Steve Schwager. Photo: JFNA.

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) Executive Vice President and CEO Steven Schwager will step down as CEO by June 30 and completely retire from JDC by January 31, 2013. Schwager has worked at JDC since 1989 and served as CEO since 2002.

Schwager is known for spearheading Operation Solomon, which airlifted Ethiopian immigrants to Israel, and establishing JDC’s welfare program in the former Soviet Union. He helped grow an organization that now assists to 30,000 poor children, and led a program offering humanitarian aid and development assistance to victims in disaster-stricken Haiti and South Asia.

“I concluded that after nearly 23 years serving this marvelous organization, it was time for me to retire. I do this with the deepest of pride, knowing that the work we have done together has helped ensure that Jews around the world face their future a little less hungry, with deeper connections to their Jewish identity, and with the profound hope to build a better tomorrow,” Schwager said in a statement.