Veriditas Board of Directors 2011
Board Chair
Gary Petersen
Pacific Grove, California
garypetersen50@gmail.com
Gary Petersen is currently
chair of the Veriditas Board and the Airport Manager for the City of Salinas California Municipal Airport along with being
the Principal of Petersen and Associates a consulting practice that uses collaborative whole system processes to resolve
complex issues with communities, organizations and individuals. Gary has also served as the Nevada County Airport Manager
and before that served as an Airport Manager for the County of San Mateo for thirteen years.
In 1994 Gary began a parallel career as an Organizational Development Consultant working with communities, agencies and organizations to increase effectiveness and performance. In this capacity Gary is a graduate of the Association for Quality and Participation School for Leading and Managing Change and has been involved in the facilitation of interpersonal skills development for students in the Stanford University MBA program.
Gary has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Southwest Chapter of the American Association of Airport Executives, was a Board Member and Past President of the San Carlos California Chamber of Commerce, a volunteer with San Mateo County California Special Olympics for twenty three years, and served on the Board of Directors of the Peninsula Association for Retarded Children and Adults and Friends for Youth, a youth mentoring program. Gary is a founding member of the Housing Forum of San Mateo County and considers himself a community activist on issues related to planning, housing and homelessness particularly in relation to special needs populations. In his spare time he has restored a 130 year old Victorian house in the Sierra Nevada Foothills and currently resides in Pacific Grove California. Gary first walked the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in 1993 and has been walking them ever since.
Council Representative
Cindy Cleary
Occidental, California
cindy@veriditas.org
Cindy Cleary has been working with the Veriditas Council since its founding six years ago, and feels fortunate to be a part of the deepening collaboration between the Board and the Council at this extraordinary time in the history of Veriditas.
Coming from a long time community-based social activist perspective, Cindy’s professional background is in the fields of program development and implementation and non-profit arts management, with skills in organizational structure, grant writing, and arts and humanities program presentation. She has worked at California State University Long Beach and the University of Iowa, as well as with several San Francisco Bay Area performing arts companies.
In 1999, she returned to school, receiving an MFA in Studio Art from the Department of Arts and Consciousness at John F. Kennedy University. Her art primarily utilizes materials found in nature and focuses on the ephemeral; cycles of birth, death and regeneration; archetypal memory; and the intersection of art and life.
In addition to her work with Veriditas , she works as a studio artist and is an active member of her Buddhist Sangha (Stone Creek Zen Center) in Sebastopol. She lives with her partner of 28 years, Joan Pinkvoss; has two grown children and ten grandchildren, ages 14 ½ to 1 year old.
Auction Donation Coordinator
Phyllis Carlisle
Austin, Texas
Phyllis Carlisle is semi-retired and Web Master for Seton Cove, an interfaith Spirituality Center in Austin, Texas. She is a graduate of Texas A&M University, Kingsville, Texas. Phyllis is a Veriditas Certified Labyrinth Facilitator and hosts labyrinth walks in the Austin area. She was the Regional Trainer for major food service company and has years of experience of leading and directing employees to deliver service to a diverse customer base. Phyllis was the Business Manager at Seton Cove until December 2009. She participated in small group ministry in Irvine, California and was Co-Chair of the Small Groups ministry at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, Austin. She has served on the Church Council at Grace Lutheran Church in Round Rock, was the Seton Cove representative for the Central Texas Labyrinth Network, helped co-ordinate the Labyrinth Society Gathering in Texas and served as a member of the Labyrinth Society Strategic Planning Team. She received the Excellence in Action Award from the Seton Family of Hospitals for her work at Seton Cove.
Christine Katzenmeyer
Lakewood, Colorado
Katz138@msn.com
Christine Katzenmeyer is the Executive Director of the Consortium for Older Adults(COAW) in Denver, Colorado. COAW is the infrastructure and standardization agency for evidence based prevention programs for older adults in Colorado, including Stanford University’s Chronic Disease Self Management program. COAW administrates the Academy for Older Adult Wellness which is dedicated to teaching professionals programs in balance, balance prevention and chronic disease prevention. The Consortium is currently in partnership with Metropolitan State College and Colorado Mountain College for the delivery of the Certificate of Wellness for Active Aging, an 18 hour gerontology certificate in health promotion, and wellness programming for the working professional. Chris was the coordinator of the statewide Senior Wellness Initiative, and also teaches at Metro State College.
Lee Matthew
Albuquerque, New Mexico
LeeMatt42@gmail.com
Lee Matthew, MA, CFP®, has provided investment advice and financial planning services to clients for more than sixteen years. With clients residing across the United States, Lee and her team are located in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, Lee works closely with individuals and small business owners to develop financial plans designed to meet their unique objectives, which often include retirement planning, tax strategies, estate planning, and charitable giving. She provides the clarity and education clients need to help make informed decisions about their investments. Lee is currently a member of the Financial Planning Association and the New Mexico Estate Planning Council.
After graduating with high honors in economics from Wellesley College, Lee traveled to France in the early 1970s to study philosophy at the University of Paris-Sorbonne. At that time she became fascinated with labyrinths and would take the train to Chartres, frustrated that the labyrinth there was covered over with prayer chairs. Attending the Veriditas programs in Chartres over the past couple of years, Lee was finally able to realize her decades-old dream of walking the Chartres labyrinth.
Lee has had the good fortune to walk both labyrinths at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral every year for more than a decade, and she walks some of the many labyrinths in New Mexico as often as she can.
Lee is an Investment Adviser Representative and Registered Representative of INVEST Financial Corporation, member FINRA/SIPC, a registered Investment Advisor, and affiliated insurance companies. INVEST does not offer tax or legal advice.
Cynthia J. Ries
Cleveland, Ohio
Cynthia Ries lives in Cleveland, Ohio and works as the Director of Development at Beaumont School, a college-prep high school for girls sponsored by the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland. She has over thirty years of experience working in the nonprofit sector, including grant making, advocacy, development and marketing. Twenty-five of these years were spent in New York City, where she held various positions at the New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Metropolitan Opera, American Composers Orchestra, Theatre Development Fund, and the Children's Museum of Manhattan. Her passion for women's issues and social justice led her to also work at The New York Women's Foundation.
A frequent speaker and consultant, she has served on several boards, including The Artists' Community Federal Credit Union and Women's Advocate Ministry and she continues to serve on the advisory council for the Images of Divinity Project. She currently is an adjunct professor teaching arts administration at New York University and Milano: The New School for Management and Urban Professions.
She is a member of Marble Collegiate Church, her first introduction to the labyrinth was in Ohio at Ursuline.
Cynthia holds a BA from Lake Erie College and an MPA from New York University's Wagner School of Public Service.
Rebecca Rodriguez
Canyon Lake, Texas
Rebecca Rodriguez Rebecca is a Hospice Consultant/RNR Health Care Consultant specializing in access, conversions, marketing, executive team development & annual renewal retreats, identifying agency core values, and creating lasting market differentiation. She has been a National Conference Presenter for five consecutive years at the National Hospice Symposium, Washington DC and at the Texas/New Mexico national hospice organization. She is also a member of the organizing committee for ABODE ~ Contemplative Home for the Dying, San Antonio, Texas 2010.
While trekking the Inca Trail, Peru, a pre-dawn dream-vision in a small tent at 14,000 feet showed her a wondrous circle image over looking a lake. Later, she created the first wooden labyrinth, Labyrinth of the Lake, over looking the blue waters of Canyon Lake, Texas in 1997. For many years has been a Veriditas trained labyrinth facilitator, taking the labyrinth into hospice settings among others. She first introduced labyrinths to a national hospice conventions in1999 and created the Holistic Labyrinth Seed Kit for health care professionals 2008.
Rebecca is currently creating the 'Soul Transition Cards', cards & book designed to assist the dying & their loved ones as they bridge this world with the next. She is the creator of The Labyrinth Inspiration Cards (Available online, church & commercial bookstores and Amazon.com. In print since 2001). She also is responsible for the fourth translation of 'The Prayer For Higher Good.' (Available online. In print/circulation since 1999).
Among her other accomplishments are being the co-founder of The Sacred Passage, an Internet source for health care professionals, patients and their families, and a founding board member of the Ronald McDonald House in Corpus Christi, Texas, raising over 1 million dollars to create the first Ronald McDonald house in South Texas in 1989.
Her education includes a BA in Education from Pan American University, Texas, and studies in Economics and American Sign Language at the University of Texas. She has three daughters.
Mary Jo Saaverdra
Emily Simpson
Emily Simpson is an Australian entrepreneur who founded ‘Bodywise’, an underwear business in 1995. It promoted a philosophy of dynamic self-acceptance, celebrating women of all shapes and sizes. She won several awards for her innovative marketing approach. She sold the business in 2005.
Having written poetry for many years as a way of metabolizing her experience, she moved from Sydney to a rainforest retreat and has self published some of her work.
Frustrated by the absence of public labyrinths in Sydney, she is working towards having one built in Centennial Park. Emily is a Veriditas certified facilitator and, with a canvas labyrinth, holds candlelit walks in Sydney every few months.
The Labyrinth and poetry are now the two main streams of her life – both forms of prayer that help embody and articulate her journey.
