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UUJEC Leadership

PositionNameCongregationPictureBiography
Co-Chair Sally Gellert Central Unitarian, Paramus, NJ

Sally Jane Gellert, a Unitarian Universalist since 1998, is a member of Central Unitarian Church of Bergen County, N.J. (on occupied Lenape land) and is active in civic education and advocacy. In 2011, Sally worked with other environmental UUs to introduce an Action of Immediate Witness (AIW) to support Tim DeChristopher.  Currently participating in most of the UU Faith Action N.J.’s. issues-based task forces, she maintains Occupy Bergen County’s social-media presence. A member of InterOccupy, Sally is a founding member of the Bergen Unitarian Universalist Relief Group (BUURG). She is communications and legislative director of the Lackawanna Coalition, a rail-passengers’ advocacy group.

Co-Chair Terry Lowman UU Congregation of Miami, FL

Terry Lowman retired from a long career in business, but justice was always a passion. Married to Mark Kassis as soon as same sex marriage was legal in Iowa, he and Mark parented four children, two from Terry's marriage to a Cuban woman and two adopted from Peru. They owned three restaurants, which were often venues for charity fund raising and liberal political events. Terry was born into UCC, lost god and found UU in 1989. Terry has volunteered in a number of UU related causes, from AMOS, the local congregationally based community organizing, starting Iowa’s UU state advocacy network (IUUWAN), the UU Funding Program's Social Responsibility grant panel and summer of 2014 joining UUJEC as co-chair. Terry is the UUJEC Liaison for State Legislative Networks (CUUSAN) and chair of the Nominating Committee. Terry is a member of UU Congregation of Miami and UU Fellowship of Ames, Iowa. Contact Terry at TerryLeeLowman @ gmail.com

Staff Rachel Bennett Steury Unitarian Universalist Church of Studio City, CA

Rachel Bennett Steury is a member of the UU Congregation of Studio City, and currently serves as the UUJEC Communications Coordinator. She has a professional background in manufacturing, political advocacy, organizing, writing and research. She is a member of the Steelworker Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR), the A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI) and her Community Emergency Response Team. Contact Rachel at rachel @ uujec.org 

Secretary Chris Marlowe Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Jersey Shore in Galloway, NJ

Kit Marlowe is a retired safety manager for an environmental engineering company. He moved from Northern NJ to Cape May, NJ in 2015. It’s a beautiful beachfront town, but poverty runs rampant about nine months a year. 

 

He came to the UU Faith in 1981. He serve his current church, the UU Congregation of the South Jersey Shore, as Board Secretary. He is also secretary of the UUJEC. He is Capital Projects Chair for Cape Hope, a local homeless advocacy group. He is president of the Democratic Club in Lower Township, NJ.

Treasurer Jane Bannor Unitarian Church of Evanston, IL

Jane was elected to the UUJEC Board in 2014.  She served on the planning committee for the February, 2015 UUJEC conference Escalating Inequality or Opportunity for All? and currently is the Treasurer in addition to chairing the UUJEC Finance Committee.  A member of the Unitarian Church of Evanston, Jane has taken a leadership role in her church’s Peace and Justice Committee.  She guided her church’s efforts to implement the Peacemaking Study / Action Issue, and she’s been spearheading her congregation’s work on the 2014 – 2017 CSAI on Escalating Inequality. Efforts have centered on raising the minimum wage and on protecting state “safety net” programs, while responding to growing budgetary issues.  Working in local political campaigns and in community action efforts, Jane has seen the impact growing income inequality has had on our major cities. She hopes our denomination’s study of the issue will increase our commitment to finding a way to distribute our nation’s wealth more equitably. Contact Jane at  jbannor @ sbcglobal.net

Trustee Carl McCargo Unitarian Universalist Society of Greater Springfield, MA

Carl McCargo has been a member of UUJEC since 2006, now serving as Chair of the GA Booth Committee, and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Greater Springfield, Mass. since 1985, when he became a UU. He received his BA in Psychology from the University of New Mexico in 1973 and his Masters of Science in Clinical Psychology from the University of Massachusetts in 1981. Carl worked as a civil service psychologist for the state of Massachusetts for twenty years and retired in 2005. In 1992, he was in the first group of UU’s trained as Social Justice Empowerment Trainers and has conducted many workshops nationwide. Carl is also a Jubilee World I Anti-racism trainer and has conducted workshops across the U.S. Currently, Carl is the Chairperson of the Ward-3 Democratic Committee in Springfield, Mass. When his term as Chair of the Ward Committee expires this year, Carl will devote himself more fully to Media Reform, from the point of view that our media – movies and TV – teaches our culture how to think about “the Other,” class, the poor immigrants, etc. Feel free to contact Carl at: ilike2travel @ comcast.net 

Trustee Dean and Kate Wanderer Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church, VA

Dean Wanderer is a member of the Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church of Burke, Virginia and a Unitarian Universalist since 1980. Dean graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering.  He also holds ajuris doctorate and two masters of law (International) and (Environmental).  He retired from the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps in 1994 and began as a sole practitioner thereafter.  He has been an advocate for thirty-nine years concerning international matters for the US Navy or Department of Defense for those who face criminal charges, removal for immigration reasons, and family law matters.  He has frequently represented the injured and disabled.  He is the co-chair of the Unitarian Universalists Legislative Ministry of Virginia (UULMVA) and the chair of the Immigration Steering Committee for the Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice in the Capital Region (UUSJ).  He has personally advocated at federal and state levels of government. The priorities of the UULMVA include Economic Injustice (minimum wage increase, expansion of MEDICAID, voting rights for ex-felons and the end of predatory lending, among others). You can contact Dean at deanwanderer @ verizon.net

Trustee Dr. Dick Burkhart Saltwater Unitarian Universalist Church of Des Moines, WA

Dick Burkhart is a life long UU and advocate for social and economic justice. Professionally he has a Ph.D. in mathematics and has worked in academia and industry in applied mathematics and scientific and engineering computing. In 2002 he took early retirement to become a full time activist, especially on issues, from local to global, of economic inequality, limits-to-growth, sustainability, democracy, and urbanization. He has been on the board of UUJEC since 2005, currently serving as a chair of the General Assembly Committee.

Trustee Rev. Dr. Lucy Hitchcock -

Lucy Hitchcock served as UU minister in North Dakota, Oregon, Washington, Florida and as Extension Ministry Program Director at the UUA retiring in 2008.  She is a founding member of UUJEC, has served on the board off and on and has organized UU actions for the WTO protests in Seattle, FTAA protests in Miami and many conferences. Her spiritual practice is the work of economic justice. Current commitments are to single payer healthcare, climate justice, and sustainable, regenerative agriculture here and in Senegal, West Africa. She is building a house in Pringle Creek (sustainable) Community in Salem, OR.  Lucy is Chair of UUJEC’s Green New Deal Task Force and can be reached at membership @ uujec.org

Trustee Rev. Judith Deutsch Unitarian Universalist Westside Congregation of Rio Rancho, NM

Judy Deutsch is a UU minister, emerita, who moved to Corrales, NM, on June 28, 2017, after having lived in Sudbury, MA, For 51 years (and Morristown, Whippany, and Hillsdale New Jersey, Detroit and New York City before that). 
Among the activities she engaged in while in Massachusetts were to serve as chair of the committee that wrote the last 3 Massachusetts single-payer bills before she left, board member of the James Luther Adams Foundation, the governor’s appointee to the Sudbury Housing Authority, chair of First Parish’s Faith in Action Committee, health care specialist for the LWVMA, board member of Mass-Care (Massachusetts’ campaign for single-payer health care), and chair of the Religion and Socialism Commission of Democratic Socialists of America. 
She served as minister in Hartford, CT, and Harvard and Medfield, MA, churches. The UUA published 3 of her "Curricula for Now" for children and her "Responding to Apartheid: The Hitler Exception of Our Time" for adults, and the Religion and Socialism Commission of DSA published many of her articles.
Since moving to New Mexico she was active in the Albuquerque working group against Citizens United and a member of the Speakers Group in the group working for Improved Medicare for All, and serves on the UU Westside Congregation Social Concerns Committee (where she hopes to get the congregation aware of and involved in UUJEC) and still serves on the board  of the JLAF.
Judy has been a member of the NAACP since about 1953, the ACLU since 1955, and a member of Democratic Socialists of America since its inception (1955 or 1966). She has been a  Unitarian and then a Unitarian Universalist since 1952. She was born on April 18, 1929 and married Marshall Deutsch on June 27, 1947. She was widowed on December 23, 2017.

Trustee Rev. Robert Murphy Unitarian Universalist Church of Tarpon Springs, FL

Bob Murphy is the UUJEC's  constant gardener. He's a community minister in the Southern Region who encourages environmental justice and mutual aid work. Bob lives in an assisted living center and he's active in community gardening, voter registration, and in other community organizing projects. As a parish minister, Bob served congregations on Cape Cod, the Outer Banks, and Florida's Gulf Coast. He helped to create the Green Sanctuary program. Bob's essay "Earth Day, Exodus, and Martin Luther King" brings human rights  advocacy and environmental protection work together.  He is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School (1995.)

Bob is a minister emeritus for the Unitarian Universalist  Church of Tarpon Springs, in Tarpon Springs, Florida.