Conference Leaders
Staff
Deb Baggett
Conference Administrator & Secretary/Treasurer of the Annual Conference
Rev. Rick Snodgrass
Director of Church Planting and Multiplication
Rick has planted, pastored, and mentored pastors for over 35 years. He mentored Conference Superintendents, and as Assistant Superintendent, mentored 71 pastors in the PNW Conference as well as many others outside the denomination. He and his wife Patti planted churches in Vallejo CA, Redmond WA, Mt. Vernon WA, and Nampa, DI. They live Granbury Texas where Rick serves as North Texas District Superintendent and as Director of Church Planting and Multiplication for The River Conference. Rick serves on the board of Impact, a multiplication movement where he has coached and mentored several micro churches and impact community leaders. Rick also coaches business owners and CEOs in organizational health as a way staying connected to the secular market place where the voice of Jesus needs to be heard. He works hard every day to walk out his life purpose to, “be living proof of a loving God to a watching world.” Ricks primary educational influences were Northwest Nazarene, Seattle Pacific, Western Evangelical Seminary, Regent and Fuller. Rick and Patti have been married for 43 years, have three sons who are married and serving Jesus and have been blessed with 9 grandchildren.
Rev. Heather Baker Utley
Communications Director
Heather Baker Utley is a pastor in San Antonio, TX where she serves on the Teaching and Communications Team at The Park Community Church (nondenominational). She joined the River Conference in 2019 as a church planter and served two and a half years as the District Superintendent for the South Texas District. Previous experience includes serving as associate pastor at Seattle’s First Free Methodist Church, as Communications Director for Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy, and working in web design for several ministries including Light + Life Communications. Originally from Ohio, she holds an M.Div from Seattle Pacific Seminary and has ministered in a variety of non-profit and pastoral ministry roles over the last twenty years. She is married to Clay, also a Free Methodist pastor, and they have two sons.
Rev. Kasey Martin
River Institute Director
Kasey was born in Palm Springs, CA, but grew up primarily in Temecula and Hemet. He grew up in a loving home surrounded by people who loved and followed Jesus with all of their hearts. Despite this fact, it was not until attending college locally at Mt. San Jacinto College that he came to an intellectual conversion and placed his faith in Jesus – the heart conversion took a little bit longer. God used a diagnosis of Clinical Depression in 1995 to initiate a relationship based on love that would alter things entirely. After graduating from MSJC, Kasey pursued his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biblical Studies from Biola University. In 1999, having graduated from Biola, he returned home to Hemet and began serving God through involvement in the ministry of his local church. It became clear around 2002 that God had some new things in store for his life; Kasey got connected with the Free Methodist Church and sensed a deeper call to serve God in vocational ministry. This led to completing seminary at Asbury Theological Seminary in 2009 and then pursuing Ordination with the Free Methodist Church in 2012.