Bishop Minerva Garza Carcaño was elected to the episcopacy in 2004 by the Western Jurisdictional Conference. She is currently the Resident Bishop of the San Francisco Area, which includes the California-Nevada Conference in the Western Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church.
------------------------

Bishop Carcaño was born in Edinburg, Texas. She did her undergraduate work at the University of Texas at Pan American, and then earned her Master of Theology at Perkins School of Theology. Ordained in 1976 she has served congregations in Texas, New Mexico and California. In 1986, she became the first Hispanic woman to be appointed a United Methodist district superintendent in the continental United States serving in West Texas and New Mexico. She was then appointed the lead pastor of the South Albuquerque Cooperative Parish Ministry from 1992 to1996. From 1996 to 2001, she served as the Director of the Mexican American program at Perkins School of Theology. In 2001, she assumed the appointment of District Superintendent to the greater Portland, Oregon area in the Oregon-Idaho Conference.

On a national level, she has served on the former General Board of Education, the General Boards of Global Ministry and Church and Society, and the United Methodist Publishing House. She both served on and chaired the National Cooperative Parish Ministry Leadership Team of the UMC, and was the lead clergy delegate to both the 1996 and 2004 General Conferences. She has a long history of committed involvement in ministries with immigrants and refugees, the poor, and US/Mexico border communities.

She was elected to the episcopacy in 2004 by the Western Jurisdictional Conference of the United Methodist Church, the first Hispanic female ever elected bishop. She was assigned to the Phoenix Area on September 1, 2004. After 8 years, she was assigned to the Los Angeles Area in 2012. In 2016, she was assigned to the San Francisco Area.

Bishop Carcaño is married to Thomas Spaniolo, an immigration lawyer, and they are the parents of an adult daughter, Sofia.