Ben Baldus ---------- Ben Baldus is Director of the Office of Public Policy and Advocacy at Lutheran Social Services of Michigan. He did his undergraduate study at Michigan State University and holds a Master of Arts (M.A.) (1972) from the Graduate Theological Union, University of California, Berkeley and the Master of Divinity (M.Div.) (1973) from San Francisco Theological Seminary. He studied organ with Paul H. Eickmeyer, Wilbur Franklin Russell, Erik Routley and, later, with Paul Manz in Chicago and John Bertalot at Princeton University. Ben also served in a clinical pastoral education residency for the 1973 academic year at the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco. He was ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament on 1 July 1973 by the San Gabriel Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (USA). In September 1998, Ben became a rostered Pastor of the North/West Lower Michigan Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Ben Baldus has devoted his ministry in the church in three principal directions-parish ministry, public policy advocacy and church music. He has served congregations in California, Pennsylvania and Michigan in ministerial and musical roles. As an advocate, he spent a decade at the Michigan Office of Services to the Aging as a Grants Manager, a Policy Analyst and, finally, as Assistant Director for Legislative Affairs. He came to Lutheran Social Services of Michigan (LSSM) in 1985 as the agency's third Director of the Office of Governmental Affairs. In this position, now Office of Public Policy and Advocacy, he helped build on LSSM's already distinguished position as one of the state's largest and finest human services agencies. He has worked on behalf of LSSM clients, the Michigan Synods of the ELCA and the agency herself in a wide range of fiscal, programmatic and regulatory matters. LSSM has become an effective, visible and respected voice in health and human services policy circles. LSSM is the official ELCA public policy office for the State of Michigan. Ben Baldus is a composer and organist has written in many genres; but with a particular interest in organ and choral music, as well as music to serve the liturgical needs of the church. Three of Baldus' organ pieces have been recorded on compact disc on the ARKAY and Tsunami labels by the Philadelphia organist, Paul Fejko. Ben continues to be active as an organist and conductor, and is in wide demand as an organist. He is guest director for a series of hymn festivals hosted by St Paul's Lutheran Church, Orlando, Florida and returns regularly to the east coast and to the San Francisco Bay Area for guest engagements. Ben lives in Lansing. He has two grown children, Robert and Melissa; together with a Calico cat who, if the truth be known, really runs the show.