Rev. Dr. Ted J. Gaiser is the new priest at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in Scarborough.

SCARBOROUGH –The Rev. Dr. Ted J. Gaiser is the new priest at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in Scarborough.

Fr. Gaiser grew up in New England, but has deep family roots in Maine, roots that go back to a time before Maine was even a state, according to a church press release. In addition, he spent most of his childhood summers in East Orland, where his family had a camp, and in Southwest Harbor with his grandparents. Summers meant digging clams in Trenton and Bar Harbor, family picnics at Seawall, and picking blueberries on Cadillac Mountain.

Fr. Gaiser considers himself a 21st century professional, according to the release. Not only is he an Episcopal priest, but he has been an entrepreneur, management consultant, business manager, online researcher, chef, and adjunct professor. In addition to serving as the new priest at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church, he currently has a personal finance consulting practice.

The new priest has lived, worked, and traveled throughout North, Central and South America and Europe, has given lectures, or been a keynote speaker, in professional conferences in both domestic and international venues, and has participated in, or led, mission delegations to the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Other than the United States, he has lived in Paraguay, Bolivia, and Colombia, and served as a volunteer for Witness for Peace and the Center for Development in Central America in Nicaragua. In Colombia, Fr. Gaiser served as an Episcopal missionary providing a variety of mission and business development services along with his church responsibilities.

Fr. Gaiser has served churches in Massachusetts, Colombia, and Maine, and served on the bishop’s staff in two dioceses. He has served on many nonprofit boards, cooked in soup kitchens, and was a chaplain in an inner-city senior housing facility and a prison for youth offenders. Fr. Gaiser served as president of the Board for the Global Episcopal Mission Network, a network of mission leaders throughout the Episcopal Church, and was president of Colforpaz, a nonprofit organization he founded to support the sustainability of the social mission of the Episcopal Diocese of Colombia.