| Type: | Jesuit | ||||||||||||
| Birth Name: | Gerald George Martinson | ||||||||||||
| Birth Date: | December 2, 1942 | ||||||||||||
| Birth Place: | San Diego, California | ||||||||||||
| Death Place: | Taipei, Taiwan | ||||||||||||
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Gerald George Martinson (; December 2, 1942 - May 31, 2017), was an American Jesuit missionary, television personality and broadcast executive in Taiwan.
As a television producer, actor and television host, Martinson worked at Kuangchi Program Service (光啟社), Taipei, for over 40 years and has served as the president and later as vice president of Kuangchi Program Service (KPS).
Martinson was also the spokesperson for Giraffe English (長頸鹿美語), a multimedia English language school for children and young students in Taiwan and China.
Martinson was born on December 2, 1942, in San Diego, California, to Glenn and Lily Martinson. His younger brother, Barry Martinson, also became a Jesuit priest missionary in Taiwan.[1]
When he was ten, Martinson's father died. While in high school, Martinson worked part time to help feed his family. After finishing high school, Martinson joined the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Los Gatos, California. After finishing seminary, Martinson became a missionary to Taiwan in 1967, settling in Hsinchu County.
The Chinese Regional Bishops' Conference in Taiwan announced on May 31, 2017, that Martinson had died of a heart attack at his home in Taiwan.[2] He was posthumously awarded a Golden Bell Award for special contributions in September 2017.[3] That December, Martinson was honored with a citation for lifetime achievement from the Ministry of Education.[4]