Gerhard Claas; General Secretary of Baptist World Alliance

Gerhard Claas, 59, general secretary and chief administrative officer of the Baptist World Alliance, an organization that has a membership of more than 35 million worldwide. The organization conducts teaching, development and disaster relief efforts in Third World nations. Claas, a West German pastor and Baptist administrator, was traveling in California to a series of fund-raising meetings when the car in which he was riding collided Monday with a truck on a rural road in San Joaquin County near Lodi, 80 miles northeast of San Francisco.