BVUUF Board of Officers and Trustees
The BVUUF board of officers and trustees is comprised of four officers and six trustees. Each trustee position is elected by the Fellowship for a three-year term, staggered such that two positions expire each year. Terms begin and end in July, allowing for some overlap between departing and new trustees.
Officers
Jim Meale, President
Rosemary Arp, Vice President
Amanda Birmingham, Secretary
Rusty Robison, Treasurer
Trustees
Lea Dudley White
David Burrous
Larry Lankford
Jennifer Gould
Marc Esenwein
Susan Geohegan
Officers
Jim Meale
President
Term expires 06.30.08
Jim has been serving as President of the Fellowship this past year and was Vice President the previous year. Jim and his wife, Susan, moved to Longmont in June 2004 and joined the Fellowship in November of that year. They are longtime Unitarian Universalists. Before being on the Board of Officers and Trustees, he volunteered with the Fellowship on the Resource Committee, the Members and Newcomers Committee, and currently manages both the BVUUFellowship listserv and distribution of eConnections.
A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Jim attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, for both B.S. and M.A. degrees; was a high school history teacher for 5 years; and worked for the Social Security Administration in Chicago, Baltimore, and Athens, Greece, for 30 years. He is now retired. Jim and Susan have two adult children and four grandchildren. Their daughter, Beth, and her family live in Longmont. Their son, David, is in the foreign service, and he and his family currently live in Beijing, China.
Rosemary Arp
Vice President
Term expires 06.30.08
A long-time protestant, Rosemary first attended a Unitarian Universalist service when she and husband Larry moved to the east coast in 1992. On their first visit to the UU Church of Montclair, NJ, they immediately felt at home and knew they had found a spiritual community. Six years later, they came to Boulder feeling confident that one of the UU congregations would be a fit. They joined the UU Fellowship in 1999.
Rosemary served on the Social Concerns Committee and headed up the Rothman Open Space adoption—an outgrowth of her love of the outdoors and protecting the environment. She also served as co-chair of the Members and Newcomers Committee, reflecting a long-held interest in welcoming and connecting individuals, and has been a UUF Board Trustee since 2005. After attending the Robert Lockwood Leadership School during the summer of 2005, Rosemary saw a need to coordinate volunteers at the Fellowship and led that effort for two years.
Professionally, Rosemary has been a career counselor for over 20 years, working at Iowa State University, various workplaces in New Jersey, and at the YWCA of Boulder. She is currently in private practice. Larry and Rosemary are parents to two grown sons, Tim and Chris, and they have a daughter-in-law and two very sweet grandchildren. The kids and grandkids are spread out from Iowa to Alaska.
Amanda Birmingham
Secretary
Term expires 06.30.08
Amanda is new to Unitarian Universalism, having joined the Fellowship in early 2004. She was drawn to its warm sense of community as well as the opportunity to celebrate the wonders of life without a required theist creed. Since then, Amanda has served a 2-year term as BVUUF Board Trustee, and has been active on the Social Justice Action Committee, the Welcoming Congregation Committee, the Finance Planning Committee, and the web team. In addition, she can also be found swelling the tenor ranks of the Fellowship Singers.
Amanda was born and raised just outside of Cleveland, Ohio, and she earned an astronomy degree from Amherst College in Massachusetts. Currently she manages the bioinformatics team at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Lafayette, programming computers to design synthetic RNA molecules. Amanda lives in Lafayette with her partner of eight years, and she frequently travels to Philadelphia to visit her other partner of 13 years.
Rusty Robison
Treasurer
Term expires 06.30.08
Born in Seattle, Wash., and raised in northeast Arkansas, Rusty currently lives in Longmont with wife Beth and their 3 children, Kate (14), William (11), and Ben (5). The Robison family came to UUism at the UU Church of Little Rock, Ark., and they joined the Fellowship eight years ago.
Rusty is an IT professional at Intrado, where he manages a team that performs network security administration and data center management. Intrado provides 911 products and services for the nation.
A musician with a degree in Music Performance, Rusty plays French horn in the Longmont Symphony and the Mahlerfest Orchestra. He is currently taking guitar lessons and having a ton of fun making music at home with Will on drums and Ben on bass.
Rusty has participated in this Fellowship as the leader of the Children’s Choir and has taught kindergarten through fifth grade CYRE classes. He is currently coordinating the Fellowship’s volunteers to the Boulder Homeless Shelter.
Trustees
Lea Dudley White
Term expires 06.30.08
Lea recognized 23 years ago that she was a lifelong (or is it born again?) UU. She was active in the UU Church of Boulder for many years, managing the bookstore, teaching RE, and selling grocery certificates to help fund the UUCB. For several years, she helped organize a Humanist film group that met monthly. Lea has been a member of the BVUU Fellowship for over two years; her decision to join occurred almost simultaneously with the congregation’s move to Lafayette. She is currently enjoying being a Small Group Ministry facilitator. She always enjoys working with teams of people to achieve common goals.
Lea has a B.A. in Communications, an M.A. in Special Education, and an Ed.S. in Educational Psychology. Professionally, she is a school psychologist and has worked in Jefferson County Public Schools since 1990. In her spare time, she engages in many types of art, reads, watches movies and travels. She shares her home with two cats, Winston and Maggie, and a beta fish, Dennis (known collectively as WMD).
David Burrous
Term expires 06.30.10
A native of Denver, David was an active member of a Japanese Methodist Church in the heart of the city as a youth. After graduating from the University of Colorado-Boulder, David and his wife, Alisa, moved to Louisville in 1974 where they lived for 27 years while raising their three children. They moved to Lafayette in 2001 and joined the Fellowship in April 2004. Son John lives in Broomfield with his wife, Monica; son Nick lives in Lafayette; and daughter Katie lives in Boulder with her husband, David.
David taught Russian and Spanish in Jefferson County Public Schools for 25 years at the secondary level, then served as his district’s World Language Curriculum Coordinator for seven years. Now retired, he works part time at Schacht Spindle Company assembling weaving looms, does educational consulting work for the Boulder Valley School District, and serves as the co-editor with Alisa of the newsletter of the Colorado Congress of Foreign Language Teachers. In his free time he enjoys weaving, garden railroads, woodworking, and playing bassoon, bagpipes and Japanese koto.
David believes that an important task ahead of the Board is to facilitate the Fellowship’s transition from a pastoral congregation to a rapidly-growing mid-size, or programs-based, one in a way that preserves our commitment to our Seven Principles. His passion is “process” — how we treat each other as we do the work of the Fellowship. Having served on the Auction, Resource, and Grounds Committees, he is currently serving on the Ministerial Search Committee.
Larry Lankford
Term expires 06.30.08
Larry has been a UU for over 40 years, although not always active. For 20 years, hiking and mountaineering were important Sunday pursuits. During his 10-year membership in a UU Society near Peekskill, NY, he was Fellowship President, Board Member, chairman of various committees, and frequent RE teacher. During 1968-69, he served as chairman of a political club in Putnam County, NY, campaigning for candidates willing to end the Vietnam War.
Larry and his wife, Llyn, live near Louisville, and when the Fellowship moved to Lafayette, Larry and Llyn quickly became members. He has served our BVUU Fellowship as Vice-President during 2006-2007 and as a Trustee during 2005-2006. He has been a member of the Sunday Services Committee and the Small Group Ministry Formative Committee. He is currently managing the development of the new version of the Fellowship website.
Larry is an electrical and computer engineer with a B.S. from the University of Colorado, an M.S. from Syracuse University, and a year of doctoral studies at MIT. He served two years’ active duty as a Lieutenant in the Air Force, and worked at IBM for 27 years as an engineer, programmer, and manager in New York and Colorado. He retired from IBM and worked as an independent computer consultant for an additional 10 years. Larry fully retired in 1998 and now volunteers at the Louisville Senior Center teaching Beginning Computing and Using the Internet.
Jennifer Gould
Term expires 06.30.10
Born in a small town outside of Boston, Jennifer feels steeped in Unitarianism. Her grandfather was a Unitarian minister, her father was a Unitarian, and her mother became a Unitarian after having been brought up as an Episcopalian.
Jennifer graduated from nursing school as a registered nurse, then achieved an undergraduate degree in Health Science and a Masters degree in Public Health. Her professional career was at Stanford University where she met husband Ron. At Stanford, Jennifer served as the business manager of two academic departments working with personnel issues, faculty searches, and finance. She and Ron retired in 1998, moved to Lafayette in 2002, and now live in the Gunbarrel area of Boulder.
Since joining the Fellowship, Jennifer has been active on 9 committees, most recently on the Ministerial Search Committee. Through these volunteer efforts, she has enjoyed meeting and working with a large number of UUF members and discussing differing ideas and views of UUism. She has also been active with three local interfaith groups — The Interfaith AIDS Coalition, Common Voice, and United Ministries in Higher Education (UMHE). Through her involvement with UMHE, Jennifer has particularly enjoyed getting to know the university students and learning more about the common voice shared by progressive Christians and Unitarians.
Marc Esenwein
Term expires 06.30.09
Marc has been a Unitarian Universalist almost since his birth in New Mexico. The family moved to Chicago where Marc’s father studied at Meadville Seminary to become a Unitarian minister, and then to Norfolk, VA for his father’s first ministry. Later, Marc moved on to attend Illinois State University, and then came to Boulder to attend CU.
Marc received his Masters in Social Work at the University of Texas-Austin in 1994 and is now a child and family therapist. He works at the Boulder County Mental Health Center and enjoys helping teens and their parents improve their relationships by facilitating healthy communication and decision-making skills. He also enjoys the Colorado outdoors, hiking and running to stay fit, and skiing and golfing when the weather allows.
A member of the BVUUF since 2002, Marc attended services at his mother’s invitation. Beverly Seeds is a founding member of the Fellowship who was hoping that Marc would join her in this special religious community. Marc is completing a 1-year term as Board Trustee and wishes to continue serving the Fellowship in this capacity. In addition, he is a member of the Social Justice Action Committee and loves to facilitate a Small Group Ministry each month. As a 2006 pledge captain, Marc enjoyed meeting both new and elder members of the congregation.
Susan Geohegan
Term expires 06.30.09
Susan grew up near Washington, DC, and was allowed to explore her own religious beliefs. During her undergraduate years at the University of Maryland, she discovered the Diogenes Society, a unique UU club on campus. She has been a UU ever since. Susan’s son learned UU values while she taught RE classes in a church near DC. After a move to California and several years with a Unitarian church in Palo Alto, Susan became a member of the UU Fellowship of Sunnyvale (UUFS) for 10 years. The UUFS grew, in several challenging steps, from a small, lay-led congregation to a large fellowship with a full time minister. Susan was Co-Chairperson of the Board during the tenure of an interim minister and the transition to an extension minister. She also taught RE classes, edited the newsletter, and was active on several committees.
When she and her husband, John, moved to Colorado in 2000, she discovered the friendly and supportive people at the UUF (then in Boulder) and gladly became involved. 2006 marks her third year as a team captain for the annual canvass. She also works on the auction committee, leads the esthetics committee, and is active in Small Group Ministry.