Prior to his election as president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Robert Nelson West was minister of congregations in Knoxville, Tennessee and Rochester, New York. A leader in the civil rights movement and Knoxville sit-ins, he was also a prominent community activist in Rochester involving the Vietnam War, racial inequality, and civil liberties. West worked as a senior consultant at Arthur D. Little, and as executive director at two major Boston law firms from 1977, until retiring in 1993.