Instructors

Neil Damgaard (ThM, DMin) is originally from the Washington, DC area. An engineering graduate of Virginia Tech, he worked for the US Navy under contract as a management engineering consultant. He entered the ministry in 1976 and later graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary with a 4-year master’s degree in historical theology. He served on staff at churches in Virginia and Texas, and then as Senior Pastor of the Dartmouth Bible Church in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts from 1983 until 2019. He also served as Protestant Chaplain with the Center for Religious and Spiritual Life at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, 2007–2019. He earned his Doctor of Ministry degree in 2008 from Dallas Theological Seminary. He has authored two books, A History of Dartmouth Bible Church, 1963–2013 (2013) and Defiance at Cairo (2020). Now retired, he lives in Roanoke, Virginia and has been married to Renée (a retired teacher) since 1975. Together they have raised two daughters, Jocelyn and Susanna. The Damgaards are members of Grace Church in Roanoke.

 

Mark Broomell (MA, MA) was born in California, and in his teen years moved to Texas with his family. He attended Baylor University, and afterwards Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, Illinois), where he earned an M.A. in Old Testament and Semitic Languages. He moved back to California to attend UCLA, where he earned an M.A. in Ancient Near Eastern Studies. In addition to Hebrew, he has studied Ugaritic and Akkadian, and has made three trips to Israel to work on different archaeological sites. After graduating from UCLA, Mark and his wife Sarah, and their two children, left Los Angeles and settled in Virginia, where they have built a new life of homesteading, homeschooling, and a running a home improvement business. These days they’re still homesteading, as well as enjoying their five grandchildren. From his days at Trinity Mark has been teaching Hebrew to others, and he’s looking to find a few more eager students. 

 

 

Jeff Graf (MDiv) grew up in California where he met his wife Sue in high school. They have been married for 47 years and have two sons and three grandsons. Jeff worked in the telecommunications field for 25 years, during which time he started his own training and course development consulting practice. In his fifties Jeff and his wife went to seminary with the purpose of teaching on the mission field. After earning a Master of Divinity in 2003 from Capital Bible Seminary, they spent six years teaching at the Christian Leaders’ Training College which is in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. At the college he taught a wide spectrum of courses including theology, church history, Bible interpretation, and church leadership. In his last year he served as Dean of Theology and Biblical Studies. Upon returning to the United States, he and his wife acted as missionaries in residence and adjunct faculty at Washington Bible College and Capital Bible Seminary. Jeff enjoys being a backpacker, a beekeeper, and a baseball fan. He has a love of languages including German and Melanesian Pidgeon. He has the goal of being able to sight-read the entire Greek New Testament (he's finished 18 books, so far). Jeff and Sue currently attend Blacksburg Christian Fellowship where he teaches in the adult Sunday school program.
 

Sandy Young (ThM) is a Texan by birth and (mostly) a Virginian by upbringing. He came to faith in Christ during his sophomore year at Virginia Tech, where God used the ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru) in his conversion and spiritual growth. After graduation he directed a non-denominational youth ministry for several years in northern Virginia, and then attended Dallas Theological Seminary, graduating with a Th.M. in 1986, with focus on Systematic Theology. He and his family returned to Virginia, where he served as pastor of an independent church in the town of Culpeper for 14 years. In 2001 they moved to Blacksburg to serve in pastoral ministry at Blacksburg Christian Fellowship until his retirement in 2019. He and his wife, Jan Lu, have been married forty-seven years and they have four children and six grandchildren.

Loren Paul Rees (PhD) was the son of missionaries in Nigeria, West Africa, and then spent his growing-up years in New Jersey, New York, and Atlanta. He attended Georgia Tech (B.S., Electrical Engineering), and then went to work for Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. Along the way he earned his Master's (E.E.), helped start a Christian youth group on the Jersey shore. He returned to Georgia Tech in Atlanta for his Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering. There he met his future wife, Rebecca, who was introduced to him by his parents. (Marrying her was the best thing he ever did!)  They have two sons and one new grandson. They moved to Blacksburg, VA, where Loren taught for forty years at Virginia Tech, the last 25 as the Andersen Professor of Business Information Technology. He taught 24 different courses to PhD, Master’s, and undergrads, doing research, writing over 100 published research papers, chairing 9 PhD students (over half of whom are Christians) and serving on another 38 PhD committees. He also was involved with several other Christian faculty who got together once a week for over 30 years, praying for the university, students, and faculty. He was instrumental in starting and working with the Christian Faculty Fellowship, a precursor to the Bradley Study Center.

Chris Hutchinson (MA, MDiv) grew up in Bethesda, MD, and is a 1989 graduate of Duke University. After a stint in the U.S. Army, Chris  received his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA in 1995. Chris has been pastor of Grace Covenant since 2004. He and his wife Kirstan have two grown daughters, with careers in music and art. Chris enjoys swimming, watching soccer, reading history, and rooting for Duke basketball, unless they are playing Virginia Tech. A chronic Lyme disease pain battler, Chris is also the author of Rediscovering Humility: why the way up is down (New Growth Press, 2018).