Board of Directors
President: Rev. Nina Nichols is the Senior Pastor of Christ Church United Methodist in Troy, New York. She has served rural congregations in Central Texas and urban churches in the Northern Illinois and Troy conferences. Nina currently serves on the Board of Directors for Troy Area United Ministries, Rensselaer County Habitat for Humanity, the Troy Annual Conference chapter of Methodist Federation for Social Action, and as Spiritual Director for the Chrysalis Board. Nina has a BA from Trinity University and a M.Div. from the University of Chicago. She is married to Andrew Torres, PhD, and has three children. In addition to her work in the church, Nina is an avid runner. To date, she has completed 5 marathons and enjoys competing in 5K races.
Vice President: Edward Bennett is a retiree from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation where he served for 32+ years in the field of Air Pollution. Ed has extensive experience with New York’s Acid Rain, Global Warming, and Energy Programs. Until the recent conference restructuring, Ed served as the Environmental Justice Coordinator and Co Chair of the Board of Church and Society for Troy Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Ed also serves on the Board of Trustees of Jonesville United Methodist Church.
Treasurer: John Allen is a retired attorney formerly working as a Support Magistrate in Family Court, Onondaga County. He is a graduate of Williams College and Syracuse University. He taught for ten years in Kenya and Zambia. John serves as chair of the Green Sanctuary Committee of May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society. He is active in BikeCNY, advocating cycling as an alternative to fossil-fuel transportation; Habitat Gardening of Central New York (which supports planting of native plants and removal of invasive species); and Edible Gardening, a group he formed to share vegetable and fruit gardening information and help others start gardening. He has also been providing some assistance to two community gardens in the Syracuse area. He and his wife Janet seek to organically grow as much of their own food as they can.
Secretary: Susan Bues has been the Chief Financial Officer for the Sisters of the Holy Names in Albany, NY. She has an MBA from Baruch College, CUNY and a B.A. from SUNY New Paltz. She served on the Board of Directors of the Karuna Tendai Dharma Center, a Buddhist temple, and is a member of the Investment Committee for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. She is also a long-time member of several organic and biodynamic farms and of the Sierra Club. Her interests are socially responsible investing, organic farming, and interfaith activities.
Sr. Mary Ann Garisto, SC is the director for Ecological Concerns for the Sisters of Charity of New York of which she is a member, and the Administrator of Sisters Hill Farm, a CSA farm in Stanfordville, New York. In both of these capacities she works toward raising consciousness and awareness of current environmental, agricultural and food safety issues through many types of educational activities and projects. Deeply influenced by her mentor Thomas Berry, she has a strong conviction of the need of people of faith to take responsibility for the care of the earth as members of one single, sacred earth community. Sr. Mary Ann is involved in the activities of many environmental organizations, is a member of ROAR (Religious Organizations Along the River) and served as a member of the steering committee of the Hudson River Project at Garrison Institute. She is a former Biology teacher, and has an MS from Fordham University and a BS from the College of Mount Saint Vincent.
Gladys Gifford serves the Presbytery of WNY as Stewardship of Creation Educator (volunteer). In that capacity, she advocates for peacemaking through action alerts to pastors and church educators, and through displays at presbytery meetings, serves as representative of the presbytery at regional environmental and economic justice meetings, and brings resources to Presbytery committees and to individual congregations to raise awareness of justice and environmental issues. Ms. Gifford is the first Authorized Lay Preacher (ALP) in the Presbytery of WNY. She earned her Master of Theology degree from Christ the King Seminary in 2006, with a concentration in eco-justice studies. She lives in Eggertsville, NY, with her husband, Alvin J. Schuster. Ms. Gifford is an ordained elder at University Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, NY.
Rev. Brooke Newell has served as the Director of the Saratoga County Interfaith Environmental Coalition (SCIEC) since July 2009. In this capacity, she coordinates the coalition’s work to promote faithful stewardship of creation locally, nationally and globally. In addition to her work with the SCIEC, she is the Advocacy Ministries Coordinator for the presbyteries of Albany, Cayuga-Syracuse, Northern NY, Susquehanna Valley and Utica, Presbyterian Church USA, providing resources and training to congregations for social justice ministry.
The Rev. Newell is a clergy member of the North Central New York Conference of the United Methodist Church. She served as a pastor for 15 years and served one year at the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society in Washington, DC, designing educational experiences for United Methodists on faithful citizenship. She is a 1991 graduate of Yale Divinity School in New Haven, CT. She and her family have lived in Glens Falls, NY since 2006.
Rev. Jan McClary Rowell has served as United Methodist pastor in the Troy Conference, United Methodist Church since 1978. Long a supporter of Heifer International, her interest in caring for creation was stirred on a HI study tour in Ecuador, 2004. There, while visiting several family farms, the vital connections between healthy people, strong community, and a sustainable environment became very clear to her. Upon return, her family became members of CSA Roxbury Farm. She began to read about environmental ministry and to understand scripture in new ways. Rev. Rowell states that there are many environmental concerns that must be addressed for the saving of the earth as we know it. The energy and vision of the faith community is essential to inspire people making lifestyle changes that will offer hope and a sustainable way of living on this earth. Since summer 2008 Rev. Rowell has served as District Superintendent of the Embury District, Troy Conference. She looks forward to opportunities to join with people of faith, such as in the work of NYIPL, to strengthen this ministry.
Reverend Jerry Shave is a retired Presbyterian minister who is still active in preaching in area churches. He has worked as a Marriage and Family Therapist and recently retired as Chaplain at University Hospital UMU in Syracuse. He is supportive of many social issues i.e. preserving the environment, energy conservation, peacemaking, and other issues. He lives in Liverpool with his wife, Carola, who shares his passion for social justice issues.
STAFF: Executive Director
Janna Stieg Watkins has worked professionally with a variety of nonprofit organizations for the past 18 years, including a Catholic-based Central America solidarity organization, a food bank in a Lutheran church, and an organization serving low-income seniors that was started by the Sisters of Charity and the Wheaton Franciscan Sisters. Janna was raised as a protestant Christian, and is very interested in commonalities shared by different faiths. For much of her professional life she has done fundraising as a Development Director, and the last four years were spent as Executive Director of a faith-based organization in Denver. She brings to NYIPL a passion for the environment and an excitement for nonprofit management. Janna holds a master's degree in political science from the University of Colorado at Denver, and lives with her family in Manlius (near Syracuse), New York.
NYIPL Advisory Board
Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, currently the first woman Director of Religion at the historic Chautauqua Institution. Reverand Campbell is an ordained minister with standing in two Christian denominations, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the American Baptist Church and a former General Secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.
Bill McKibben, United Methodist layperson and author of many books including The End of Nature, one of the first books for the layperson concerning the true cost of global warming, the destruction of the ozone layer and other man-made ills. Other books include: Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age; Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case for a More Joyful Christmas; Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth, and others. Bill McKibben is currently a visiting scholar at Middlebury College in Vermont.
Bishop Susan W. Hassinger is the bishop of the Troy Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Prior to that position, Bishop Hassinger served as Bishop-in-Residence and Adjunct Professor, Boston University School of Theology, Mass., as a liaison between Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church and the 13 United Methodist schools of theology in the United States, and as Spiritual Director, Carter Memorial United Methodist Church, Needham, Mass.
Bishop Susan Morrison, is former Bishop of the Troy Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Ven. Monshin Paul Naamon, Abbot, Karuna Tendai Dharma Center, The Tendai-shu New York Betsuin and also a staff chaplain with the Capital District and Berkshire County Hospices as well as being listed as a Buddhist Chaplain on call at many area hospitals. The Karuna Tendai Dharma Center is currently renovating and building new "green" buildings for their facilities.
Rev. John Paarlberg, minister for Social Witness of the Reformed Church of America.
Pete and Toshi Seeger, singer and songwriter, Pete was given the nation's highest artistic honors at the Kennedy Center in December 1994. He also built the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater to highlight the plight of our waterways.
Peter Lindabury, chair of the U.S. Green Building Council. The U.S. Green Building Council Upstate New York Chapter is the nation's foremost coalition of leaders from across the building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable, and healthy places to live and work.
New York Interfaith Power and Light was founded March 29, 2004.
