Our board of Trustees is nominated by UUJMCA’s Leadership Development Committee to three-year terms. If you are interested in serving on the board, please contact us.
Meredith Graham is a member of Emerson UU Church in Canoga Park. She has been a UU since 1995 and has been involved with UUJMCA in various volunteer capacities since 2007. Her first campaign with UUJMCA, then UULMCA, was to defeat Prop 8. She is currently honored to be a member of the Board of Directors since early 2016, and as its President from mid-2017 to mid-2018.
Lorella Thomas Hess is a second-generation Unitarian Universalist and a longtime lay leader at the Conejo Valley UU Fellowship. She is a recent law school graduate and works as an immigration attorney in Ventura, CA. She is drawn to UUJM for its emphasis on empowering individuals and congregations, and believes that people amplify our effectiveness when we connect with one another. Lorella discovered the wider world of our faith through the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists, for which she was the original curator of the Global Chalice Lighting series. Along with her husband, she is a member of the UUA’s President’s Council and the UUSC Stewardship Circle.
Karen Urbano has been a UU for over 40 years in several congregations. She is now at the UU Church of Davis where she has served in many positions. While in New Jersey she volunteered with the Center for Central American Refugees and also worked for Legal Services of New Jersey. She served on the board of UU Ministry for Earth for eight years. She is honored to be serving on the board of UUJMCA.
Rev. Dr. Betty Stapleford has been a UU for over 50 years. After graduation from seminary at the Claremont School of Theology in California in 1995, she served as the minister of the Conejo Valley UU Fellowship in Thousand Oaks for 12 years, being named their Minister Emerita in 2010, and the UU Church of the Verdugo Hills for 5 years. She is now the Affiliate Community Minister for Social Justice at the Universalist Unitarian Church of Santa Paula and serves on a number of non-profit boards, including the UU Justice Ministry of California.
The Rev. Bob Klein grew up in the Chicago area, graduated from Northern Illinois University with a Bachelor of Liberal Studies, contract major in Religious Studies, earned a Master of Divinity from Bethany Theological Seminary and entered United Methodist Ministry, mostly serving churches in Montana. A quest for personal renewal led him to Matthew Fox’s Institute for Culture and Creation Spirituality, then at Holy Names College in Oakland, CA., where he earned an M.A. in Culture and Spirituality. Bob has shared in raising 3 children, and is amicably divorced. Bob worked several years in Child Protective Service during the process of becoming a Unitarian Universalist Minister. He served UU congregations in Pennsylvania, Southern California and Little Rock, Arkansas before coming to Serve 1st UU Church, Stockton, CA in 2013. He has been active in Peace and Justice efforts in many locales.
Rev. Sonya Sukalski joins the UUJMCA board after 5 years serving the UU Fellowship of Tuolumne County and counting. She learned of UUJMCA in 2005 when on a break during seminary she called all California congregations to engage them in sending valentines urging Gov. Schwarzenegger to support marriage equality. In 2010 she was hired to help the Young Leaders Project develop and ran the Spiritual Activist Leadership Training (SALT) for young adults aged 18-35 to live into their faith and justice next steps. Several of our SALT Fellows went on to justice oriented careers including ministry since then. In 2014 Sonya hiked over 400 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail in Southern and Central California while blogging about water issues (during the drought), and contemplated water sources and such questions as how does one live on 6 litres of water a day. She is excited to help justice ministries around the state take next steps and work together strategically to deepen our faithful stance in the world.
