The 58-year-old father of three first served the church but could not ignore a calling to public service.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins didn’t always want to be a politician, but he has long had a desire to serve others.
The 58-year-old native of Gainesville, Georgia, chose pastoral ministry as his first career. Thirty years later, he finds himself leading the sprawling government agency that serves more than 17 million veterans of the U.S. armed forces.
On Feb. 5, Collins became the 12th secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, a Cabinet-level position that makes him one of 15 key advisers to President Donald Trump.
The road between those two positions included more than 25 years as a military chaplain, a tour in Iraq, graduation from law school, and multiple terms as a state and federal lawmaker.
The thread connecting those diverse experiences is faith, Collins says.
“I believe God’s put us at a special time and a special purpose,” Collins told Steve Lance of NTD, a sister outlet of The Epoch Times, in a June 9 interview. “So for me, faith is all.”
The Road to Washington
Collins married Lisa Jordan in 1988, the same year he graduated from North Georgia College and State University.
In an early indication of his interest in politics, Collins interned for then-Rep. Ed Jenkins (D-Ga.) while still a student.
The call to ministry was stronger, however, and Collins went on to attend New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, graduating in 1996. His wife became a career educator in Georgia public schools.
Collins pastored at Gainesville’s Chicopee Baptist Church from 1994 to 2005, leading the growing congregation to build a larger facility in the late 1990s.
Along the way, he joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a chaplain, eventually rising to colonel, a rank he continues to hold. From 2008 to 2009, Collins served a combat deployment at Balad Air Base, near Baghdad.
After more than a decade in pastoral ministry, Collins credits his father, retired state trooper Lenard Collins, with inspiring his shift to public service.
“He taught me the value of public service from an early age and shaped my life in so many other positive ways,” Doug Collins wrote on social media platform X, on June 15.
Collins successfully ran for the Georgia House of Representatives in 2006 and graduated from the John Marshall Law School in Atlanta the following year.
“I’ve always felt God was going to lead me into public service at some point,” Collins told The Gainesville Times shortly after his election.
After three terms in the statehouse, Collins was elected to Congress in 2012 and served until 2021.
In January 2020, Collins announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate, running in a special election to fill the remainder of Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term after Isakson retired for health reasons.
He was supported by President Donald Trump and faced incumbent Kelly Loeffler, who had been appointed to the seat temporarily, as well as Democrat Raphael Warnock. Collins finished third in the nonpartisan primary. After his defeat, Collins endorsed Loeffler in the runoff against Warnock.
