Board Members

Jon Berry

Jon Berry is senior vice president and research director of Roper Reports, one of the nation's oldest consumer trends research services. He is co-author of The Influentials (Free Press, 2003), based on the company's research on opinion leadership.

Jon was raised in West Richmond Friends Meeting in Richmond, Indiana. He graduated from Earlham College in 1978. He and his wife, Robin, attended Friends meetings in California before moving to Westchester County, New York, in 1990. They are members of Purchase (N.Y.) Friends Meeting. Jon and Robin have two children, Joel, 22, and Flynn, 19.

Katharine Clark

Katharine Clark is at present administrative secretary of New England Yearly Meeting. She attended the World Gathering of Young Friends in 1985, serving on the Epistle Committee which "was a life-changing event." She served as resource secretary for the International Young Quaker Committee in London, England. She spent considerable time in Kenya, Honduras, Britain, Belgium, Scotland, Denmark, and the Netherlands pulling together the 1991 Young Friends Gathering following the three FWCC World conferences. "My special aptitude lies in what I call the 'ad-ministry'-the framework (database management, filing, grant writing, fundraising, and mailings) that support the good works. I am tirelessly interested in Young Friends (high school) and Young Adult Friends... how we allow them to search and explore, and how we keep them in the fold (or don't, as the case may be)." Katharine is currently a member of Framingham (Mass.) Friends Meeting in New England Yearly Meeting.

Karen Cromley

Karen Cromley's introduction to her professional life was an American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) summer project in Mexico during college. After graduating from Mt. Holyoke College, she worked in the AFSC's Overseas Work Camps Program. She returned to the AFSC in the late 1970s, after raising a family, working in the Human Resources Department as coordinator of recruitment and associate director. Then she moved to the Communications Department, where she was associate director until taking early retirement at the end of 2001. She now does occasional projects at the AFSC, travels, and spends time with grandchildren and friends. She is a member of Chestnut Hill (Pa.) Friends Meeting.

John Darnell

John Darnell is a lifelong member of the Religious Society of Friends. He was born and raised in Chester County, Pa., and grew up in Westtown (Pa.) Monthly Meeting. He attended Westtown School ('60) and Haverford College and received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. He and his wife Katrina moved to Frederick County, Maryland, where they have lived since, raising their two daughters, Kat and Fran. After moving to Frederick County, John helped found Frederick Monthly Meeting. John is currently serving as clerk of the Property Committee and is active on the Peace and Social Concerns Committee. He is currently serving as FGC representative to the Friends Journal Board. He currently serves as Energy and Environment Projects Coordinator for Congressman Roscoe Bartlett in the 6th District of Maryland.

Rich Van Dellen

Rich Van Dellen is a convinced Friend since about 1969 after contact with the American Friends Service Committee during the Vietnam War years. He is a member of Rochester (Minn.) Meeting, Northern Yearly Meeting and has served both his meeting and the wider body of Friends in various ways: past clerk and currently recording clerk of his monthly meeting, clerk of Faith and Practice Committee of the yearly meeting, member of the National Board of AFSC, and co-clerk of 2007 FGC Gathering of Friends. He has had several articles published by FRIENDS JOURNAL, is an enthusiastic reader and fan of the JOURNAL. He is a retired physician, married with four children and eight grandchildren, an avid bicyclist, and active with a local peace group.

Walter (Wally) Evans

Walter (Wally) Evans is a foundation administrator and community planning consultant in Lafayette Hill, Pa. He is a member of Doylestown (Pa.) Meeting and presently serves on General Services Standing Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and is involved in planning for the future uses of the historic meetinghouse at 4th and Arch Streets, Philadelphia. At present, Wally is also working to raise funds for a new school building for The Quaker School at Horsham, a primary school for children with learning differences. He has served as the treasurer for Bucks Quarterly Meeting and as a member of the Board of Directors of Pennswood Village, a Quaker-led continuing care retirement community. When he has a moment to spare, he has been known to sneak away for a quick round of golf. He and his wife Jane have three grown children.

Linda Houser

Linda Houser was born a birthright member of Purchase (N.Y.) Meeting, and is an 11th generation Quaker on her mother's side. She graduated in 1973 from Windham College, Putney, Vermont with a B.A. in Geology, and she has worked in the field of title insurance for many years. She currently manages the Rockland County Branch Office for Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Land America Financial Group, Inc. She has been both clerk and co-clerk of Purchase Meeting. She serves on the House, Grounds and Cemetery Committee.

For New York Yearly Meeting, she currently serves as clerk of the Trustees of Lindley Murray Fund. She has served as clerk of the yearly meeting Sessions Committee and over the years has served on the Powell House Committee and Nominating Committee.

She also serves as a Board member of Youth Services Opportunities Project, an organization which offers service opportunities for school and youth groups to work with projects for the hungry and homeless in New York City. She serves on the Board of Sheltering the Homeless is our Responsibility (SHORE), an organization that began in 1985 to answer the problem of homelessness in White Plains and over the years has grown to be an organization that finds permanent housing for families living in homeless and emergency shelters.

Bobbi Kelly

Bobbi Kelly is a life-long Philadelphian, who joined Friends in 1982, when she joined Media (Pa.) Meeting in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. She has worked as a high school teacher, a librarian, a cook, and program planner, the latter two at Pendle Hill, the Quaker retreat and study center in Wallingford, Pa. In September 2006, Bobbi retired from Pendle Hill and moved to Columbia, in Lancaster County, Pa. She now divides her time between volunteering at a local library, visiting with family and friends, and delighting in her small home and kitchen.

Bobbi has served Friends on several monthly and yearly meeting committees, including the PYM Nominating Committee and as clerk of Chester Quarter. Presently she serves on the Deepening and Strengthening Our Meetings as Faith Communities Working Group. She has just transferred her membership to Lancaster (Pa.) Meeting.

Paul Landskroener

Paul Landskroener attended his first Friends meeting for worship in the summer of 1977 in Valparaiso, Indiana. He was a founding member of Duneland Friends Meeting in Valparaiso when it joined Illinois Yearly Meeting in 1980, and was its first presiding clerk. In 1991, after graduating from law school, he moved with his family to Minneapolis and now belongs to Twin Cities (Minn.) Friends Meeting in St. Paul.

Paul is married to Marybeth Neal and has four children. He plays banjo and accordion and often leads group singing. He also sings shape note music from the Sacred Harp and has led workshops on Sacred Harp at several Quaker gatherings. Professionally, Paul works as a lawyer for a Minnesota hospital system.

Paul's principal religious concern these days is to better understand Friends' peculiar and prophetic message and its unique place in Christendom and the world's other religious traditions, especially as much of the world has adopted superficial elements of Friends' traits without experiencing the inner conviction that generates and sustains those characteristics. He is fascinated by the amount and quality of Quaker correspondence taking place on Internet blogs. But he sees Friends Journal as a vital channel for articulating and publishing that message and welcomes the opportunity to become part of its work.

Pat LaViscount

Pat LaViscount is a member of Brooklyn Meeting, NYYM and an attender at Annapolis Meeting, Baltimore Yearly Meeting. She is a published poet and essayist. Pat spent many years in New York City working as a consultant for health and social service organizations. She was the founder and co-facilitator of a Black Women's Group that focused on organizing and supporting community based programs that supported wellness in various forms. She left New York City in the late 1990s to attend Earlham School of Religion. Since graduation (M.Div) in 1998, she has worked as a chaplain, continued her work as workshop leader, and facilitator and continues to write.

Linda Lyman

Linda Lyman is a member of Southern Maine Friends Meeting, New England Yearly Meeting. She has served Friends for 34 years in many capacities by supporting monthly meetings, AFSC, Pendle Hill, and Woodbrooke. She retired from the mental health field with extensive experience in organization, program, and staff development for non-profit organizations. As a retired family therapist she gives workshops focused on death and dying concerns. Since moving to Maine she has joined the efforts of the Kennebunk Conservation Commission and Maine Healthy Beaches, to protect wetlands and other shore land waters. "I believe the breadth and depth of FRIENDS JOURNAL provides the greater Quaker community with timely thought provoking articles."

Jay Marshall

Jay Marshall is a member and former clerk of Indiana Yearly Meeting. Originally a member of North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM), he was recorded as a minister in 1985. For 15 years, he served as a pastoral minister in North Carolina and Indiana Yearly Meetings. Since 1998 he has served as dean of Earlham School of Religion. Occasionally, he teaches Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Jay is interested in understanding the diversity of Friends and building bridges of communication among the various groups. Jay and his wife, Judi, live in Richmond, Indiana.

Barbara Bennett Mays

Barbara Bennett Mays is Interim Publications Manager for Friends General Conference. Barbara taught writing as ministry as an adjunct faculty and served as writing student advisor at Earlham School of Religion for five years. She was editor of Friends United Press for two terms, 1980-88 and 1998-2005. She has also been director of United Way of Whitewater Valley, a member of the Pendle Hill staff, and development and marketing director for the Richmond, Indiana, Symphony Orchestra.

A graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism and the Denver Publishing Institute, Barbara began her writing/editing career at The Indianapolis Star, and has been on staff at The Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, and The Palladium-Item, Richmond, Indiana. She has also published in Quaker Life, Quaker Monthly, and The Australian Friend. Her hymns appear in several denominational hymnals and songbooks, including Worship in Song.

Barbara serves on the Friends Journal Board and has served previously on the boards of Quaker Hill Conference Center, Pendle Hill, Renaissance School for the Arts (Richmond), and Muncie Friends School. Barbara is promotion co-clerk of Quakers Uniting in Publications (QUIP). She is a member of Friends Memorial Meeting in Muncie.

Barbara moves from her sedentary editorial work to the ballroom dance floor at least two or three times a week, a delight second only to keeping in touch with her three children: Jim Hollingsworth, a graphic artist in San Francisco; John Hollingsworth, songwriter/musician in Nashville (TN); and Megan Hollingsworth, now completing a master’s degree in environmental science and based in Livingston, Montana.

Pete McCaughan

Pete McCaughan has been active in Friends meetings in Honolulu, Hawaii; Marin County, Calif.; Wilton, Conn.; St. Paul, Minn.; and Atlanta, Ga., where he now resides with his wife, Renda. Renda and Pete have two grown children, David and Michael, and a grandchild, Samantha.

Pete is a member of Atlanta (Ga.) Meeting and currently serves as their treasurer. He sits on the board of Decision Bridges, a not-for-profit organization that promotes decision making by consensus. He designed and built their first website.

Pete spent his professional life in data processing services for the payroll and human resources industry. He has experience in regional and corporate product management, product and business development, strategic planning, program and project management, and account relationship management. Pete has designed payroll services products and services and evaluated joint ventures, merger/acquisition candidates, potential alliances and partnerships.

Ron McDonald

Ron McDonald is a Quaker and pastoral counselor in Memphis, Tenn., employed with the Samaritan Counseling Centers and the Church Health Center. He was born in 1951 and raised in Arkansas, the second of seven sons of a United Methodist minister and his wife, Charles and Lois McDonald. He became a Quaker in 1979 and has been presiding clerk of the Memphis Friends Meeting. He was educated at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas; Union Theological Seminary in New York City; Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri; and the Training Institute for Counseling and Therapy of the Foundation for Religion and Mental Health in Briarcliff Manor, New York. He began his ministerial career as Campus Minister at Western Connecticut State University. He and his family moved to Memphis in 1985 where he began working full time as a pastoral counselor.

He is a Diplomat in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and Tennessee Licensed Clinical Pastoral Therapist, and author of Building the Therapeutic Sanctuary: The Fundamentals of Psychotherapy - A Pastoral Counseling Perspective (1stBooks Library, 2000), Home Again: A Pilgrimage of Father and Son (1stBooks Library, 2002), and The Spirituality of Community Life: When We Come Round Right, 2006.

He is an elected leader of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and the Tennessee Association of Pastoral Therapists, a part-time teacher in pastoral counseling, parent education, and philosophy, as well as a speaker/preacher in churches. Additionally, he is a folksinger and storyteller, performing with his guitar and hammer dulcimer. He dances often, is an active outdoors person, and is married to Susan Penn, a librarian. Together they have two grown sons.

Nancy Moore

Nancy Moore, a new Board member in 2005, has an interest in FRIENDS JOURNAL that finds its roots not just in her 20-some years as a convinced Quaker, but also in her twin drives towards always searching for more truth and constantly trying to find better ways to communicate that truth she feels she has found. It might be easy to guess her career path from these interests-first a history student at college, then a teacher (mostly elementary school), and currently a First-day school teacher at her home meeting, Baltimore-Stony Run. She even found time for years of co-editing a neighborhood newspaper. She's been equally much an activist as a seeker, beginning with the civil rights struggle, continuing into the peace movement, and always with an interest in improving conditions in her own community of Baltimore as well as abroad. This has led her to be active with AFSC as well as with Friends General Conference. Her meeting commitments have led to work on countless Stony Run committees, in between active parenting of her two children-who are now active in Young Adult Friends. She looks forward to a new chapter of involvement with Friends Publishing Corporation.

Michael Moulton

Michael Moulton is husband to Toni Welch and father to eight-year-old Evangeline and one-year-old Elias. Michael and his family are members of Germantown (Pa.) Meeting. He looks forward to the faith, fellowship, living silence, and Spirit-filled ministry he finds there on Sundays. He has a soft spot for ministry coming from stories of the life of Jesus, but finds himself moved by ministry of all sorts. Michael Moulton is an administrator at the William Penn Charter School—a kindergarten through 12th-grade Quaker school in Philadelphia—where he directs the technology curriculum. Off campus, he is driven to do as much as possible without a car because he is somewhat thrifty … some say cheap. This two-wheeled-calling also comes from his concern about the negative impact of cars on life and the environment. Professionally, Michael is excited about how new publishing tools can be used to give audience to otherwise unheard voices and to help make writing relevant for students. He has worked with teachers to create online publishing policies and to choose blogging tools that, together, provide a solid base for them to build class publishing projects.

Mark B. Myers

Mark B. Myers lives on the family farm in London Grove, Pa., where he raises cattle and hay, serves on non-profit and corporate boards, consults with universities and government concerning issues of national science and technology policy and serves on committees and boards of Quaker-related institutions.

Mark graduated from Earlham College in 1960 with an A.B. in geology and from Pennsylvania State University with a PhD in materials science in 1964. At Earlham, he met and married fellow student Anna Walton and they are in their 48th year of marriage. They are blessed with four children and seven grandchildren living from London Grove, Pa., to Dayton, Md., to San Francisco, Calif.

Mark began his professional career in 1964 as a scientist in a rapidly growing company called Xerox. His early years were spent as a research scientist in the laboratories. His career evolved into research and engineering management and he eventually became the head of all of Xerox's corporate research and technology as well as member of the senior management team setting the strategic direction of the company. He retired in 2000 as a senior vice president of the corporation.

During his 36 years working with Xerox, the Myers family lived near Rochester, N.Y.; Oakville, Ontario, Canada; Palo Alto, Calif.; and New Canaan, Conn. As head of research, Mark Myers was responsible for 1,300 scientists and engineers in Rochester, N.Y.; Toronto, Canada; Palo Alto, Calif.; El Segundo, Calif.; Cambridge, England; and Grenoble, France. He traveled frequently to Tokyo, Japan to coordinate work with the Xerox partner Fuji-Xerox.

Although most of his career was in industry, for interim periods he served as a visiting professor at Stanford University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. From 1994 to 2005, he served on the Science, Technology and Economic Policy Board of the National Research Council. Myers has been honored as an Alumni Fellow of Penn State and as a National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences for his work on national science and technology policy.

Myers' teaching and research interests have included strategic visioning and creation of new organizations and companies. He started two new research centers in Canada and France during his Xerox years and was a founding board member for two highly successful technology start-up companies, SDLI and Nuance Communications (formerly ScanSoft). He currently serves on the Nuance Board of Directors.

Mark and Anna Myers have been active throughout their lives in local community and religious activities. They are members of the London Grove (Pa.) Meeting of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. They are committed farmland conservationists and experienced preservers of historic buildings. They preserved and listed with the National Register of Historic Places, a 19th century house in Penfield, N.Y. They restored and conserved their historic 18th century farmstead in Chester County, Pa. They have placed conservation easements on their farmstead committing to open space in perpetuity. In 1995, they received the grand prize of the National Trust for Historic Preservation for their work and were recognized by a commendation from the Historical Commission of the State of Pennsylvania.

Mark Myers has had a lifelong relationship with Quakerism and its related organizations.

Nan O'Connor

Nan O'Connor's husband's search on Belief-O-Matic would lead her to her spiritual home. After a journey lasting decades, Nan walked into meeting for worship at the Atlanta (Ga.) Meeting and knew she had come home. She's very grateful to be there. On that first visit, when she asked a Friend what she might read to give her a little information about Quakers, she was handed the 500-page Quaker Reader. She read it in one week. Nan continues deepening her spiritual experience and community through Adult First Day School, Spiritual Nurture Group, and service on the Care and Counsel Committee as well as the Gathered Meeting Retreat Committee. After selling her corporate communications business in 1996, Nan became a Master Certified Coach and mentors business owners and corporate leaders around the world.

Liz Perch

Liz Perch is a convinced Friend and a convinced Yankee, having spent 27 years in Philadelphia where she found grad school, the Phillies, her husband Frank, and Quakerism. She now lives in Savannah, Georgia, where she is attempting to reclaim some of her southern roots without the "War Between the States" mentality of her Arkansas upbringing. Liz attends the Savannah Friends Worship Group, loosely affiliated with Southeastern Yearly Meeting, and is a member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (PhlYM.)

Liz has worked for Quakers since 1990, first in a variety of positions for the American Friends Service Committee and then serving for ten years as Conference Coordinator for Friends General Conference. She is the administrative assistant for Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association (SAYMA); she is also a consultant for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, planning a peace conference for early 2009. In her free time, she pursues passions old and new, including gardening, where she is discovering just what will grow with sandy soil, no rain, and harsh heat.

Liz is secretary of the Smocking Arts Guild of America. She serves as newsletter editor for her local needlework organization, and each year makes over two dozen "wee care" gowns for the neo-natal unit of the local hospital. Now that her daughter Katie, 23, is too old to wear delicately smocked dresses, Liz contents herself with making gifts for family and friends. A serial hobbiest, she also sews, beads, tats, and dabbles in various forms of embroidery. She may eventually take up basket weaving, inspired by her father's quip when she received her BA in English and Drama from Vanderbilt: "Well, sweetheart, if you'd taken basket weaving, you'd have a skill."

Liz is a voracious reader, fierce (and unrepentant) Scrabble player, and avid cyclist. She works with local peace activists and supports prison work and other causes for economic and social justice. She has visited 48 of the 50 states (missing only Utah and Hawaii.) She recently captured an eight-inch green anole lizard which was unsuccessfully trying to live in her den and reintroduced him to the yard off the back deck.

Janet Ross

Janet Ross lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada where she attends Toronto Monthly Meeting and teaches Religion at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Originally, Janet is from the small town of Haviland, Kansas, where her family has been in membership in the Haviland Friends Church for over 100 years. An early interest in Hebrew led Janet to study religion at Barclay College, then after a three-year hiatus working at the Mid-America Yearly Meeting Headquarters in Wichita, Janet returned to school to obtain a Master of Divinity Degree at Candler School of Theology and a PhD. in Hebrew Scriptures, Greco-Roman Christian Backgrounds and Islamic Studies at Emory University.

One of Janet's favorite activities is travel anywhere and any time, and she uses her experiences of traveling throughout the Middle East and South America to encourage connections between historical and ideological contexts and current world situations and events. Her primary areas of publication and interest include religions and social change, women and religion, and apocalyptic interpretations and implications.