Jason Langworthy
Chair
Jason Langworthy has been a supporter of the National Lutheran Choir since his wife, Sara, joined the choir in 2006. Jason was previously a member of the National Lutheran Choir Board of Directors from 2015 to 2023, serving as Treasurer for six of those years. His passion for sacred music can be traced back to his time as a singer at Valparaiso University. Jason has also served on several other non-profit boards, most recently as the Vice President of the Saint Paul Area Synod of the ELCA.
When not attending NLC concerts and events, Jason works as the Associate Secretary in the Office of the Board of Regents at the University of Minnesota System. As the Associate Secretary, he oversees strategic initiatives related to the Board’s governance role, leads coordination of the Board’s standing and special committees, is a primary resource on meeting procedures, and is an institutional policy authority, working to shepherd regular review of the Board's 87 systemwide policies.
Jason lives in Saint Paul with his wife and NLC soprano Sara, son and NLC superfan Rory, and their two golden retrievers. His love of music also extends to his work as a volunteer staff member with the University of Minnesota Marching Band, serving as the Pride of Minnesota’s Senior Advisor and Announcer. He enjoys spending time with friends and family, traveling to new and favorite destinations, playing pickleball, and drinking whiskies from Islay.
Matt Helland
Vice Chair
Matt Helland is the managing partner of the San Francisco office of Nichols Kaster, a Minneapolis-based law firm that represents individuals in employment, consumer, and civil rights cases. Matt is married with school-aged children who love to sing. He and his family enjoy travel, skiing, hiking, and biking. Matt is a member of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco, where he sings in the choir and is involved in the congregation’s sister parish relationship with Cordero de Dios in El Salvador.
Matt sang with the National Lutheran Choir for five years prior to moving from the Twin Cities area to San Francisco. He has enjoyed staying connected to the NLC community as an audience member and, since 2018, as a member of the board.
Kari Olson
Treasurer
Kari has over a decade of accounting and operations leadership experience in the public health and non-profit sectors. She currently works as an Accounting Supervisor with Smith Schafer and Associates. Kari leads a team providing monthly financial services to their clients as well as yearly tax and 990 preparation. Kari also serves as the Finance Administrator for University Lutheran Church of Hope in Minneapolis where, in addition to managing regular financials, she prepares monthly financial reporting for the Vision and Governance Board, and provides quarterly accounting for subsidiaries within the church.
Kari has been an avid National Lutheran Choir follower since her husband, Matt, joined the choir in 2010. They live in Apple valley with their 3 children: Eldri, Eira, and Calvin. Kari volunteers regularly with their Church, Immanuel Lutheran in Saint Paul as well as with the NLC. Kari was the NLC Gala chair in 2020. She enjoys travel, baking, and the occasional glass of rosé.
Adam Krueger
Secretary
Adam is retired from a host of careers, including parish pastor, Navy chaplain, and a compliance officer for Wells Fargo Information Risk Management. He and his husband, Thomas, live with their two dogs in Robbinsdale and are members of Mount Olive Lutheran Church. They enjoy spending time with their grown children and four grandchildren, all living in Cedar Rapids Iowa. Chances are excellent that if they aren’t in the Twin Cities, they’re in Iowa watching soccer, dance or piano recitals, exploring some place with cute animals, or just hanging out with family.
Adam enjoys many genres of music and, during his undergraduate years at Valparaiso, got to sing under the direction of L.L. Fleming, the NLC’s founding artistic director. Favorite memory from that era-learning “Three about Jesus” from the hand-written score before it was published. He also enjoys taking long walks, cooking, and trying new restaurants when not volunteering at Mount Olive, Help at Your Door, or Open Arms of Minnesota. Being a part of the NLC DEI committee is a good fit for his other work for social justice, equity, and inclusion. Adam feels especially blessed to live in an area with so much diversity to offer in the way of foods, cultures, and the arts.
Kaiya Ruff
Choir Representative to the Board
Kaiya is in her 6th year as an alto in the National Lutheran Choir and is a Concordia College graduate. She grew up at Mount Olive Lutheran Church and developed a deep appreciation for music from an early age. Kaiya works as a therapist at CARE Counseling, an outpatient mental health clinic. In addition to her clinical work, she onboards and supports new hires at CARE and assists the Systems team with the behind-the-scenes operations. She values being actively involved in multiple aspects of a company or organization to help it operate successfully and views the Singer Representative role in a similar lens.
Outside of work and choir, she enjoys staying active outdoors, watching Minnesota sports, and building community with friends and family.
Jennifer Baker-Trinity
Jennifer Baker-Trinity, a deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, serves as Program Manager for Worship Resource Development, a shared position between the ELCA and Augsburg Fortress, its publishing ministry. In this position she attends to developing and teaching about resources that support the church’s worship. Jennifer completed her studies at Valparaiso University (B.M. Church Music) and the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (now United Lutheran Seminary, MAR, STM). From 2017-2020, she served as co-Director of the Institute of Liturgical Studies at Valparaiso University. Her professional memberships include the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, the Hymn Society, and the North American Academy of Liturgy. A proud alumnus of Lutheran Summer Music, she serves on their advisory council.
Jennifer has served as a church musician in congregations in Illinois, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania and has been a writer for several devotional and worship resources. She lives in Shoreview, Minnesota, with her spouse Nathan and her children Thomas, Luke, and Miriam. When not taking her children to music or dance lessons or rehearsals, she enjoys a good podcast or audio book, cooking, or going out for walks and bike rides.
Bruce Becker
For more than 50 years, Bruce W. Becker has developed, led and maintained distinctive church music and public high school choral music programs throughout Minnesota. This summer he completes 60 years serving as a church organist with the past 39 at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, where he oversaw the installation of their new 4-manual Rodgers-Dewsbury pipe organ. In addition to his church music career, Bruce fostered and maintained large multiple staffed high school choral music programs with the final 25 years of his teaching career spent at Apple Valley High School. Choirs under his direction performed with critical acclaim and appeared in statewide music conferences and at many choral music festivals sponsored by regional colleges and universities. As a composer, his “Tree of Life” hymn tune is included in eight denominational hymnals and song books in the United States, Finland and Sweden, and appears in over 40 additional choral, organ and worship resources published by Concordia, Northwestern and Morning Star. He holds degrees in music education and performance from the University of St. Thomas (MA) and of Augustana University (BA) in Sioux Falls, SD.
During his years of active teaching, conducting and performing, Bruce created an impressive portfolio of volunteer leadership serving the American Choral Directors Association as state and regional president and served on the ACDA national board of directors. He created and programmed memorable state and regional ACDA choral conferences and served as Program Chair for the week-long Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music hosted by Minnesota in 2002, where over 100 choral concerts were scheduled and presented to over 1,000 international delegates and thousands of devoted Minnesota choral music supporters.
As a result of his prolific leadership skills, he was selected to be the first full-time Executive Director for ACDA of Minnesota, a position held for 13 ½ years. His final administrative task centered around coordinating and managing the 2022 F. Melius Christiansen (FMC) 151st Anniversary Concert, building off the highly successful FMC anniversary celebrations he previously created and organized in 1996 and 2006. He was the original co-creator of ACDA-MN’s FMC Endowment Fund whose investment holdings surpassed $1 million during his tenure. As part of his ACDA duties, he assumed the position of Director of Development and worked in that capacity until retiring in 2022.
He states that if selected as a board member, “I bring decades of highly successful public school, church music and non-profit arts leadership to the board room and look forward to supporting both the original mission and exciting new vision of the National Lutheran Choir.”
Steve Berg
Steve Berg is a writer based in Asheville, North Carolina. His primary background is in journalism. After five years at the Raleigh News and Observer, he joined the Minneapolis Star Tribune where, for 30 years, he was a feature writer, political correspondent and editorialist, both in the Twin Cities and in Washington, D.C. Later, he wrote the Cityscape column for Minnpost and served as an urban design consultant. His clients included the Metropolitan Council, the Itasca Project, the Urban Land Institute and the Minneapolis Downtown Council.
Steve is the author of two architecture books, “Target Field: The New Home of the Minnesota Twins” (2010) and “U.S. Bank Stadium: The New Home of the Minnesota Vikings” (2016). His work also includes a novel “Hennepin Island: The Lost Colony” (2023).
Educated at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and Stanford University, Steve’s hobbies include tennis, swimming and cooking. He’s a member of Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Minneapolis and has served on the NLC Board since 2019. He and his wife, Dixie, have two grown children and two grandchildren. They reside in Asheville and (in the summer months) Minneapolis.
Sandra Cline
Sandra Cline is currently retired after working for the last 16 years in different capacities for the Lutheran Church in North and South Carolina. She is a graduate of Lenoir Rhyne University and has served on their Board of Trustees. Sandra has also served as Director of Philanthropy for Agape Kure Beach Ministries and as Alumni/Church Relations Director for Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. She now spends her summers working as an Ambassador Driver for the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York State. In the summer of 2024 she spent 1 1/2 hours driving Renee Fleming from the Buffalo Airport to Chautauqua where Renee spent four days as Musician in Residence, teaching about the intersection of music and wellness as well as giving a concert with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.
She is also serving as Advisor, Church Relations for Global Refuge. Sandra is a consummate “connector” and a passionate devotee of sacred choral music. She was the primary force behind raising funds to secure the NLC’s 2020 and 2024 appearances in the Carolinas.
Philip Eidsvold
A lifelong admirer of the National Lutheran Choir—dating back to age eight—Philip Eidsvold brings four decades of support and enthusiasm for the ensemble to his role on the Board of Directors. A proud arts enthusiast, he also serves as Vice-Chair of the board of Theatre L’Homme Dieu in Alexandria, MN, and is a true believer in the transcendent power of the performing arts to spark wonder, build community, and remind us of our shared humanity. By day, Philip is a leader in the world of corporate event management, currently consulting with a major pharmaceutical company. He lives in Edina, MN with his partner of nearly 20 years, Ty Baucum, and their one-year-old golden retriever, Penelope Grace— who proudly serves as the household’s Chief Joy Officer.
Joe Holan
Joe Holan is a St. Olaf graduate and former singer who is a financial services and senior business control professional. In addition to his work in the banking industry, Joe served on the Board of Frank Theatre for seven years where he helped with marketing, communications, and development strategies including an annual Gala. Joe and his husband Jason have been active supporters of the NLC for many years.
Erin Johnson
Music has long been a passion for Erin. As both a pianist and vocalist, she studied under Dale Kruse while a student at Gustavus Adolphus College where she also sang in the choir, and under Karen Wilkerson both before and after college. She has continued to sing and play for her church as well as for other events. She currently serves as the high school principal for one of Minnesota’s top performing schools, Eagle Ridge Academy. Erin, her husband Matthew, and their three sons live in Minnetonka, MN.
Diana J. Leland
Diana J. Leland enjoyed a 32-year career as a choral conductor, of which her last 28 years were being employed by Edina Schools, where she also served (5 years) as a master teacher/mentor for music, art and theater teachers. From 1979-83 she was the first full-time manager of the Dale Warland Singers.
Diana has been actively involved in the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) for the past 50 years. Her service with ACDA included: ACDA-MN state president (1979-81), ACDA North Central regional president (1984-86) and ACDA national president (1989-91). In addition, she was hired as ACDA-MN's Director of Development (part-time) from 2008-2015.
Following Diana's retirement from Edina Schools she worked for 12 years (2008-2020) in the travel industry as an outside sales person for Accolades Tours for the Arts, arranging international tours for music ensembles. She has attended all twelve (12) World Symposia on Choral Music, which is sponsored every 3 years by the International Federation for Choral Music. During her retirement years, Diana is enjoying travel, photography, spending times with family and friends and supporting the arts in Minnesota. Diana notes that she sang under the direction of NLC founder, Larry Fleming, at Valparaiso University while she was an undergraduate student.
Mikka McCracken
Mikka is a strategy and innovation leader with experience spanning the tech and nonprofit sectors. She currently leads strategic planning and programs for the People & Places organization at Autodesk, a global design and make software company. Previously, she managed global culture and engagement initiatives at Amazon, supporting customer service teams worldwide. Before transitioning to tech, Mikka served in multiple leadership roles at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) national office, including as the founding Executive for Innovation — where she secured a $1 million Lilly Endowment grant — and as Director for Strategy & Engagement with ELCA World Hunger, where she led multimillion-dollar campaigns and equity-focused grant program redesigns rooted in human-centered design.
A graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College, Mikka also holds a certificate in management excellence from Harvard Business School and a master’s in organizational leadership and learning from The George Washington University. She has served on national and international nonprofit boards, including the Lutheran World Federation and her alma mater’s Board of Trustees. Originally from rural Bemidji, Minnesota, Mikka has seen the power of the arts firsthand, singing in choirs from elementary school through college. She lives in Chicago with her spouse (Jake), cat (Hosbon), and two fiddle leaf fig trees.
Norma Porter
Music has been a part of my life since an early age. I sang in church choirs until my daughters were born, and played piano, Bass Clarinet and Recorder. I re-joined choir at St Philip the Deacon Lutheran Church a couple of years ago and had the opportunity to participate in the NLCA Choir Tune Up in 2024 and enjoyed attending NLCA concerts this past season.
I served on the Board of Directors for Girl Scouts of MN & WI River Valleys for over 10 years as Board Treasurer and as a Director at Large. I also served on a variety of Board Committees, including Executive, Finance, Audit, Investment, Strategic Planning and Board Development as well as serving as a Board mentor.
My work experience includes Public Accounting, High Tech and Dental Insurance. I have worked in a variety of roles including Accounting and Finance, Operations, Process Improvement and System implementations. Through the Women's Health Leadership Trust I have served as a mentor for upcoming leaders for 3 years.
I am a graduate of Luther College with degrees in Accounting and Math and was a member of Concert Band for 2 years. I look forward to bringing my professional and volunteer experience as well as my love of music to the NLCA Board to help the organization as they build toward the future.
David Soli
David retired from a career as a Certified Public Accountant in 2018 after spending 37 years in the profession. Twenty-five of those years were spent running his own accounting firm specializing in tax, auditing and business consulting services. As a retiree, now that he actually has spare time, he enjoys reading, travel, crossword puzzles, gathering with friends, singing with his church choir, yoga, and hiking. After living in the Highland Park neighborhood of St Paul for 37 years he recently moved across the river to Northeast Minneapolis to live with his partner of 13 years.
David sang with the National Lutheran Choir in the past and has been on the current Board of Directors for several years. He serves on the Finance and Governance Committee.
Robin Wagner
I began my earthly journey on March 16, 1954, in Milwaukee WI. From there my family resided in Rockford IL for a few years. In 1962 we moved to Cedar Rapids IA and that has been home ever since.
My love for the organ really took off after the organist at my church asked me to play while she took Communion. I was hooked!
Concordia Teachers College, now Concordia University in Nebraska, is where I did my under-grad work studying with David Shack and Charles Ore, who I had the extreme pleasure of having him play at a hymn festival in 1995, which saw the debut of the hymn “Grace In Amazement” for which Dr Ore composed the music and Rev. Jaroslav Vajda composed the text. Dr. John Behnke, Dr. David Cherwien, Dr. Jeffrey Blersch and Rev. Carl Schalk have played/narrated hymn festivals that followed. Since 2013 I have served as the Musical Director and Organist at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Cedar Rapids IA. I am also part of the Music/Fine Arts Program at First Lutheran Church in Cedar Rapids IA. After teaching for 30 years in the parochial school system, I shifted gears and am now teaching 3- and 4-year-old Preschoolers at Wave Point for the past 11 years, I love it.
I am very excited about the possibility of serving on the board of The National Lutheran Choir. The quality of music as well as the message the pieces emit is fantastic.