Bishop George Packard is Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies and will be a particularly appropriate preacher for the diocese’s annual meeting when it gathers in Killeen, February 12-13, 2010.
Killeen is hope to the country’s largest military post, Ft. Hood, and has been the site of a large percentage of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. As bishop Suffragan for chaplaincies, Bishop Packard has ministered to those in the armed forces throughout his career.
Bishop Packard’s ministry has been notable for his leadership in support of those deployed in the Iraq War, the response to September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. He is the bishop for all Episcopal federal chaplains serving in the military, federal prisons and Veteran’s Affairs facilities. He also supports the care for all other chaplains by coordinating the training and advocacy for diocesan healthcare, prison, emergency responder, and maritime chaplains in the life of the Church. Because of extensive travel he also serves as the bishop-in-charge for Micronesia in the southwest Pacific.
Bishop Packard graduated from Hobart College, in 1966 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and enlisted in the Army soon after college. He received the Silver Star and two Bronze Stars for valor during his deployment as an infantry officer in Vietnam.
Upon release from active duty, Bishop Packard continued to serve in the Army Reserves while attending Virginia Theological Seminary where he earned his Master of Divinity in 1974. He also holds an honorary doctorate from VTS. He served parishes in Virginia and New York for 15 years before becoming the Canon to the Ordinary for the Diocese of New York in 1989, returning in 1995 to parish ministry.
Concurrent to his parochial and diocesan duties, Bishop Packard served as a chaplain in the Army Reserves. In this capacity he had a variety of assignments from chaplain to a hospital ward for communicable diseases, to a field hospital, to a deployed unit in Egypt. During the Gulf War, he was assigned to the Pentagon and later was decorated for his participation in a team for the pastoral care of casualties.
Since his consecration in 2000, Bishop Packard has traveled extensively to visit chaplains throughout the world including Iraq and Kuwait. This knowledge served him well when the tragedy of September 11th occurred. It meant that the “100 Days of Mission Support” declared by his office in response to the event could call on talent well-known and matched to the needs of the crisis. That “Support Mission” by his office included briefings to all clergy in the 13 dioceses directly affected by that terrible day, organizing and scheduling chaplains for the NYC site, liaison with the Pentagon effort, and providing solace and counseling to persons at the Church Center as well as general support to any other development.
Prior to the drama of September 11th, the bishop convened a leadership conference of senior military chaplains at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC followed six months later by a similar “Formative Symposium” for healthcare professionals. He is quoted as saying that another true highlight during these two years was his first confirmation service at Angola Prison in Louisiana and eating Thanksgiving dinner at the Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio.
Under Bishop Packard’s guidance and in keeping with the earlier energies of September 11th, the Office for Chaplaincies provided the interim primary response to major domestic disasters for the national church and significant leadership on the ground for Hurricane Katrina through the “We Will Stand with You” Program.
Bishop Packard served as the Chairman of NCMAF — The National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces in 2005.
He is married to Brook Hedick, a musician and Christian educator and together they have one daughter, Clara. Bishop Packard has two daughters from a previous marriage: Helen, an associate editor for a church periodical and Cleary, a professional tennis player.
