With Walter D. Blehm’s energy and devotion to excellence, he might have become a billionaire. But Walt’s passion was church leadership. He demanded the best from himself and inspired the best in a generation of youth, pastors and lay leaders in the Pacific Union and Oregon. Walt passed away Oct. 5 in Oregon after a long illness.

Born in 1923 in Hitchcock, Okla., Walt was the youngest of 10 children. In 1926, his family migrated to California, and in 1934 to Scappoose, Ore. He graduated from Walla Walla College in 1946 with majors in both theology and biology. It was his interest in nature and biology that helped change youth camps around the world.

After serving as pastor and youth director in the Oregon Conference, Walt and Shirley moved, in 1958, to the Southeastern California Conference, where Walt served as conference youth director. Under his leadership, the first Pathfinder county coordinators were appointed, and the Pathfinder program grew dramatically.

But no accomplishment showcased Walt’s creativity and hard work more than Pine Springs Ranch. The old 16-acre camp at Idyllwild was running out of both space and water, so in 1961 Walt spearheaded the purchase, design and construction of then-revolutionary Pine Springs Ranch.

Before PSR, Adventist camps, like most youth camps, had a small group of cabins in the center with dining hall, craft house, swimming pool and other services around the cabins. Walt dreamed of a large western ranch with common facilities in the center and cabins spread widely around the perimeter. With boys’ cabins on one side and girls’ cabins on the other, PSR started offering co-ed camps. Most, if not all, Adventist camps built after 1961 followed Walt’s plan.

In 1964, Walt became the denomination’s first conference secretary. Soon, most conferences in the church decided they needed someone in their conference to do what Walt was doing in Southeastern California.

In 1967, Walt became president of the Arizona Conference, but he headed back to Oregon only a year and a half later. He served as Oregon Conference president for eight years before returning to Southeastern California as president.

Almost immediately he started planning and building the current conference headquarters. While there, Walt initiated one of the first processes for annually evaluating the performance of conference personnel, and was somewhat deflated to find that presidents—who got the blame as well as the credit for most everything—didn’t always get the highest ratings in the office.

In 1979, Walt was elected president of the Pacific Union. During his seven-year tenure, he helped develop Adventist Health System/West (now called Adventist Health), something he had championed in Oregon, and became the system’s first board chairman. After Walt officially retired in 1986, he became Adventist Health's director of constituent relations, working with about 20 hospitals and the pastors near them to coordinate their efforts to fulfill the mission of the Church.

Walt is survived by his wife Shirley; his children, Randy, Ronda and Ron; and five grandchildren.