Unitarian Universalist United Nation's Office Advisory Board

When the Unitarian Universalist United Nation’s Office (UU-UNO) and the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) merged in early 2012, the merger agreement specified the creation of an Advisory Board. At the recommendation of Peter Morales, President of the UUA, the purpose of the UU-UNO Advisory Board is to give advice and support the UU-UNO. Under the Chairmanship of David Overton and the UU-UNO Director, Bruce Knotts, each Advisory Board member has selected a UU-UNO program to champion and support.

Member Biographies

Lisa Bredbenner

Lisa grew up in South America. There was only one Protestant Church in any given city in which her family lived, so she only knew of non-denominational churches. When she joined her UU Congregation, it was not a leap. She moved to the U.S. to attend NYU. When she graduated, she began working for her brother-in law who was opening up a new dental practice in downtown New York City. The office has grown into a multi-doctor practice since 1981 and she has grown with it. She is head of personnel and she also became the bookkeeper. The Board of Trustees of the building that the office resides in asked her to do the bookkeeping for them as well. She has a lot of interaction with various city agencies and mediates issues between Condo members.

Lisa joined the UU Congregation of Monmouth County in 1996 when her children turned 2. She served on the Board as RE Chair, VP of the Board, and President of the Board. During her tenure on the Board, she helped change the governance structure to a more manageable one that is more in line with the Carver model. It was so successful, the Metro NY District asked her to speak at several of their seminars about this change. She then served on the Nominating Committee of the Metro District, and soon became Chair of this committee. In 2011, she joined the UU UNO Spring Seminar committee. She served as Chair that year. The title was “Empower Women for a Better World.” The office did not have enough funds to bring Queen Esther over from Ghana, so Lisa threw a fundraiser at her home to raise the amount needed. They exceeded expectations and were able to not only bring Queen Esther to New York to speak at the Seminar, but enough for her to speak at other venues about “Every Child is Our Child”. She has served as Chair of the Spring Seminar Committee 3 times (including this year), and served on the committee in other capacities as well.

In 2012, she served on the UU UNO 50th Anniversary Committee. Peggy Montgomery and Lisa spent many afternoons in the “bell towers” of All Souls putting together a timeline of this wonderful organization!

Lisa is an avid tennis player and sculls on the Navesink River in the spring and summer.

Gina Damasco

Gina Damasco is a native New Yorker, bibliophile, lover of languages and foreign cultures, and proud product of immigrants who have come to America seeking the American dream. During her undergraduate studies at New York University, she spent a semester abroad studying Shakespeare and British Literature, as well as a semester in Washington DC, where she completed a Foreign Policy Semester with American University and an internship with the Congressional Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology. Thereafter, in furtherance of her dream of working in the field of international human rights, she obtained her degree from Rutgers Law School. There, she managed and participated on its Phillip C. Jessup International Moot Court Atlantic Regional Competition’s team, which she also promoted in her role as International Law Society President. During her time at Rutgers, she won an Outstanding and Dedicated Service Award for her work with the Rutgers Special Education Law Clinic, and served as a legal research assistant in the area of the disparate and exclusionary impact of zoning laws based upon socioeconomic status. She also served as an editor of the Women’s Right’s Law Journal, and a research assistant in the area of contingent workers and the Americans with Disabilities Act. In law school she also spent a semester abroad, this time in Paris with Tulane Law School, where she received a specialization in European Legal Studies. Backpacking across Europe during both semesters abroad and gaining invaluable exposure to different cultures, customs, and languages, were some of the greatest memories of her life.

Having difficulty finding meaningful work in the field of her passion, international human rights, she accepted positions in the telecommunications industry doing zoning and property work while volunteering with the American Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity. Subsequently, after gaining exceptional experience in her position with the Employment and Labor Department of Sills Cummis and Gross, she left to take a position as a civil rights attorney and mediator with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in Boston MA. Over her 11 years with that agency, she also privately pursued her French, Spanish, and Mandarin language development to better prepare her to work in the field of international human rights. Given the considerable professional conflicts and preclusions incumbent upon her in her federal position, Gina left federal service in January 2017 to accept an Assistant General Counsel position with a Florida university. Soon thereafter, upon the encouragement of friends and peers, she left to form her own nonprofit to provide diversity and inclusion, anti-discrimination and anti-harassment, and mediation training and resources to other nonprofits, startups, women/minority-owned small businesses, and public entities that deal with socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. She also received a Rutgers Mini-MBA in Digital Marketing from Rutgers Business School, to better prepare herself to make her nonprofit dream of creating an unbiased, organically diverse and inclusive workforce a reality.

During this startup phase, Gina has been learning about nonprofit formation, as well as actively participating in her local UU (Unitarian Society of Ridgewood), Ridgewood JOLT, the UU Immigration Task Force, and serving as a pro bono attorney for Volunteer Lawyers for Justice. In addition to the UU-UNO Advisory Board, Gina serves as a Board Member for the newly formed social justice nonprofit JOLT, which works on GOTV, immigration, women’s and racial justice, and environmental justice causes. In her spare time, she dotes on her rescue animals while evaluating potential doctoral programs in public administration for Fall 2019. Gina is humbled and deeply honored to be serving her fellow board members and the exceptional UU-UNO staff members.

PJ Deak

Charles Du Mond

Charles Du Mond, married to Barbara, with two daughters: Jennifer and Emily.

Barbara and Charles joined the Unitarian Universalists of San Mateo (UUSM) in 1993. He started his religious life attending “generic” Protestant churches on Air Force bases. His father was in the Air Force for the first 12 years of Charle's life and they lived in England, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, and California.

In college, Barbara and Charles started attending Quaker meetings. She had grown up as a Lutheran. They joined the Iowa City Monthly Friends Meeting when we were both in graduate school at the University of Iowa. They were married under the care of the Meeting in 1982. During their time in Iowa City, they both served as Clerk of the Meeting. Their Meeting also partnered with a local United Church of Christ (UCC) church to provide sanctuary for a Guatemalan refugee family.

In 1988, the Du Monds moved to San Mateo, after receiving their graduate degrees. At first, they attended the Palo Alto Friends Meeting, but found the community focused on activities in Palo Alto, so they looked for a new spiritual home, compatible with their beliefs and active in their neighborhood. Some friends suggested the UU church. For many years, Charles described the UU church as a kind of United Nations of Religion, and he was a Quaker representative in this multi-faith church. Sometime in the last five years, he stopped using that phrase and now he simply describes himself as a Unitarian Universalist.

Charles has served in leadership positions at UUSM for the past 15 years (President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Financial Secretary). He has chaired the Pledge Drive and other fundraising events. When he made the change to policy-based governance, he served on the first Coordinating Team. He has a continuing commitment to religious education at UUSM, teaching all grade levels, Coming of Age, and OWL for junior high students (even AYS before the OWL curriculum was developed).

Charles has served on the UUA President’s Council for 4 years. For the last 2 years, he has been a member of the steering committee for that group. He is also on the discernment committee for the next UUA major fundraising campaign. His Unitarian Universalist experience includes many multicultural experiences and challenges. UUSM has a partner church in Ulay, Philippines. The Du Monds visited Ulay in March 2011 and supported the community as they performed a community capacity building workshop. In May 2012, they traveled to Ghana with the UU United Nations Office delegation and the monitoring trip for the Every Child is our Child program.

Professionally, Charles has a Ph.D in Statistics and he has worked in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry since 1988.

Raymond Firmalino

Raymond Firmalino is originally from Los Angeles and now resides in New Haven, Connecticut where he serves as Assistant Director of the Asian American Cultural Center at Yale University. Prior to Yale, he worked at Harvard University in student affairs and focused on inclusion and equity.

As an Intern with the UU-UNO, Ray led many of the Office's LGBTQ human rights initiatives, and supported the women's human rights program as well. Following the UU-UNO, he was a Duke Humanitarian Action Fellow with the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland addressing issues of global violence against women. He has worked for a variety of organizations in his career, which share the common goal of social justice.

He holds a BA in Psychology from UC Berkeley, an MSW from Columbia University, and is finishing up a Masters in Higher Education Administration at Harvard.

Mary Ann Lang

Mary Ann is a founding partner of North Star Vision Group (NSVG). The purpose of NSVG is to enable organizations and professionals to provide people who have impaired vision with accessible and appropriate services and products. This includes consultation to develop high quality low vision clinical and rehabilitation services through low vision training/awareness initiatives. North Star is currently engaged in projects in the Middle East, South America, and Europe.

Mary Ann retired from her position as Vice President for International Programs for Lighthouse International in 2005. She had been with the Lighthouse since 1976, serving consecutively as director of children's services, professional training, client programs, the National Center for Vision and Child Development, and the Lighthouse International Center on Low Vision.

In addition, Mary Ann has been a university educator of professionals in the United States and Chile in the fields of psychology, education, and blindness and visual impairment. Among the topics she has addressed are: the impact of visual impairment on people and their families; the interface between impairments and environments; and the development of low vision care worldwide.

She received her M.S. in special education from Hunter College, her M.Phil.and Ph.D., both focused on psychology, human development, and education, from the University Center and Graduate School, City of Univeristy New York (CUNY). She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Association for the Education and Rehabilitation of People who are Blind and Visually Impaired, International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment and an honorary member of the Pan American Society on Low Vision.

Mary Ann is a member of Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City. She served as a member of the UU-UNO Board of Directors from 2006 to 2010. In this capacity, for the most part, she focused her attention on developing grant proposals to raise funds for the general operations of the office and its programs. Mary Ann has two daughters, Diane and Linda, and five grandchildren, Benjamin, Jonathan, Anna, Nicolas, and Alexander.

Jan Nolte

Jan Nolte officially became a UU in 1989 when she joined the Community Church, in White Plains, New York. It was a vital spiritual home for Jan and her young family for 14 years and she gladly served Sunday mornings in RE, on the RE Board, the Ministerial Search Committee and organized countless potlucks and barbeques. For the past 14 years Jan has been an active member of the Unitarian Church of All Souls in NYC. Her daughters remained active UUs through the High School Youth Program and then headed off to college. Her daughter Kyra worked as a Pelican on Star Island for 2 summers. Today, Jan is a founding facilitator and current head of the Small Group Ministry Program at All Souls. She has served as an usher captain and was a facilitator for the BOT’s recent Vision 2020 mission initiative.

Professionally, Jan Nolte is the founder and president of The Influential Voice a leadership communication coaching and training firm. She is a Certified Executive Coach, international speaker, conservatory trained actor and member of Actors’ Equity. Jan grooms executives worldwide by developing their unique voice and authentic style so that her clients bring their best self to every interaction. Prior to starting her own firm, Jan was on the acting conservatory faculty at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and SUNY Purchase.

Jan also serves on an advisory committee to The Open Door Family Medical Centers and Foundation in Westchester NY. For fun, Jan and her life partner, Brad, enjoy city adventures, family, kayaking, cooking, gardening and travel.

David Overton

David and his wife Mary live in Austin, TX and are members of the first UU Church of Austin.

The Overton family first became involved with the UU United Nations Office when their daughter Liz interned in the Office during her undergraduate years at Barnard College. David's wife, Mary, then served on the UU-UNO Board for several years, and during that time David helped the Board to develop strategic plans.

Mary and David have also been enthusiastic supporters of the Every Child is Our Child (ECOC) program since its beginning, and were fortunate to be able to travel to Ghana in May of 2012 to visit the Queen Mothers and the students that ECOC supports.

David recently retired from a long career in the corporate world, where his focus was strategic planning and customer research. He is now applying those skills to the non-profit world. David serves on the Board of Mercy Ships, a global non-profit that operates a hospital ship in West Africa. He also led the effort to establish the Jericho Road program in Dallas. Jericho Road was started by UU churches in Massachusetts, and matches professionals in the church with non-profits in the community who need those professional skills. Jericho Road Dallas is now up and running very effectively thanks to a strong board and a very capable Executive Director.

David is a partner in Opus Faveo Innovation Development, a venture development firm based in Dallas. They work with entrepreneurs and management teams to help them build successful, innovative companies.

The Overtons have two children: Liz, who is a lawyer with a firm focused on developing estate plans for families with special needs children, and Tom, who is a manager with the Four Seasons Resort in Palm Beach, Florida.