Robert Folkenberg was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, to North American missionaries serving in Latin America and Central America. He graduated with a master’s degree in New Testament theology from the SDA Theological Seminary. Prior to his election as General Conference president in 1990, he served as president of the Carolina Conference. Folkenberg has been the director of Global Evangelism/ShareHim since 1999. The ultimate goal of ShareHim is to empower and mobilize laymen and laywomen to be active in a lifestyle of evangelism.