Ron Clipp was drawn to Marketplace & Development Enterprises because of a desire to serve with an organization providing vital services to marketplace workers, bringing the gospel to mainly unreached communities. MDE is grateful for its Board of Directors, men and women who, because of their heart, experience, and vision, are qualified to help guide our organization.
Ron Clipp has long been motivated to move teams toward practical solutions for complex situations. As a young man, he graduated from the Naval Academy with a business degree and served in the US Navy for six years. From there, he became a private contractor in the defense industry, initially providing on-site support to a US Navy shipbuilding program in Long Beach, California. For Ron, the task of building ships was a fascinating experience that allowed him to delve deeply into engineering, project management, and contract oversight.
As the US Navy was modernizing the Pacific fleet, Ron co-founded a small consulting firm to help shipyards with this massive undertaking. This required assessment, strategic planning, writing proposals, contract negotiations, staffing support, and project management.
After fourteen years of consulting and 7 years of working for a large shipbuilding company in San Diego, Ron could not have anticipated the career change that would come about through the health diagnosis of his pastor and spiritual mentor. The pastor needed to step down from the pastorate and also asked Ron to take over executive leadership of Shepherd’s Staff Mission Facilitators, a missions organization the pastor had founded. Ron and his wife, Kathi, moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2005, in response to what they now knew to be a call from the Lord.
In 2018, the board of Shepherd’s Staff made a strategic decision to begin to focus on how to reach more unreached communities, with Business And Mission (BAM) viewed as a primary strategy. This shift was guided by the Great Commission and driven by worldwide security changes, and a desire to strategically assist the local church to send missionaries to the unreached.
BAM is now the main sending model for missionaries going to countries with restrictions on religious practices and a history of persecution against religious minorities. And the model of Business And Mission is gaining traction – even in countries where religious activities are protected by law.
Ron and Mark Canada, founder of MDE, crossed paths in 2017 at a BAM conference sponsored by OpenUSA. They shared a mutual passion for Business And Mission, with a global perspective. Since March 2020, Ron has served on MDE’s board of directors.
The board of Shepherd’s Staff recently evaluated their support for entrepreneurs and concluded that partnering with MDE would benefit their BAM members on the field. “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel,” said Ron. “We believe that MDE’s unique service delivery model will help our members gain access to some of the best business resources out there. Our primary goal in partnering with MDE is to leverage their deep expertise and resources to help our entrepreneur members overcome challenges and increase their likelihood of success.”
Shepherd’s Staff Mission Facilitators considers itself a tool in the hands of the local church to help extend Her reach. Their vision is to serve churches and their missionaries, reaching for the unreached with the love of Jesus Christ. They currently facilitate the work of 300 traditional missionaries and BAMers around the world, some of whom are in closed contexts.