MATTHEW TUCKER
Territory Served
For as long as I can remember, I have loved people. I blame being a middle child in a large family for that! I have also always loved business. I blame my grandpa, who was the president of a local bank during my childhood for that! It makes sense then that I have spent half of my career as a Pastor and half of it in business leadership. I simply have a passion for leaving people’s hearts in better shape than I found them, and for seeing those people do extraordinary things in the areas that they are passionate about.
My wife and I met while we were both attending college in Portland, OR. After getting married and moving back to her hometown, I served as an Associate Pastor at the church she grew up in for 10 years. I left the pastorate and became the administrator of a private Christian school in our hometown and led that school for 3 years. We moved to Idaho in 2014 and I took a position at a local commercial cabinetry business. It was while serving this company that my quest for merging my faith and business began. Over the next 7 years, I found myself having the privilege of serving some amazing companies and trying to figure out how to use the context of the marketplace as a place to reach people with Jesus’ love. It was not until I attended a Work As Worship Conference two years ago, that I realized there was an entire organization whose mission was to help others do just that. When I first heard the mission of C12 that day, I turned to my friend sitting there with me and said, “That is my dream job.” It was not until the past year however, that my wife and I had felt like God was finally answering our prayers to make serving as a C12 Chair a possibility. Today, we can look back over my entire career and our entire marriage and see how God has prepared me for this opportunity, at the exact right time.
I am the man I am because God has truly given me the greatest wife. I am not just saying that out of obligation. My wife, Candice, is my best friend and my “suitable helper.” She loves Jesus and people better than anyone I know. She is the kind of person who walks in the room and everyone gravitates towards her because she will ask questions of them, and really listen to them, then make them feel loved and valued. She is simply amazing at embodying Jesus and his love for people. We have been married for 21 years.
We are so blessed to have 3 sons, Timothy, Trace, and Agezu. Timothy is 19 years old and is attending college at Idaho State University where he is studying at ISU’s business school. He is a remarkable young man. He got his Dad’s gift of communication and his Mom’s gift of loving people well. He is the only 19-year-old young man that I know that FaceTime’s his Mom every night to tell her he loves her. I could not be prouder of him. Our middle son, Trace, is the tallest in the family…he is 6’4, at 16 years old! He is a talented baseball player and handles his giftedness with humility and grace. He plays both for his high school varsity baseball team and on a college prospect team. He set a goal when he was 13 to pitch in college and has worked every day since to achieve that goal. His work ethic convicts me every day! He is an incredibly special young man and plans to also study business in college. Our youngest son, Agezu, is our gift from Ethiopia. We adopted Agezu when he was 2 years old. I tell people often that we set out to make a difference in a child’s life by providing a family for a child who had none, and instead, Agezu changed our lives. “Zu” as we call him, has an incredible sense of humor. He makes us laugh all the time with his dry and witty sense of humor. He loves animals, reading, and anything that goes fast. He constantly makes my heart stop when I hear him say, “Dad, watch this…” He is my daredevil, and my best buddy. God knew we needed Agezu as much as he needed us.
My family is the greatest thing about me. I may have some understanding of business and leadership and coaching, but what makes me, me, is the four people that surround me.
My wife and I met while we were both attending college in Portland, OR. After getting married and moving back to her hometown, I served as an Associate Pastor at the church she grew up in for 10 years. I left the pastorate and became the administrator of a private Christian school in our hometown and led that school for 3 years. We moved to Idaho in 2014 and I took a position at a local commercial cabinetry business. It was while serving this company that my quest for merging my faith and business began. Over the next 7 years, I found myself having the privilege of serving some amazing companies and trying to figure out how to use the context of the marketplace as a place to reach people with Jesus’ love. It was not until I attended a Work As Worship Conference two years ago, that I realized there was an entire organization whose mission was to help others do just that. When I first heard the mission of C12 that day, I turned to my friend sitting there with me and said, “That is my dream job.” It was not until the past year however, that my wife and I had felt like God was finally answering our prayers to make serving as a C12 Chair a possibility. Today, we can look back over my entire career and our entire marriage and see how God has prepared me for this opportunity, at the exact right time.
I am the man I am because God has truly given me the greatest wife. I am not just saying that out of obligation. My wife, Candice, is my best friend and my “suitable helper.” She loves Jesus and people better than anyone I know. She is the kind of person who walks in the room and everyone gravitates towards her because she will ask questions of them, and really listen to them, then make them feel loved and valued. She is simply amazing at embodying Jesus and his love for people. We have been married for 21 years.
We are so blessed to have 3 sons, Timothy, Trace, and Agezu. Timothy is 19 years old and is attending college at Idaho State University where he is studying at ISU’s business school. He is a remarkable young man. He got his Dad’s gift of communication and his Mom’s gift of loving people well. He is the only 19-year-old young man that I know that FaceTime’s his Mom every night to tell her he loves her. I could not be prouder of him. Our middle son, Trace, is the tallest in the family…he is 6’4, at 16 years old! He is a talented baseball player and handles his giftedness with humility and grace. He plays both for his high school varsity baseball team and on a college prospect team. He set a goal when he was 13 to pitch in college and has worked every day since to achieve that goal. His work ethic convicts me every day! He is an incredibly special young man and plans to also study business in college. Our youngest son, Agezu, is our gift from Ethiopia. We adopted Agezu when he was 2 years old. I tell people often that we set out to make a difference in a child’s life by providing a family for a child who had none, and instead, Agezu changed our lives. “Zu” as we call him, has an incredible sense of humor. He makes us laugh all the time with his dry and witty sense of humor. He loves animals, reading, and anything that goes fast. He constantly makes my heart stop when I hear him say, “Dad, watch this…” He is my daredevil, and my best buddy. God knew we needed Agezu as much as he needed us.
My family is the greatest thing about me. I may have some understanding of business and leadership and coaching, but what makes me, me, is the four people that surround me.