Effective June 5, Ron Van Blarcom, 46, of Orange, Calif., became the new president of 
Church Development Partners (CDP), an LCMS Recognized Service Organization that provides real estate counseling exclusively to Synod congregations, schools, and related entities.
The CDP Board of Directors appointed Van Blarcom to succeed Richard Brumfield, who resigned from the presidency “to pursue other church-service activities,” according to a CDP news release.
Formed in 2000 to help LCMS congregations, schools, and other organizations with real estate questions, CDP specializes in “acquiring parcels of land and developing the property in keeping with a church’s growth plan and governmental land-use requirements,” according to the news release, which also states that a portion of each property then “is reserved for the church and the surplus is sold.”
An attorney specializing in real estate and environmental law, Van Blarcom previously had been full-time general counsel for CDP since March 2006. Prior to that, he was the founding partner of a law firm serving public agencies and other clients in real estate and environmental issues.
Van Blarcom, who had sat on CDP’s Board of Directors since the organization’s founding, said via the news release that current [CDP] projects represent nearly $40 million in investment.
“We will focus over the next 18 months on our work with extisting projects to entitle properties in order to plan new and expanding congregations and equip them with land,” Van Blarcom said via the release. “As we partner with the Lutheran Church Extension Fund and the Synod in growing new and expanding congregations, we also will connect existing congregations to the best information for property acquisition and disposition.”
Prior to his service with CDP, Van Blarcom was a founding partner of Van Blarcom, Leibold, McClendon & Mann, a law firm serving public agencies and representing other clients in real estate and environmental issues.
He and his wife, Stephanie — who is a middle-school teacher — are members of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Orange. They are the parents of two adult sons.
Both Ron and Stephanie Van Blarcom are graduates of Concordia University, Irvine, Calif., which he also serves as an elected member of the Concordia University Irvine Foundation Board.
Posted July 9, 2007
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