Gwendolyn D. Packnett is currently Vice Chair of the Community Partnership Advisory Board of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. She is a Commissioner for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. State Celebration Commission, and the County executive Charley Dooley has recently appointed Packnett as Commissioner to the Zoning Adjustment Board for St. Louis County. Other associations include the Missouri Historical Society Friends Board, Forest Park Forever, the Matthews-Dickey Boys' and Girls' Club, and mentoring students at the Fairview Primary School in Jennings, Missouri.

Packnett is the Director of the Office of Multicultural Relations/Academic Affairs at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She has been recognized as one of the 2006 Women of Achievement, and also recognized by the St. Louis American as the recipient of the 1997 St. Louis American Stellar Performer Award. Packnett completed the 1997-98 Class of Focus St. Louis. She enjoys her work with the Gateway Chapter of LINKS, INC., the St. Louis Black Partnership Roundtable and teaching adult Sunday morning Bible study classes at the West Side M.B. Church.

Packnett holds a bachelors degree from the William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, and a graduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis. She is currently completing doctoral work at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Packnett is the widow of the late Reverend Ronald Packnett. She is the mother of Brittany Noel, a graduate student at the American University in Washington, D.C. and a third grade teacher for Teach for America; and R. Barrington, a sophomore at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.