Elder Robert M. Daines

General Authority Seventy

Elder Robert M. Daines was working as a law and business professor at Stanford University when he was called to serve as an early-morning seminary teacher.

As a lifelong Latter-day Saint, Elder Daines knew the gospel, but something about the calling pushed him to study the scriptures like never before. His wife, Ruth, said he often went to bed early and arose at 4:00 a.m. because he needed three hours to prepare for his daily lesson with 15 students.

“Some people have talent; some have to hustle,” he said. “I’m in the ‘You’d better hustle’ category.”

Elder Daines said he pored over the scriptures for hours each day because he wanted to know and feel the Savior’s love and then help his students make the same connection. The decade-long experience had a powerful impact on his faith and testimony.

“I feel like I was truly converted and came to know Jesus Christ as a seminary teacher in Palo Alto, California,” said Elder Daines.

Robert Merrill Daines was born in Bloomington, Indiana, USA, on July 28, 1964, to Robert Henry Daines III and Janet Lundgren Daines. He grew up in Provo, Utah, and married Ruth Ann Glazier in the Salt Lake Temple in December 1988. They have five children.

Elder Daines graduated from Brigham Young University before earning a law degree at Yale University. He worked as an associate for Goldman Sachs and then taught at New York University and Yale. For the past two decades, Elder Daines has worked as an associate dean and Pritzker Professor of Law and Business at Stanford University.

Elder Daines served as a full-time missionary in the Switzerland Zurich Mission. Other Church callings include stake president, high councilor, bishop, and nursery leader. He was serving as a stake president at the time of his call.