Frank R. Williams is Chair of the Board of Directors. He retired in 2017 as the Social Services Director at Casa de la Luz Hospice. Previous to his service with hospice he was in several positions, including Executive Director of Family Counseling Agency (now Our Family Services) and before that served twenty years on the Family Studies faculty at the University of Arizona. He is a United Methodist minister and served churches in California and Arizona and was founding pastor of St. Francis in the Foothills, United Methodist. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Arizona, his Masters of Sacred Theology from Boston University School of Theology and his doctorate from Boston University.
Judy Moses is Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors. She graduated from Tacheria School for Spiritual Direction in 2008 and decided to repeat the experience, graduating in 2016. She joined the Tacheria Board in 2009. Judy delights in examining the mystery that is life, and is endlessly fascinated with human nature. Catholic by birth, Jewish by choice and Interfaith because she knows there are many paths, she feels that the multi-faceted approach makes life richer. As a 40+ year resident of Tucson, she loves the desert but needs to get away occasionally for an ocean fix. Without ever having had children, she takes great joy in being Grandma Judy to her lovely wife’s three grandchildren. Photography feeds her soul.
Nihal Hassan is Secretary of the Board of Directors. She is a graduate of the first Wisdom’s Way Interfaith School of Spiritual Direction, the sister school to Tacheria in Phoenix, in 2016.
Nihal was raised in the faith of Islam and is a practicing Muslim. She was first exposed to Interfaith Spirituality when she was interested to take a World Religions class as an elective in high school. Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, she was involved in various Interfaith Dialogue groups, prior to her move to Arizona. Nihal has a great love for the Southwest (the sun, the mountains, the saguaro), and was drawn to move from Chicago to the Southwest, where she now has been living since 2006. Nihal is a mental health counselor working with children & families, with a focus on serving Native American Communities. She holds two Master’s Degrees, in Community Counseling and Cultural Anthropology, and is a Registered Dietitian with a Bachelor’s Degree in Nutrition. Nihal pulls on her varied educational backgrounds to provide a more integrative approach to counseling, in order to address the person as a whole.
Cathy Stafford, Ed.D spent over 35 years in the education profession as a teacher, reading specialist, university professor, and public school administrator. In 2012, after serving in Avondale Elementary School District for 20 years, she retired as their Superintendent.
She is a 2013 graduate of Tacheria Interfaith School of Spiritual Direction where the Spirit stirred the creative longing of re-membering being a teacher. With the support of the Tacheria Interfaith Spirituality Center Board in 2014, Cathy became the Director of Wisdom’s Way Interfaith School in Phoenix as a “sister” spiritual direction school. Cathy’s husband, Gil Stafford Ph.D., D.Min., has been her partner in this pilgrimage. He is a writer and retired Episcopal priest. Cathy retired from this position in June 2022.
Cathy is a seeker of Wisdom (Sophia) and a pilgrim of compassionate presence. Her passions are her holy grandboys who are her best teachers, spiritual companioning, The Circle Way, and being open to the Divine in her journey of growing and learning.
Linda Williams, a Spiritual Director since 1995, was the co-director of the Tacheria Interfaith School of Spiritual Direction until 2018. Her spiritual direction practice is from an Interfaith perspective that is open to all persons, accepting of LGBT, and with special focus on life transitions and women’s spirituality. Linda is a retreat leader with special emphasis on creation of sacred spaces. She is a graduate of the Academy for Spiritual Formation of the United Methodist Church, Tacheria School of Spiritual Direction, and the Education for Ministry of the University of the South. A trained member of the Order of St. Luke, the Healer, she is also a trained supervisor in the Stephen Ministry program.
Robert Effertz completed the spiritual direction course at Tacheria in 2019 and is currently serving on the board of directors at Tacheria. He is a retired school psychologist and counselor, having worked in the public schools over 20 years.
Bob’s spiritual pursuits began as a child when he attended the Christian Church until a young man, serving as both a junior deacon and also Sunday School Teacher. In his twenties, after extensive travel throughout Asia, he was drawn to the Buddhist teachings. Later, while living and teaching in Japan, he got immersed in Vipassana Mediation, and subsequently spent much time in India at centers of Buddhist mediation, including a pilgrimage to Bodhgaya where the Buddha was enlightened. While in India on one trip, he was drawn to the teachings of Ramana Maharshi: “We have the inherent capacity to notice our pure sense of existence, the feeling of ‘I AM’ that never changes and is always with us.” Later, because of Bob’s sense of service, he stayed at the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram in Indonesia off and on for several years where he joined in activities to promote understanding and acceptance of all spiritual traditions. In the U.S. he turns to Adyashanti for spiritual guidance with his teaching that “the ability to perceive absolute completeness, or God, in all things as well as in oneself, is to see and perceive the reality of life here and now.” Bob was recently initiated as a Sufi and has a spiritual director with an interfaith approach. As Bob loves to dance as well as play a variety of world ethnic instruments, he strives to promote interfaith spiritual acceptance as a leader of the Dances of Universal Peace in Tucson.
Jeanette Renouf, D.Min., Phd. Is a retired clinical psychologist and educator. She is a member and former head of the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross, whose headquarters is at the Society’s retreat and conference center, Adelynrood, in Byfield, MA. She trained as a spiritual director when she was working for the Church of England in London, England and taught in that same training program. She has been involved in the formation and development of three more schools for spiritual direction, two of which are for the training of interfaith directors. Tacheria Interfaith School for Spiritual Direction was started by Lupon Claude DeEstree and Jeanette Renouf, Jeanette continues to serve on the board of that program. She has lead retreats and taught in Europe, Asia, the U.S. and Latin America. She lives in Tucson, AZ.
Karen Gatlin is a spiritual explorer, spiritual companion and calls herself a “soul coach” or mentor. After a career as Christian minister in the United Church of Christ, she has followed a sense of call to embark on a path of interfaith spiritual exploration. She is a 2021 graduate of Tacheria Interfaith School and a 2015 graduate of the Chaplaincy Institute Interfaith Spiritual Direction program, Berkeley, CA. Karen is passionate about experiential spirituality through creativity, movement, writing, and earth-centered spirituality. Karen began as Director of Wisdom’s Way Interfaith School, Phoenix in 2022. In a small private practice, Karen offers soul support and explores non-traditional paths to the Sacred. Karen seeks ways to heal the earth, anchor Light, and connect with the Divine. Karen loves leading spiritual circles and retreats. She and her partner, John, live in Oro Valley.
Chuck Kirchner, Treasurer, is a 2021 graduate of Tacheria, has had a life-long yearning for the spiritual in our lives, especially our creative lives. An accomplished photographer and photo educator, Chuck has led workshops on photo creativity and it’s spiritual components at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico and the Grunewald Guild in eastern Washington state. While an interesting career in environmental and transportation planning provided a steady source of income over the years, the passion for traveling the world to see first-hand the realm of cultures, rituals and spirit never ceased, nor the desire to create photographs of the journeys. He grew up in a traditional Roman Catholic family and, over the years, transitioned to the Episcopal tradition, currently a member of St. Philip’s in the Hills in Tucson. He has had, and continues to have, a fascination with religions and rituals world-wide and finds kernels of truth in all of them. After living in the Puget Sound area most of his life, he and his wife and daughter relocated to the Sonoran desert over three years ago and finds the Spirit alive and well in the open spaces of the desert as he did in the open spaces of the ocean.
Phyllis Winters is a native of Phoenix and has a deep appreciation for the desert that surrounds us. She also has a long-standing love for the Pacific Northwest, and the beauty of its forests, rivers, and ocean. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Oregon, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Romance Languages and Secondary Education. After teaching briefly, life brought her back to Phoenix and the business world. She loved her work, first in training and development, then in human resources and executive management. After retirement, Phyllis wanted to focus more on her spiritual self, which led her to become a 2021 graduate of Wisdom’s Way. She continues to learn and grow, and
is now discerning where her path will lead her.
Ken Vorndran – is a 2021 graduate of Tacheria and a recently (semi) retired professor of English/Writing and Honors courses at Pima Community College, Tucson.