defeated in his bid for a fourth term by the Rev. Matthew C. Harrison on July 13, 2010, at the 64th Regular Convention of the LCMS, and his presidency ended on August 31, 2010. Kieschnick and his wife, Terry, have two grown children and two grandchildren, all of whom live in Texas. Early career Kieschnick attended Texas A&M University, graduating with a bachelor of science in 1964. He is a 1970 graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, Illinois (now located in Fort Wayne, Indiana), obtained his Master of Divinity in 1977 from Concordia in Fort Wayne, and received an honorary doctor of laws degree in 1996 from Concordia University in Austin, Texas. After his ordination in 1970, Kieschnick served as pastor at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Biloxi, Mississippi, until 1973; at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Beaumont, Texas, from 1973 to 1981; and at Faith Lutheran Church in Georgetown, Texas, from 1981 to 1986. He served the Texas District of the LCMS as a circuit counselor from 1978 to1981 and as director of public relations from 1977 to 1986. Kieschnick was director of development at Lutheran Foundation of Texas from 1986 to 1988 and then served as its executive director from 1988 to 1991. In 1991, Kieschnick was elected president of the LCMS's Texas District and served in that position until 2001. In addition, from 1998 until his election as LCMS president, Kieschnick chaired the LCMS Commission on Theology and Church Relations and served on the program committee of the LCMS Council of Presidents. LCMS presidential election and first term At the LCMS' 2001 convention in St. Louis, Kieschnick was elected to his first three-year term as president of the 2.6-million-member church. He won by 18 votes out of 1,182 total votes cast in the fourth round of balloting over Dean O. Wenthe, then president of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Three other candidates had dropped off in the first three ballots. One of those candidates, Daniel Preus, subsequently was elected to be the church body's first vice president. Kieschnick's first presidential term was almost immediately beset by