84 TH GRAND CHAPTER MEETING: FOUNDATION LUNCHEON SPEAKER
the last thing I wanted to do. My father was and remains the greatest influence in my life - he was there for everything I went through and I seek to be the same kind of father with my kids that he was with me.
for Theological Studies, the Board of Visitors of the Duke Divinity School and the Board of Directors of the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Missionary Convention. Dr. Wesley is the son of the late Rev. Alvin and Helene Wesley and represents the fourth generation of Baptist preachers in his family. He is an avid golfer, movie-goer, spades player and aspiring chef. He is a lifetime member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., and his sons, Howard-John II and Cooper Reece, are the greatest joys of his life. I grew up in Chicago in a very religious and church committed home. My father, grandfather, and great grandfather were all pastors - so pastoring was the last thing I ever wanted to do in life. My dad was called to pastor after a very successful career as an entrepre- neur who owned four shoes stores in Chicago. Both of my parents did not have the privilege of college education and they were adamant about giving me and directing me into a solid education. They sacrificed for me to attend the University of Chicago Labora- tory School, one of the best private schools in the city and the nation, and I attended that from pre-school through 12 th grade. We went to church every Sunday, and when I say every Sunday, I mean every Sunday. My dad’s church never grew beyond 250 members, but he was faithful and committed to them because he loved the people and knew he was called by God to them. But as a teen I witnessed the struggles he had with them and their inability to pay him well and I kind of settled in my mind that pastoring was neither lucrative nor appreciated so being a pastor was On Growing up
On majoring in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering
I had a high school physics teacher who not only encouraged me to take AP calculus and physics but also in- troduced me to the discipline of engi- neering in my junior and senior year. I was always interested in becoming a doctor but I loved the math and physics and at that time Biomedical engineering was still an emerging field but it merged medicine and engineering and caught my attention. When I went to Duke I went in with the intention of going to medical school after college. Duke was a leader in the field of Biomedical en- gineering at the time and I excelled in the program and became a na- tional science foundation engineering research center fellow my junior year which allowed for accelerated study and specialize research. I focused on implantable defibrillators. I knew God had a calling on my life when I was 17, that’s actually when I preached my first sermon, but I was not ready to yield my entire life to serving the Lord and the church. I was on my way to college and there was some “sinning” I wanted to enjoy - and besides, I never wanted to pas- tor and I figured that I could just be an associate minister at some church one day but my career would be in medicine. Yielding to My Call While I was a NSF/ERC fellow I was exposed to the dark side of medicine and health care and realized that money guided access to health care and not the actual care of people who were in need. I was good at what I was doing but it didn’t bring me
56 | FALL 2019 ♦ THE JOURNAL
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