Board of Trustees

Marian Beane (Piedmont Friends Fellowship and Yearly Meeting) has served as a Quaker volunteer internationally in Ramallah (1968-1970) and Kenya (1970). She has also held many positions of leadership in Quaker organizations, including Friends World Committee for Consultation and as Clerk of Central Committee for Friends General Conference. From 1976-2015 she taught international education with international students. 

Elizabeth (Liz) Gates (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and New England Yearly Meeting) has a wide background of Quaker service over 45 years.  She has served a Clerk of Lancaster Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania and was active in Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) for over 25 years, serving on the Executive Committee of the Section of the Americas, as Assistant Clerk on the Central Executive Committee for the World and as co-clerk of the planning committee for the World Gathering of Friends held in 2012 in Kabarak, Kenya.  She and her husband Tom worked at Friends Lugulu Hospital in Western Kenya for three years and in Lisungwi, Malawi for a year and a half.  Now retired from conservation work at a seminary library, Liz has a love of gardening, bookbinding and paper marbling.

Sally Weaver Sommer (Lake Erie Yearly Meeting) has a PhD in Economics with one focus being Economic Development. For the past 35 years she has worked as a faculty member and administrator at Bluffton University, a Mennonite university in Bluffton, Ohio. Sally also is co-owner of "The Food Store," a natural foods store in Bluffton, which opened in 1981. 

Elizabeth Reuthe (New England Yearly Meeting) has spent the last 20 years as an organizational consultant and Executive Coach. She has an MSBA and MA and prior to her current roles she spent more than 20 years as an executive in businesses large and small. Elizabeth has traveled widely and has a particular familiarity with Tamil Nadu, India (where RSWR works). 

Becca Mohally Renk (North Pacific Yearly Meeting and Managua Worship Group) has lived and worked in Nicaragua with the Jubilee House Community and its project there, the Center for Development in Central America, for the past 20 years. In her work in sustainable community development with the JHC-CDCA, Becca has focused on shared risk investment, worker-owned cooperatives, at-risk teenage girls, and educating those in the global north about realities in Nicaragua. Life-long Quakers, Becca and her husband Paul (Ireland YM) met on the Quaker Youth Pilgrimage in 1994. They have two daughters and live in a rural village outside Managua.

Gloria Wafula, MPA (Elgon East Yearly Meeting, Kenya and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, PA) is a doctoral student at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, pursuing a degree in Education Policy and Administration. Prior to this, she worked with a nonprofit organization helping homeless people in Delaware. She holds a master’s degree in Public Administration and Nonprofit Management. As a committed Quaker, she strongly believes in the virtues of generosity, kindness and love.

Jonathan Brown (North Pacific Yearly Meeting) lives in Seattle, WA. He is employed as a computer programmer at Adobe Systems. Jonathan is a member of South Seattle Friends Meeting and is also active in Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting and North Pacific Yearly Meeting. He has been involved for many years with the Friends Committee on National Legislation and believes strongly in the power of constituents contacting their legislators regularly.

Jim Carl is a retired diplomat who spent more than 14 years living and working in emerging nations in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe where he managed development and relief programs for the United Nations and the U.S. Government.  He was educated at the University of Missouri (Political Science), Arizona State University (Business Administration), and Oxford University (Disaster Management).  He lives in El Cerrito, California with his wife Barbara Birch who is a Professor Emeritus at California State University – Fresno and a member of Strawberry Creek Friends Meeting in Berkeley California.

Born in Ohio and raised in the Missionary Baptist church, Angela became a Friend in Nzoia, Kenya, where she met Priscilla Makino, pastor of a meeting there. The two traveled extensively in ministry throughout Africa and the US. Through a journey of discernment she returned to join the Friends in the US, were she was released to found the Friends Center for Racial Justice in Ithaca for Friends everywhere.

Tom Gates (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting) has spent his career as a family doctor and medical educator, bookended by two stints of medical work in rural Africa: 1991-94, at Friends Lugulu Hospital in Kenya, with Friends United Meeting; and 2015-17, at Lisungwi Community Hospital in Malawi, with Boston-based Partners in Health. He is a member of Lancaster Friends Monthly Meeting, and has authored five Pendle Hill Pamphlets (319, 341, 371, 422, and 435). In his retirement, he works 3 days a week at our the Community Health Center in Lancaster, PA (dubbed by the BBC as “Americas Refugee Capital”) taking care of many refugees and immigrants.

Bob Runyan is a member of Chico Friends Meeting in northern California. He served in the Peace Corps in Seychelles from 1983 to 1985 and then worked in the computer software industry. He served three years as the Executive Director of Sierra Friends Center and eight years as Co-Director (with wife Kathy) of Ben Lomond Quaker Center. Bob currently enjoys working as a piano technician.

Phil Goodchild (Western Yearly Meeting) lives in Zionsville, Indiana.  He grew up in various developing nations as the son of a U.S. Foreign Service officer, and spent his career as a commercial real estate lawyer.  He is a member of Indianapolis First Friends Monthly Meeting, and is active as an advocate with Friends Committee on National Legislation, and on the state level with Indiana Friends Committee on Legislation.  He is privileged to serve RSWR, furthering a collaboration with women's groups in other countries that promotes both self-determination for them and a deeper understanding of what "enough" is for us.

A recorded minister, Ruthie was raised in Northwest Yearly Meeting, and served in pastoral ministry in Iowa and Western Yearly Meetings of Friends.  Prior to this, Ruthie was an elementary music teacher and holds a master’s degree in Education/Creative Arts in Learning.  Ruthie prompted the experiential curriculum Quaker Affirmation – a Course of Study for Young Friends for middle school students needing to learn about Quaker history, faith, and practice. She currently serves on the Nurture of Ministry Committee for Sierra Cascades Yearly Meeting.  Ruthie writes, leads worship and study groups, and volunteers as the Children’s Program Coordinator at her local Library.

Max Carter (North Carolina Fellowship of Friends) is the William R. Rogers Director of Friends Center and Quaker Studies (emeritus) at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina. Max is a member of New Garden Monthly Meeting in Greensboro. He regularly leads service-learning trips to The Ramallah Friends School and Palestine and Israel.

Spence retired after serving in the financial services industry for 40 years as a sales leader and commercial lender to public and private companies across many industries.  A graduate of Guilford College, he has served on many not-for-profit Boards including several that were Quaker related.  He and his wife live in Charlotte, NC.  He is drawn to the work RSWR does because of the dignity RS brings to women in societies where they have little to no standing as well as the thoughtful and efficient manner with which it deploys its resources.

David K. Leonard (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting) is a retired specialist on rural development in Africa.

John Voss (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting) spent seven years as a teacher in Quaker schools in Philadelphia, and in Ramallah, Palestine, as an American Friends Service Committee Fellow. He subsequently trained as a banker at J.P. Morgan, spending 23 years in the Middle East and London, ten with Merrill Lynch, focusing on Islamic finance and ethical investing. John holds an M.Div. (Theology) from Yale and an MBA (Finance) from UCLA. He serves on the Board of Friends Mutual Health Group, and is a Trustee of Centre Monthly Meeting near Wilmington, Delaware.