Jack N. Gerard

After becoming a general authority in the LDS Church, Gerard was appointed as the executive director of the Public Affairs Department. In July 2018, he spoke at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Annual Convention, announcing an educational and employment skills joint initiative between the LDS Church and the NAACP. In this position, he was a key voice in the church's successful advocacy for the state of Utah to pass new laws regulating medical marijuana.

In the 2012 U.S. presidential election, Gerard was a major backer of Mitt Romney's bid for president.

In the LDS Church, Gerard has served as a ward mission leader, scoutmaster, Young Men advisor, bishop, president of the McClean Virginia Stake, and area seventy in the church's North America Northeast Area (covering the US from Virginia north, and as far west as Indiana, and Canada from Ontario east) from 2010 to 2016.

Gerard later ran a lobbying firm with McClure. He then was head of the National Mining Association (2000–2005) and then the American Chemistry Council (2005–2008).

Following college, he worked on the staffs of George V. Hansen and James A. McClure, who served in the U.S. Congress and Senate respectively, representing Idaho. In 1990, when McClure left the Senate, Gerard followed him into the private sector, becoming part of the public relations firm McClure, Gerard & Neuenschwander.

Jack Noel Gerard (born December 15, 1957) has been a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) since April 2018. He previously served for ten years as head of the American Petroleum Institute (API), the petroleum and natural gas industry lobby group in the United States.