Bishop Lanette Plambeck was ordained an elder in the Iowa Conference in 2005. She earned her B.A. from Morningside University in Religious Studies and Political Science. After serving as an Intelligence Analyst in the United States Army, she worked as an executive and therapist for person-centered agencies. 
 
In 2001, Bishop Lanette completed a Master of Divinity degree with an emphasis in evangelism at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City. In addition, she received a Doctor of Ministry in Church Leadership Excellence degree in 2013 from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. 
 
Before being elected to the episcopacy, Bishop Lanette served as the Assistant to the Bishop and Director of Clergy and Leadership Excellence for the Iowa Conference. In that position, she designed and led programs in Christian leadership formation and worked with groups and individuals as a spiritual director, reflective supervisor, and ministry coach. Her framework for leadership development is a six-fold flourishing model to help resource, guide, and support laity and clergy in discerning their calling, identifying their gifts, engaging in holistic self-care, and honing their skills so that they can be at their very best as they join God's mission of transformation undeterred by the current and future challenges facing the church and the world. 
 
Her daughter Meghan is in her second year at Georgetown Law Center in Washington, DC. She shares her home with two sibling cats, June Carter Cat and her brother, Cash.

She avidly explores bookstores, antique shops, and art museums in her free time. She is fond of kayaking, traveling, walking new and familiar trails, playing board games, and spending time with friends over brunch. Attentive to the ebb and flow of the seasons, she enjoys cooking, baking, and finding meaningful ways to celebrate holy days and holidays and delights in the Christian year's rites, rituals, and rhythms. 
 
Her ecumenical, interfaith, and community engagements provide opportunities to know, walk with, and serve veterans, the homeless, the addicted, children-at-risk, folks doing the arduous work of recovery, and survivors of violence as she seeks to see and serve the least of these (Matthew 25).