Rider, 52, succeeds the Rev. Dr. Jean R. Smith, who retires after 17 years of service.

"SCI embraces a crucial, three-fold mission to provide pastoral care to mariners, advocate for seafarers' rights, and conduct maritime education," Rider said in an October 1 news release. "I look forward to building on Jean Smith's outstanding servant leadership and working with our dedicated board of trustees, our generous donors and professional staff, to take SCI to its next level of service to mariners."
 
Founded in 1834 and affiliated with the Episcopal Church, SCI is the largest, most comprehensive mariners' agency in North America, according to the release. Annually, its chaplains visit 3,400 vessels in the Port of New York and New Jersey and along 2,200 miles of America's inland waterways. SCI's maritime education program provides navigational training to nearly 1,600 mariners each year at simulator-based facilities located in Houston, Texas, and Paducah, Kentucky. SCI and its maritime attorneys are recognized as leading advocates for merchant mariners by the U.S. government as well as the United Nations, the International Maritime Organization, the International Labor Organization, and maritime trade associations, the release said.

"David's experience as a senior manager of a multi-million dollar national church agency gives him the administrative credentials to lead SCI's multi-faceted international and national programs and buildings in four states," said George M. Isdale, Jr., chair of SCI's board of trustee, in the release. "We are impressed with his proven experience as an administrator, innovator, and pastor."

Rider spent the last 10 years with the Episcopal Church's Church Pension Group, where he served as managing trustee of the Episcopal Church Medical Trust and senior vice president (Claims) of the Church Insurance Company.  Since 2001, Rider has served as interim leader of two large Episcopal Churches, Grace Church in New York City and St. Mark's Church, New Canaan, Connecticut.
 
"I am honored to lead this outstanding and venerable organization with such a diverse ministry to maritime communities in two major ports and our inland rivers," Rider said.  "What other organization reaches back to the 19th century and today serves at street level in our evolving global economy?"
 
Rider has already visited ships in Port Newark, and in early October will attend an industry conference and visit SCI's Houston and Paducah sites, meeting staff and stakeholders, the release said.

"I have eaten lunch with crew on a Chinese-flagged ship, met staff from the Queen Mary II at SCI's Hospitality Center in the Brooklyn Cruise Ship Terminal, and visited a crew unloading hundreds of new automobiles," Rider said.

In addition to many years in parish pastoral ministry, Rider has been a hospital chaplain in Manhattan and a pastoral counselor in Washington, D.C., the release said. While at the Church Pension Group, he completed the General Manager Program and additional training in non-profit management in the Executive Education division of Harvard Business School.

Rider is married to Jacqueline Haines Rider. They have a son in college and another in high school. They live in Chappaqua, New York. A graduate of Carleton College, Rider holds three theological degrees and certificates from the Washington School of Psychiatry and Harvard Business School. He is canonically resident in the Diocese of New York.