Kevin Kompelien is the 17th president of Trinity.
Rev. Kevin Kompelien previously served as the president of the Evangelical Free Church of America for nine years, from 2015-2023. Before that time, he was the international leader for the Africa Division with ReachGlobal (the international mission of the EFCA) and a senior leader of the mission.
A graduate of TEDS (MDiv ’83), Kompelien served over twenty years as pastor of two EFCA churches. In addition, he served on the North Central District Board, chairing the church planting committee, and on the Central California District Board (now EFCA West). In June 2019, President Kompelien was presented with an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree by Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois. A native of Thief River Falls, MN, Kompelien and his wife Becky have been married for 42 years. They have four grown, married children and nine grandchildren.
Dr. Ott’s particular fields of expertise include theology of mission, contextualization, church planting, and teaching across cultures. He previously served twenty-one years in Germany with ReachGlobal (formerly the EFCA International Mission).
He has planted churches in Schaumburg, Illinois, and in Munich, Ingolstadt, Neumarkt, and Markt Indersdorf, Germany. From 1995 to 2002 Dr. Ott served as Central Europe Church Planting Consultant for ReachGlobal, and from 1998 to 2002 he taught at the Akademie für Weltmission in Korntal, Germany, where he continues to teach regularly as an adjunct professor.
He also served from 1994-2020 as adjunct faculty at Theologische Hochschule Ewersbach (Germany). He has taught or consulted national and mission leaders in forty different countries.
Dr. Ott and his wife Alice live in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, and have three grown sons.
