Staff & Board of Directors

Rev. Morgan McLean, Chair
Davis, CA
Term to 2022

Rev. Morgan McLean is a lifelong Unitarian Universalist and has been involved in congregations in Wisconsin, Washington, DC, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois. Before entering ministry, Morgan worked on human rights issues with Amnesty International, USA.   

At Main Line Unitarian Church in suburban Philadelphia, Morgan worked closely with the congregation’s Partner Church efforts, including a visit in 2013 to their partner church in Várfalva, Transylvania and a subsequent visit from eight of the villagers to Main Line in 2014.  Her personal experience in Transylvania was transformative as she connected with the historic roots of our shared faith and found new ways to engage that history with spirituality. Morgan is the Assistant Minister for Congregational Life at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, CA.

Anne Greenwood, Vice-Chair
San Pablo, CA
Term to 2022

Anne Greenwood was first introduced to Transylvanian Unitarians at the 1984 World Congress of the International Association for Religious Freedom. She has been involved ever since, traveling many times to Partner congregations in Transylvania, including her own partner church of Homoródúfalu. She has served as member, chair and co-chair of the Partner Church Committee at the UU Church of Berkeley since its inception in 1990, and is an active member of the Balázs Scholar Committee, supporting a visiting scholar and their family for the academic year at Starr King School for the Ministry. She also served as a UUPCC networker in the Pacific Central District.

Rev. Eric Meter, Secretary 
Racine, WI
Term to 2021

Rev. Eric Meter Born and raised Unitarian Universalist, Rev. Meter recently completed twelve years as Associate Minister at First UU of Columbus OH, Currently he serves as interim minister of Olympia Bown UUC in Racine, WI.  

After completing his Masters of Divinity at Starr King School for the Ministry and a ministerial internship under the late Rev. Dan O'Neal at the UUC Santa Rosa, Eric served the UU Church in Livermore, CA until 2007. During his tenure, he was president of the local Interfaith Council and co-chaired a marketing campaign of 17 UU congregations in the San Francisco Bay area.  Other highlights included two visits to Livermore's partner church in Transylvania, leading a youth service trip to New Orleans to help post-Katrina rebuilding efforts, and preaching in Soweto during a sabbatical month in South Africa. Upon leaving Livermore, Eric served a one-year interim ministry in upstate New York. 

In 2007 Eric received the Distinguished Service Award from the Pacific Central District of the UUA. Prior to answering the call to ministry, Eric was a VISTA volunteer with the Minnesota Literacy Council in St. Paul, MN, and worked with the Twin Cities' Southeast Asian refugee and immigrant communities. During this time, Eric was active in both local and district UU young adult programming.

Rick Irwin, Treasurer
Atlanta GA
Term to 2022

Rick Irwin was an actuary for PricewaterhouseCoopers for 18 years, specializing in health insurance projects for large employers. He retired last September.  His responsibilities were tied to analysis of the client's health plan experience, so he is very comfortable crunching numbers to identify trends & outliers and to be sure everything "adds up." 

Rick says: I am interested in the UUPCC because of the recent choir trip to India.  Three of us from UUMAN were able to make the trip (me, my wife Paula Watson, and Pat Lambert).  It was fantastic, and I expect to have a continuing relationship with our new friends Banjop, Nangroi, and Baria. 

Rev. Alicia Forde
UUA Appointee
Boston, MA

Rev. Alicia Forde joins us as the new UUA Director of International Resources, leading the UUA’s engagement with global Unitarian, Universalist and interfaith partners, including supervising the UU United Nations Office and the Holdeen India Program.

Rev. Alicia previously served as the UUA’s Professional Development Director, and as the Multicultural Congregations Program Coordinator. She notes that her work (and play!) rests on a foundation of collaboration, deep listening, transnational feminism, and wrestling with the legacies and impact of settler colonialism and imperialism across the globe. Alicia has a Master of Divinity from Iliff School of Theology and is also a certified Spiritual Director.

Carol Cook
San Mateo, CA
Term to 2023

Carol Cook has served on the UUPCC Board since June 2014, and on the UUPCC Communications Committee since January 2010. She is a retired librarian and resides in San Mateo, California. She is co-chair of UUSM's Partner Church Committee and has served UUSM as Membership co-chair, Treasurer, Financial Secretary, and Board member. Carol has traveled to the Philippines numerous times to meet UUSM's partners in the Ulay congregation on Negros Island, and in March 2013 organized a large collection of theology books donated by Dr. Richard Beals to the UU Church of the Philippines library in Dumaguete.

Joel Schrag
Washington, DC
Term to 2023

Joel Schrag has been a member of the River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation in the Washington, DC, area for almost fifteen years. As a result of his friendship with several of the founding members of RRUUC's Partner Church Committee and a chance conversation at a social justice interest fair, he became involved in RRUUC's partnerships with Unitarian churches in Fiatfalva, Transylvania, and Mawblang, NE India. These long-standing partnerships date from 1992 and 2007, respectively. 

For the past seven years, Joel has served as chair of the RRUUC Partner Church Committee. In addition to making several trips to visit both of RRUUC's partner congregations, Joel has organized groups of River Road members to visit both places, and he worked with the other members of his committee to organize a visit to Washington by a delegation of lay members and the minister from the Unitarian Church in Fiatfalva. One of Joel's favorite activities during the year is helping out with the cooking at his committee's annual Partnerfest celebration, which has honed his expertise in cooking a variety of Hungarian and Indian foods and raised funds to support educational and other programs in RRUUC's partners' communities. In his professional life, Joel is an economist at the Federal Trade Commission.

Rev. Howard Dana
Concord, MA 
Term to 2021

Rev. Howard Dana came to First Parish in August 2013, after 13 years serving the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg. A graduate of Starr King School for the Ministry, he previously served as intern minister at Birmingham Unitarian Church outside Detroit and interim minister at the Mission Peak UU Congregation in Fremont, California. Under Howard’s leadership in Harrisburg, his church was designated by the UUA as a Breakthrough Congregation, for its visionary acquisition of an inner-city church building to accommodate a growing congregation.

Howard made a second trip to Transylvania in spring'18 to see Concord’s partners in Székelykeresztúr.  He has enthusiastically embraced Concord’s longtime partnership there and has also found other ways to engage in our global faith—most recently by attending the ICUU Conference earlier this year in Nepal.

In his free time, Howard enjoys contra dancing, cooking, painting, movies, bookstores, gardening, travel, and his pitbull, Rosie. An outdoor enthusiast, he loves kayaking, hiking, camping, biking, and walking. 

Rev. Debra Faulk
Calgary, Canada 
Term to 2022

Debra Faulk serves the Unitarian Church of Calgary, the same congregation where her parents first recognized themselves as Unitarian and brought her along as a toddler.  As a life-long Canadian Unitarian, she has found this religious tradition to be a solid foundation in her life.

After serving as the parish minister at the Don Heights Unitarian Congregation in Toronto for 4 years, she was called by the Unitarian Church of Calgary in August of 2010.  Debra participated in the Mindful Walk Transylvania pilgrimage in the summer of 2018. 

Debra holds a B.A. from the University of Victoria (Psychology / Anthropology) and a Master of Divinity degree from the Vancouver School of Theology. When not at the church, she can be found going to concerts, tending plants inside and out, reading, hiking, and connecting with friends and family including five grandchildren.

Rev. Fred Muir,
Interim Executive Director
fred@uupcc.org

Fred Muir recently retired from active parish ministry having served Unitarian Universalist congregations for 42 years.  He is Minister Emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis. For nearly three decades he has served the UUA in a number of capacities, most recently as the Interim Director of International Programs.  Since 1994, he has been the UUA Ambassador to the UU Church of the Philippines and is currently researching and writing about the roles that Unitarian Universalists had in the American occupation of the Philippines from 1898-1946. He served as the UUPCC Board VP, 2000-2004. 
Fred has authored five books  including Maglipay Universalist, a short history of the UU Church of the Philippines (available on Kindle!).

Trina Priese,
Administrator
trina@uupcc.org

A second generation UU, Trina is a life-long member at Eliot Unitarian Chapel in Kirkwood MO.  A retired business and technology teacher, Trina traveled with her church group in 2016 to visit Eliot’s partner village in Transylvania.  In 2017 while serving on the board at Eliot, she met Rev. Bertschausen as the UUPCC office moved to its current location in St. Louis.  When the opportunity to serve as partner church office administrator came, she embraced it eagerly and hasn’t looked back.  

Trina keeps a picture of her partner village congregants as her desktop display and says that working with the UUPCC partner members has enrichened her faith and provided a global understanding that she hadn’t had before.  Trina’s favorite part of partnership work is helping members and travelers have the best partner experiences possible.