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Faith reprograms software star into leader of church

by Bob Goldsborough

Chicago Tribune
DuPage Metro, Section 2, Page 3
July 2, 1998
DuPage County Briefing

WEST CHICAGO

George Koch turned his back on success in Silicon Valley to heed his religious calling. He once ran a division of several hundred employees, but his hands are full these days overseeing a congregation of 140.

Few people outside his congregation may know that Rev. George Koch, the rector of West Chicago's Church of the Resurrection, once was a corporate executive responsible for helping to transform one of the nation's larger technology companies.

Rev. George Koch stands before the Church of the Resurrection in West Chicago (left).

A Bellwood native, Koch made his way to California's technology world to earn millions but later returned to the Chicago area to save a dying Episcopal church.

The bearded, often jeans-wearing Koch, 51, now inhabits a world far removed from the one he left in 1994 as a senior vice president for one of software giant Oracle Corp.'s divisions. Having completed his seminary work that year, Koch gave up oversight of a division with $225 million in annual revenues and hundreds of staffers for a failing church with an annual budget of $10,000 and 14 regular Sunday attendees.

But to Koch, the church job represented the culmination of the calling he had heard since 1985. Since taking over the church, he has helped to boost membership to 140.

"It's fun developing computer applications and being in the business world, but it just pales when compared to doing what you really want to do," he said. "It's a high privilege getting to work with this congregation."

Koch moved to California in 1969 and became heavily involved in the electronics and music worlds, doing engineering for a number of rock 'n' roll albums and touring with the band War.

By the late 1970s, Koch began a software company that started working with Oracle founder Larry Ellison. He became a Christian in 1981, calling it "like getting hit by lightning." Four years later, he decided to join the ministry, and he began attending a seminary part-time.

By 1990, while still a seminary student, he was courted by Oracle to rescue its flagging applications division. After much consideration, Koch signed on as a division head and immediately launched a plan to boost product quality.

He increased annual revenues for the division from $49 million to $225 million in two years. But he didn't lose sight of his larger goal, walking away from Oracle - and an estimated $1 million in stock incentives - to go to West Chicago.

"There were probably a lot of people who wondered why George would give up being senior vice president at a very successful company to become a minister," said Mary Ann Davidson, an Oracle product manager. "In my opinion, it was a promotion. I miss him, but I think what he is doing now blows away any accomplishment he could have had, and has had, in the corporate world."

He still gets offers to return to the corporate world, but they fall on deaf ears.

"There is such joy in this congregation," Koch said. "I don't ever say, 'Darn, I could still be a muckety-muck.' "

Koch, a former software company executive who has been the Episcopal church's Rector [Pastor] since 1994, sings with Chris Samec of Lombard (left) during a prayer leadership training program in the church.

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