Growth and Change in FGC Staff
by Bruce Birchard
FGC is completing the process of hiring four new program directors. This unusually large number (we have the equivalent of 13.5 full time employees) is due both to expansion of our services to Friends and to the departure of two valued colleagues.
Evelyn Whitbeck-Poorbaugh, our skilled FGC Bookstore manager, left FGC at the end of January to live in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Liz Yeats, our staff coordinator for the Religious Education and Publications programs (and more!) is leaving Philadelphia to catch up with her husband, who took a job in Austin, Texas.
We were blessed with many incredibly qualified and wonderful candidates for these positions-more than fifty applications in all. We have hired the following people:
Bookstore Manager: Nadine Hoover comes to FGC from Southeast Yearly Meeting, where she served Friends as both office and field staff. She also worked for ten years as an independent consultant to agencies and programs in the United States and Indonesia. She was raised in New York Yearly Meeting and is a thoroughly seasoned Friend.
Religious Education Coordinator: Marsha Holliday comes to FGC from Baltimore Yearly Meeting, where she served as Associate Secretary and provided staff support for Religious Education and Youth Programs since 1990. She joined Friends in 1977, is now a member of Langley Hill Meeting, and also worked at Sidwell Friends School.
Traveling Ministries Program: The Coordinator for our new Traveling Ministries Program is Deborah Fisch, a convinced Friend and Assistant Clerk of Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative). For eight years, she published a weekly newspaper in a conservative Iowa county, working as editor, reporter, and almost everything else; she took real risks in the editorials she wrote on subjects such as the Gulf War. She is leaving her current job as coordinator of the Iowa Peace Network to serve FGC. She will work from her home in Iowa, coordinating the new Traveling Ministries program.
Publications Coordinator: Barbara Hirshkowitz has been working in the FGC Bookstore since November 1997. Her publication experience comes from ten years as a member of New Society Publishers Collective, with a specialty in editing and production. She is a practicing Buddhist and an avid gardener.