Scott Linden

A new executive director has been named at United Christian Advocacy Network Mission in Jamestown.

Last month, Scott Linden was officially named to the position at UCAN mission. Linden, who replaced Jim Quattrone when he stepped down earlier this year, has been in his new position since May.

Yet, while he has only been at UCAN for a short time, his new role is a major step in his long career of ministry and counseling.

A city native, Linden graduated from Jamestown Public Schools in 1989. He then received an associate’s degree in criminal justice from Jamestown Community College. Linden then graduated from Buffalo State College with a degree in criminal justice. However, his early career took him down a much different road; he worked in loss prevention for 20 years. It was during this time that his career began to take a new direction.

“I came to be involved in the addiction recovery community, which led me back to the Christian faith and the Church,” Linden said. Recently, he received his master’s degree in theological/biblical studies from Clark’s Summit University in Clark’s Summit, Pa., in July 2016.

Linden described a desire to help those less fortunate as being a key motivator for his present role at UCAN.

“The combination of personal recovery, recovery ministry, Biblical Study and teaching has been my passion,” Linden said.

He attributes this combination for bringing him to UCAN as a program director in April 2017.

As executive director, Linden controls the mission operations at UCAN. In particular, he oversees budgeting, financing and staff training. In addition, Linden also maintains community outreach, fundraising and grant writing. He summed up the rest of his responsibilities in relation to UCAN.

“It is the general overall leadership and goals, mission and vision of UCAN city mission,” he said.

Now in his new position, Linden is invested in securing UCAN’s role in the near future. “Primary goals are to make this a stable, viable mission,” he said.

Linden cited fully structuring operational standards and a trained and capable staff as one of his goals. However, he said the main goal is to forward the vision of UCAN.

While Linden admits it is not going to be easy, he is up for the challenge. “Its never going to be absolutely perfect in the type of ministry we’re in but the goal is simply to make it make it a fully functional viable ministry,” Linden said.

Presently, UCAN has 19 beds available for recipients. This number allows UCAN to operate at full emergency capacity when needed.

As for the present direction UCAN faces, Linden is equally optimistic. Two long-term goals are being actively pursued. The first is training for employees.

“The direction we are going is to get them trained in standard operating procedures,” Linden said.

The second is to improve and increase transitional housing. To that end, Linden said work has already started to ensure the mission’s goals are met.

“We are moving on into the transitional housing and the programming aspects and making sure we have enough resources, staffing, and funding,” Linden said.