By Corey Poole
Brown graduated from Northwestern State University in 1963 with a bachelor of science in accounting degree. He received his MBA in 1970. He attended The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa. where he received diplomas as a chartered life underwriter and a chartered financial consultant. He is a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force with 33 years of service in hospital administration, including service at the Pentagon and in Saudi Arabia.
A financial services professional with New York Life and co-owner of Waskom, Brown & Associates LLC, an accounting firm in Natchitoches, Brown and his wife Glenelle have two children, Lesh Jr. and Breanna Brown Shumpert.
As a member of the First United Methodist Church (FUMC) in Natchitoches, Brown served on the Board of Trustees for the United Methodist Foundation of Louisiana from 2011-2014. He was vice-chair from 2014-2016 and will serve as chairman until 2018.
Asked by the Foundation’s president to join the board, Brown says they try to give back.
FUMC received a grant a few years ago to bolster the ministries at NSU Wesley, a United Methodist campus ministry. Church members worked with Methodist studentsat Northwestern State University.
Trying to expand its Spanish ministries, the church also received a grant from the Foundation to sponsor a student to attend NSU.The student was chosen from the Lydia Patterson Institute, a Methodist Christian college-preparatory school in El Paso, Texas that offers programs to Spanish-speaking children, primarily from Juarez, Mexico. These students are given the opportunity to attend high school and college in the U.S. Brown proudly said that the church’s sponsored student just completed his first year of college.
“My mother taught me that there’s two kinds of men,” said Brown. “You’re either a giver or a taker and I feel I need to do some giving.”
Besides giving back through his church and the Foundation, Brown served as president of Kiwanis International from 1999-2000 and is a member of the Louisiana Conference Board of Ordained Ministry (CBOM). He is the president of the Natchitoches Parish Port Commission and treasurer of the Kiwanis Club of Natchitoches.
Located in Baton Rouge, the United Methodist Foundation was founded in 1975. It serves United Methodist Churches, institutions and individuals with the Louisiana Annual Conference, providing financial guidance and education, loans and grants. It is one of the largest United Methodist Foundations in the denomination.
The Foundation meeting and luncheon celebrated 40 years of service and the following milestones:
– $33 million in planned gifts established for the future of the United Methodist Church and its ministries
– $45 million loaned to churches and ministries within the Conference
– Over $5.7 million in grants awarded to United Methodist ministries
– Over 100 seminary service loans awarded to Conference pastors