ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) celebrated its 40th anniversary at the ECPA Leadership Summit, held April 28-30. More than 135 publishing leaders were on hand at the Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., to join in the celebration.

ECPA gathered industry alumni and Christian publishers for an anniversary reception and awards banquet emceed by New York Times best-selling author and Christian Writers Guild owner Jerry Jenkins. Along with the announcement of various milestones, the banquet featured industry awards, the Christian Book Award winners and the naming of Kevin DeYoung’s Crazy Busy (Crossway) as 2014 Christian Book of the Year.

The Leadership Summit opened the day after the banquet with sessions on topics including new consumer and sales data, trends in author engagement, the future of the Christian retail channel, and faith and culture issues.

In addition, four board members were voted onto the board at the ECPA annual member meeting. Second-term candidates were Dwight Baker, president of Baker Publishing Group, who will serve as ECPA chair; and Bob Fryling, publisher of InterVarsity Press, who will serve as board secretary. Byron Williamson, CEO and publisher of Worthy Publishing Group; and Joe Wikert, director of strategy at Olive Software, will join the board as first-term candidates.

Remaining on the ECPA board are Vice Chair Dave Moberg, senior vice president at HarperCollins Christian Publishing; Treasurer Jerry Kregel, vice president and chief financial officer of Kregel Publications; Member at Large Jeff Wright, CEO of Urban Ministries International; Stephen Cobb, president of WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group; Tammy Gaines, vice president at Abingdon Press; Jeff Johnson, COO at Tyndale House Publishers; Cory Verner, president and publisher of eChristian; and Selma Wilson, president of B&H Publishing Group.

Cris Doornbos, president and CEO of David C Cook, is outgoing board chair and Gretchen Goldsmith, co-founder, president and CEO of Rose Publishing and Aspire Press, is outgoing vice chair.

ECPA's next Leadership Summit is scheduled for May 4-6, 2015, in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

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