Rev. Dr. Patricia A. Wilson-Cone

ACPE Certified Educator &  Pastoral Counselor with Psychotherapist in 

Association for Clinical Pastoral Education

Pastor First American Baptist Church, Anchorage, AK

Patricia A. Wilson Cone was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and reared in Cocoa, Florida by her proud grandparents, the late Deacon Gene Cone and Carrie Cone, since the age of 3 years old. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Florida A&M University in Speech Pathology. She also received a Master of Library Science at Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts; a Master of Divinity Degree from Howard University Divinity School in Washington, D.C.; and a Doctor of Divinity Degree from Tennessee School of Religion in Memphis, Tennessee. She completed her Ph.D. at Union Institute/ University, in Cincinnati, OH in Sept 2008. Her concentration is in Pastoral Counseling and Theology, where she developed Cone’s Spiritual Counseling Center and a framework for Men’s His-Story Month Project. On March 5, 2012, she assumed the position of Manager of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Providence Alaska Medical Center (PAMC) here in Anchorage, AK. This position ended October 2021.She is now serving as an ACPE Certified Educator on a contract level and Pastoral Counselor with Cone’s Spiritual Counseling Center, which she founded in 2021.

She has served as Interim Pastor of an American Baptist Church, an Associate Pastor, and Director of the Chaplaincy Department in the Washington, D.C., and Maryland areas. She received her Clinical Pastoral Education training from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington,

D.C. In the Reserve Chaplaincy for eight years she served as the Chaplain for the 92nd Field Hospital and 2290th Hospital. She came on Active Duty in 1995 and served at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as a Clinical Pastoral Education Chaplain. She is the first African American female Chaplain in the U.S. Army to become a fully certified Clinical Pastoral Education Certified Educator, and the first African American female to direct and develop a Clinical Pastoral Education program for the U.S. Army. In 1998 she was founder and Director of the Clinical Pastoral Education Center at Madigan Army Medical Hospital in Tacoma, WA.

Prior to her Madigan Hospital assignment, she pastored the largest congregation on Ft. Lewis, Grace Gospel Service, and served as a Battalion Chaplain with the 29th Signal Corps where she pastored more than 950 soldiers and family members. Occasionally she served as the acting Brigade Chaplain for the 201st MI Brigade at Ft. Lewis, Washington. In August 2003 she became the Director of Pastoral Care and Clinical Pastoral Education Certified Educator at Jackson Health System,  during that time the 2nd largest hospital in the country, located in Miami, Fla. She pinned on LT Colonel June 2011 and is presently retired from the military after joining the Joint Base of Elmendorf and Ft. Richardson upon her arrival in Anchorage, AK in 2012.