1320 Cambridge Blvd.
Columbus, Ohio 43212
(614) 488-0681
Ext. 263
Columbus, Ohio 43212
Ext. 263
ABOUT US
Seth Stearns is Executive Director of Operations and Director of First Community Foundation.
Nancy joined the Foundation Board in 2020. During her career in association management she helped establish the Ohio Dental Association Foundation and the Ohio Society of Association Management Foundation. As a volunteer she has been active in development work for The Wesley Communities and The Columbus Rotary Club.
At FFC she is a member of Circle C and has served on the New Horizons Campaign, Capital Campaign Task Force, Adult Education Council, Mission Council, and feeding the homeless. She is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island.
Tim and his wife, Hayley have been members of FCC for nearly 30 years. He previously served on Akita Council and the Board of Deacons. Currently he serves as the Director of Capital Markets at the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, which promotes and provides affordable housing to the residents of Ohio. Prior to that, he spent 27 years in the Public Finance field for regional financial institutions. Tim and Hayley have three adult children and two grandchildren. He is a graduate of Kenyon College and received a master’s degree from the University of Texas.
Ralph Griffith and his wife Dotsy have been members of FCC since 1992. He is the CEO and President of Value Recovery Group and its subsidiary, Global Recovery Group, financial services companies with offices in Columbus and the Washington, DC area. His prior business experience encompassed financial advisory and business consulting positions as well as a lender in commercial banks. Ralph is the Finance Committee Chair of the Ohio Housing Finance Agency Board, is a member of the Rotary Club of Upper Arlington, is on the Strategic Initiatives Committee of the Furniture Bank and is a Children’s Leader for Bible Study Fellowship International. He is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University.
Brad Griffith is a lifelong entrepreneur. He grew up working for his dad’s veterinary hospital, learning the joys and challenges of business ownership. He believes in the power of entrepreneurship and innovation to drive meaningful change in our community. Brad is now President of Buckeye Interactive, the web strategy and engineering agency he started in 2009 to provide growing businesses and organizations with unparalleled access to exceptional web engineering and design.
Katherine and her husband Mark joined the church in 2002. She is currently a leader of Prayers & Squares Ministry and participates in the Knitting for Refugees group. She served on the Stewardship committee for the 2019 campaign. In addition, she was a volunteer Sunday School teacher when her daughter was in elementary school. That daughter grew up in the church and is married and living in Philadelphia. Katherine has volunteered extensively in the local community Girl Scouts and with Upper Arlington Crew and Greater Columbus Rowing Association. Since 2014, she has been, along with her sister, the Donor Advisors for a fund with the Foundation started by her father. She is a retired Air Force Intelligence Officer, having served 20 years on active duty and 9 years in various civilian senior intelligence management positions at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center in Dayton.
Katie joined First Community in 2020 and now attends South campus where she also serves as an usher. Professionally, she works as Relationship Officer for Community Shelter Board, the system leader for the prevention of and response to homelessness in Central Ohio. Prior to that, she spent 13 years leading programs to help adults with disabilities find employment and achieve full community integration. Katie is a graduate of The Ohio State University and native of Westerville where she lives with her husband Edwin and daughter Ashley.
Clare and her husband Jim joined the church in 1982. She has served on the Mission Council and as a volunteer Sunday School teacher and is a member of Friendship Circle 28.
Clare’s professional career included over 30 years of public service. She served as Senior Attorney with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the Washington, D.C. and Columbus offices, as Chief Legal Counsel for the Ohio Department of Commerce and was a Deputy Tax Commissioner overseeing the legislative, tax analysis, fiscal, human resources and training offices at the Ohio Department of Taxation. She also served as Deputy Director of the Human Resources Division at the Ohio Department of Administrative Services where she developed and administered the human resources program for the State of Ohio. She retired from the State as Director of Human Resources at the Ohio Housing Finance Agency.
Currently, Clare is serving in the volunteer role of AARP Ohio State President.
Dave Nickel and his wife, Jennie, have been members of First Community church for over 25 years. Dave recently served as Chair of the Adult Learning Council for three consecutive years. He earned his Ph.D. from Indiana University with a double major in higher education administration and chemistry. He has both taught and served in leadership roles for over 20 years in several universities, including The Ohio State University, other central Ohio universities, and Wuhan and Huazhong Agricultural Universities in Wuhan, China. He also worked for 20 years with Goodyear and Lockheed Martin Corporations as head of and senior trainer of the leadership and management development program. Additionally, Dave also worked as an internal organizational development consultant there. Dave is a graduate and former practitioner of the Wellstreams ecumenically oriented spiritual direction program.
Leslie Junk grew up at FCC and Camp Akita and became a member in 1991. Her church service includes a Mexico Mission trip, feeding the homeless, Sunday school teacher and Couple Circle member. Recently retired from Nationwide, she spent 25 years training agents on their technology tools and associates on secure cyber security practices. Her training methods encompassed website content and digital course design. Prior experience includes software sales and sales management at Goal Systems and AT&T.
She is the treasurer of Childhood League Board XI and a graduate of Miami University. Leslie and her husband Bill have two adult children and two twin grandchildren.
Cathy and her husband John have been members of FCC since 2004. She previously served on the High School council and is currently a participant of Open Door Ministry. She graduated from The Ohio State University in Allied Health and received her Masters degree from the University of Alabama. She was employed at Nationwide Children’s Hospital as a clinical Dietitian for 10 years.
Cathy then changed career paths and began working at IGS Energy in 1989 in an administrative role when it was a start-up company with only three employees. She has held various positions as the company went through many changes and grew in size to over 1000 employees. She is a member of the Board of Directors and continues to work there on a part time basis in the area of finance and treasury.
Cindi joined FCC when she and her husband, Karl, a lifelong member, moved back to Ohio nearly 20 years ago. She has served on Akita Council, Youth Council, Nominating Committee, and taught Sunday school for several years. Cindi was also an active parent volunteer with both school and sports team activities. Cindi graduated from UNC at Chapel Hill and has worked for State Farm Insurance for 35 years. She and Karl have two adult sons.
Ron has been a member of FCC for over 50 years. Joining the Block of Wood class, he has been part of: The Board of Deacons, twice – chairing once, the High School Council, Chancel Choir, Couples Circle 47, Facilitator with FCC High School Membership Program, Traveling Freshman leader, Care Ministry member and usher for over 20 years.
Community activities have included: Past UA Alumni Association President, Past UA 4th of July Chairman and Member of the UA Education – UA Athletic Board.
Professionally, Ron was a director, supervisor and consultant in telecom service design and architecture for over 30 years and is still consulting. A UA and The Ohio State University grad, he has three adult children, who were involved in FCC programs through high school and across the country since college.
I was born in Rochester Minnesota, moved when I was one and have lived in Upper Arlington ever since. I’ve been married to my husband Mark for 44 years and we have 3 adult children, Sara, Jayne and Matthew, who we are blessed to have all living near us. We have 4 grandchildren-3 granddaughters age 7, 5 and 2 (the 2 oldest are in the Cherub choir at FCC) and an 18 month old grandson. All have been baptized at FCC. I have been a member of FCC since the early 1990s. I was raised Presbyterian but needed a church change after marrying my husband who is Catholic. We found FCC to be a good fit for us and our young children at that time. After many years of teaching, as of June 2021, I retired from Jones Middle School in Upper Arlington where I enjoyed teaching 6th grade Language Arts & Reading and was the Service-learning Building Leader. Throughout my career I had the pleasure of receiving grants to bring in speakers, take field trips and complete service-learning projects with my students and/or the entire school. In 2000, I started a program at Jones called Packing for the Streets for which we received a yearly grant and in kind donations so students and staff could pack non-perishable meals for our friends on the streets. In the beginning years, the FCC high school students delivered our packed meals on Thursday evenings. Packing for the Streets is now an ongoing program that takes place in many schools in UA and throughout Central Ohio. Throughout my career, I planned food drives and a field trip to benefit Heart to Heart. Our service learning projects on hunger gained national attention from Youth Service America. Some of the other projects I planned benefited Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the elderly, Haitian Hurricane Relief and Veterans. As of this year, I will be teaching the K-2 church school class at North campus. I’m happy to be part of the FCC Foundation because I and my family have benefited greatly from our involvement at FCC and I feel strongly about service to others and giving back. I am hoping to be of help however I can.
Since June 2020, I (along with my brother John) am co-owner and caretaker of a gift shop in German Village called Helen Winnemore’s, which focuses on the work of American Artisans. From 2013 to 2020, I owned and ran a similar gift shop on Arlington Ave called Fresh Crafts Gallery. For about 20 years before returning to Columbus, I was a lawyer with the investment management firm, Wellington Management, in Boston. At Wellington, I worked with foundation and endowment clients in their onboarding process. In addition, I worked with investment professionals when they invested in private placement securities. Prior to Wellington, I worked for three years as a corporate lawyer at Goodwin Procter, a law firm in Boston, after receiving a LLM in Banking Law from Boston University School of Law. I taught Legal Writing at the Vermont Law School for two years, after graduating with a JD from Capital University Law School in Columbus. And, I am a proud Buckeye from The Ohio State University, and Golden Bear from Upper Arlington High School!
I was baptized at FCC in 1957, and my family was active until the late ‘60’s when we moved to another local church. I was a camper at Camp Akita two or three years. After returning to Columbus after nearly 30 years living in New England, I joined the church in 2019, and have served as a greeter at both South and North.
For the last 12 years of her work life Deb has worked in the fiscal department of a non-profit organization that is involved in the field of early care and education in the state of Ohio (Ohio Child Care Resource and Referral Association). The last several years Deb held the position of Assistant Director of Fiscal Services reporting directly to the COO. Her duties included, but were not limited to supervision of AP/AR, payroll, balancing bank account, point person for the annual independent audit of financials, developing and implementing fiscal processes and monthly reporting.
She has been a member of Chancel Choir for over 25 years and more recently became involved with the Missions and Community Justice Teams. Deb served on the Governing Board, completing her term earlier this year and serving as Treasurer of FCC for the last two years of her Board term.