Fred Nolting, 91, minister, counselor

When the Rev. Fred Nolting retired, he began counseling patients at his son’s business, Georgia Recovery Centers Inc.

Every Tuesday night at the Centers’ Marietta location, the Rev. Nolting would meet with a group of people trying to beat down addictions and personal demons. It was a natural segue for a man who had counseled individuals and couples as a minister and while employed in management training at Lockheed Corp.

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The Rev. Fred Nolting helped Lockheed diversify its management pool starting in 1967, after serving at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta and All Saints Episcopal Church in East Lansing, Mich.

“People would come to our house all the time,” said Betty Nolting, his wife of 63 years. “His aim was to help people become more of what they already were. If there were stumbling blocks within themselves or their life story, he helped them dissolve those so they could become the people they were born to be. That’s the joy he got out of counseling.”

The Rev. Fred Logan Nolting, 91, of Atlanta died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at his home. A memorial service will be 10:30 a.m. Saturday at St. Martins in the Field Episcopal Church, Atlanta. Wages & Sons, Stone Mountain, is in charge of arrangements.

The Rev. Nolting was born in Massachusetts, grew up in St. Louis, graduated from Albion College in Michigan and became a priest in the Episcopal Church after attending Virginia Seminary.

He served in parishes in Texas for several years before becoming associate rector at Atlanta’s St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in the early 1950s.

After a sabbatical to attend Union Seminary, he was assigned to All Saints Episcopal Church in East Lansing, Mich. He returned to Atlanta in 1967 to work at Lockheed, where he helped diversify the management pool.

“They asked him to do something to help blacks fit into the workplace better, to identify management material,” his wife said. “That went on for a long time. Lockheed was one of the first companies to institute things like this, and [Nolting’s] race relations were just wonderful.”

The Rev. Nolting retired from Lockheed in the late 1970s. He then began counseling patients at the Georgia Recovery Centers, owned by Larry Nolting of Atlanta. The son said his father routinely attracted eight to 10 patients to his sessions.

“He would get through to what I would term hard-core alcoholics, people who had had five and six DUIs,” his son said. “For him, this was a slightly different counseling role and an extension of his work at Lockheed, where he dealt with all kinds of family problems.”

Yu-Kai Lin of Atlanta befriended the Rev. Nolting when Mr. Lin and his sister took piano lessons as children from Mrs. Nolting. Mr. Lin was helping the clergyman write a book about his life.

“It’s a 27-chapter book that we never completely finished,” Lin said. “He was a mentor with an incredible soul who made great choices in life.”

Additional survivors include a daughter, Barbara Jennings of Conyers; three other sons, William Nolting of Ypsilanti, Mich., Jim Nolting of Sugar Hill and John Nolting of Belmont, N.C.; and two grandsons.