The Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference (PSMC) board has selected Stanley W. Green to be executive conference minister effective Sept. 1.

Green is completing 19 years as executive director of Mennonite Mission Network and is retiring from that position this summer. Born and reared in South Africa, Green was part of the student movement that helped dismantle the legal apartheid system. Prior to taking the helm at Mission Network, Green served as pastor, conference minister and mission executive in South Africa, Jamaica and the United States.

Green shared with the PSMC search committee that the love he and his wife, Ursula, share for the pacific southwest and its people comes from the years they spent in the region, being integrated there into the Mennonite faith and serving the church there.

“I wholeheartedly accept the invitation by the PSMC to this new assignment and the honor that it will be for me to serve in this role,” Green says. “We fondly remember the love and warm reception we felt there as new Mennonites and feel drawn back by those memories and the opportunity to serve.”

Clare Ann Ruth-Heffelbower, the current executive conference minister, will work through August before retiring.