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Based on my current and past involvement in ECCT, I believe I am well suited for this position. I also have over 40 years of experience in HR, Equity and Inclusion as I was employed as a Senior Director at Yale University until my retirement in December of 2021. Serving in varying capacities in ECCT is really my passion. Being with like-minded and faithful people is truly a blessing! Other than my grandchildren, nothing brings me more joy and satisfaction!
“[T]here is not just one way to be a Christian, but [I] am head-over-heels in love with the Anglican way of following Jesus.”
I really wish I’d written that, but alas, I did not. Those words belong to Scott Gunn and Melody Wilson Shobe in Walk in Love: Episcopal Beliefs & Practices, p. xvi. But they describe exactly how I feel about our Episcopal faith.
I was raised in an atheist household, full of love, but decidedly not spiritual. Even as a child, though, I felt a “pull” toward faith I couldn’t quite understand. It was not until I had children of my own that I felt called to the Episcopal Church. In 2007, I was baptized at the Great Vigil of Easter, where my atheist family, awestruck by the baptismal rite, felt a connection to church for the first time. My love for the Episcopal faith has only grown over the years, drawing me more fully into the work and worship of St. Andrew’s and toward the ministry of the wider Church.
Much of what I would bring to this role begins with a lawyer’s instinct for understanding how institutions are structured and how governing documents shape what an organization must do versus what it may do. (What it should do is another question entirely!) I genuinely enjoy poring over constitutions, canons, policies, and bylaws (marginalia and footnotes included). At St. Andrew’s, I created a new Vestry Handbook and Covenant, revised our Vestry Norms, and designed and led our 2026 Vestry Retreat centered on formation and discernment. Professionally, I have set management standards, looked with fresh eyes at how our people and their skills might be used differently, and taken responsibility for difficult personnel matters requiring careful fact-finding, documentation, judgment, and follow-through, often amid dramatic shifts in priority.
I also tend to see the gifts people bring to an institution and imagine how they might be used more fully. At the U.S. Attorney’s Office, I have reorganized our litigation-support work, bringing existing personnel together in a centralized unit with dedicated expertise and clearer roles. At St. Andrew’s, I helped restructure our Preschool leadership within significant financial and staffing constraints, strengthening oversight and compliance. Both experiences required me to see what was not working, recognize what we already had to work with, and figure out how to make something better from it.
Finally, I’ve learned that responsible leadership sometimes means resisting the pressure to “hurry up.” Leading our rector search has required me to slow the process long enough to understand what differing answers, and the tensions among them, mean for the relationship we seek with our next priest, while still keeping the work organized and moving forward. Holding those responsibilities together has become an important part of how I understand leadership.
I would welcome the opportunity to bring these experiences to the wider Church.