Elder Richard G. Scott Sustained to Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy

Elder Richard G. Scott of the First Quorum of the Seventy was sustained as a member of the Presidency of that quorum at the opening session of the Church’s 153rd semiannual general conference.

His appointment filled a vacancy created when Elder Franklin D. Richards was released as a president of the quorum. Elder Richards has been called to serve as president of the Washington (D. C.) Temple.

Elder Scott joins Elders J. Thomas Fyans, Carlos E. Asay, M. Russell Ballard, Dean L. Larsen, Royden G. Derrick, and G. Homer Durham in the presidency.

Speaking at the closing session of the conference, Elder Scott commented that the new calling had left him “deeply humbled.”

“I have talked to the Lord about it and promised him that I would give everything I have to that service. I have pled with him that he will help me qualify to receive his inspiration and support so that I may do his will and that of his servants.”

Elder Scott was sustained a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy on 2 April 1977. Prior to that call to full-time Church service, he had been a Regional Representative in the Washington, D. C., area and had served as president of the Argentina North Mission. He also had been a counselor in the Washington Stake presidency and a seventies group leader. As a young man, he served a thirty-one-month mission to Uruguay.

Currently he is a managing director of the Genealogical Department and Executive Administrator of the Church for southern Mexico and Central America.

Elder Scott graduated from George Washington University in 1950 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He later completed the equivalent of a doctoral degree in nuclear engineering at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

He has used his expertise in mechanical and nuclear engineering as a consultant to utility and power companies weighing the possible use of nuclear reactors.

For twelve years he was on the staff of United States Navy Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, assisting in the development of nuclear submarines. He was instrumental in the establishment of the first peacetime nuclear power plant and is the coeditor of two books related to the construction and use of such plants.

A native of Pocatello, Idaho, he was born 7 November 1928 to Kenneth Leroy and Mary Eliza Whittle Scott. He is married to Janene Watkins, and they have five children.