Correct. As a PhD chemist I have an especially high regard for Dr. Hugh Ross and his ministry.
Glad to hear it! You might be amused by a personal anecdote related to Hugh's ability to pull in local scientists to SMCC. Back in the mid-1980s I was teaching the New Believers class there when in walked Allen Sandage. Perhaps you're aware of him: Edwin Hubble's protege and then the world's most-renowned astronomer (subject of the NY Times #1 bestseller, Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, remarkable for its incredulity at Sandage's religious persuasion). Here was the man who had peered farther into the physical universe than anyone else, coming to me for the basics of the even-vaster spiritual universe!
Even more notable is the path the Lord took Hugh on, from astronomer to pastor to ministry leader. I remember how tight it was for Hugh and Kathy, lugging copies in their small car of The Fingerprint of God to outreach events. But he still teaches his Sunday Paradoxes class at SMCC.
It's funny that I got to watch another ministry grow, too: Focus on the Family. James Dobson started next to an Arcadia church in a small office with a part-time secretary, then moved his growing staff into the second floor of a new building, then to a huge campus in Pomona, then to Colorado.
Actually, the greater Pasadena area has long been overrepresented (cf US Center for World Missions, World Vision International, etc.). It will be interesting to discover once in heaven what the historical roots were that resulted ultimately in this burgeoning. Who prayed? Who trusted? Who stepped out?