From Annapolis to the Adirondacks

In northern New York’s Adirondack Mountain region, Colin Tuggle is strengthening churches and supporting isolated pastors who must persevere through extreme geography and weariness. It’s work that requires both pastoral heart and business acumen, and Colin credits his Regent MBA with equipping him for both.

That journey to ministry leadership began years earlier, after a six-year career as a Surface Warfare Officer following graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy. Colin soon sensed God calling him into the next season: business and, ultimately, vocational ministry. That transition required additional preparation — an MBA — but with deployments and sea duty, Colin needed a program that would meet him where he served. He found that fit at Regent. “Regent’s MBA program exceeded all my expectations,” he says. “I would highly recommend the program to others, without any hesitations.”

Colin completed his MBA in 2000 with a concentration in entrepreneurship, supported by the Howard and Wendy Long Endowed Scholarship — an award he says made the difference in completing his studies as he transitioned out of military service. The practical, rigorous training he received at Regent — accounting, finance, marketing, entrepreneurship — became the toolkit he needed later to launch and sustain a nonprofit, manage budgets and donors, and communicate the mission of his work clearly and effectively.

Those skills are on daily display in northern New York, where Colin and his wife, Lisa, founded ADK Mission in 2013. As Founder, Executive Director, and Pastor, Colin leads a multi-faceted ministry that equips pastors, funds local initiatives, and encourages spiritual resilience across the Adirondack Mountain region. The organization’s practical framework — Godly GRIT® — grew out of Colin’s five years of doctoral research and has become a benchmark for leaders to persevere in ministry.

Between his MBA and the launch of ADK Mission, Colin’s career wound through multiple sectors — from technology startups to pastoral leadership. He directed a fast-growing division that was later acquired by Cisco Systems and pastored congregations of up to a thousand people. His Naval experience had laid the foundation: directing teams, managing multi-million-dollar assets, and earning recognition with a Navy Achievement Medal — leadership forged under pressure and later translated into ministry and nonprofit stewardship.

When donors ask whether their gifts matter, Colin answers from hard experience: scholarship support changed his trajectory — and the effects have multiplied. “The generosity behind this scholarship helped to make that possible,” he says, reflecting on how donor investment made his Regent degree feasible at a pivotal time. Today he watches those investments bear fruit in communities hundreds of miles away from Regent’s campus. “A donor’s generosity today can yield an abundant harvest tomorrow,” Colin observes, reminding readers that education is an investment in decades of kingdom work.

Drawing from his own experience leading a nonprofit, Colin also notes that small, consistent gifts are often the most sustaining. “Some of my greatest long-term donors are those who give the smallest amounts, but they give it every month, and it adds up,” he explains. “God takes the seeds of the smaller donations and multiplies them.”

The work of ADK Mission is both local and strategic. Colin pastors a small community church, leads an ecumenical clergy fellowship, and regularly invests in clergy families and ministry leaders who are often isolated by geography and weariness. His ministry philosophy — simple, relational, and Christ-centered — reflects a conviction that strong leaders build resilient churches, and resilient churches shape communities. The Godly GRIT® framework is one practical outworking of that conviction, equipping leaders to endure and flourish.

For Regent donors and friends, Colin’s story is a vivid example of long-term return on generosity: scholarship aid enabled a student navigating military transition to complete an advanced degree; that graduate gained business acumen and ministry training; and today his leadership is strengthening churches, supporting pastors, and multiplying disciples across a challenging region. As he puts it, donor support isn’t only about paying for a degree — it’s about “the decades of work that are built upon that degree later on and the impact that comes from that for many, many years to come.”

Colin’s path — from Annapolis and Navy deployments to entrepreneurship, pastoral leadership, a Doctor of Missiology, and the founding of ADK Mission — reminds us that faithful formation produces leaders who change the world: one church, one pastor, one region at a time. Regent’s hybrid MBA model, academic rigor, and scholarship support helped equip him for that journey. For alumni and donors alike, his life is an invitation: invest in students, and trust God to multiply those seeds into a harvest that serves churches, communities, and the gospel for the generations ahead.

To learn more about Colin’s ministry and ADK Mission, visit ADKMission.org. For information about supporting Regent scholarships that launch lives of impact like Colin’s, visit regent.edu/scholarshipgift.