Jan Fahs, of North Manchester, Ind., has been elected to serve as chair of the Eder Financial Board for the 2023-2024 year, which runs from August through next July.

Jan was elected by her peers on Aug. 7 during the Board’s annual reorganization meeting, at the end of its one day of committee meetings and the last meeting of the 2022-2023 Board. She is beginning her third year of serving as one of 12 Eder Financial Board members. She lives in North Manchester, Ind., recently retired as church administrator of Manchester Church of the Brethren, and formerly taught accounting and business at Manchester University. Elected as vice chair was Wayne Scott, who has served in that role for two years. Wayne is an attorney in Pennsylvania. He previously served as executive deputy chief counsel for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Utility Commission.

The Board said goodbye and gave hearty thanks for service well done to Donna Rhodes, who had served as chair for the past four years. Donna completed her second successive four-year term and was ineligible to return. Donna serves as director of Susquehanna Valley Ministry Center.

Joining the Board for new terms is Eunice Culp, who will complete the three years of an unexpired term. This is Eunice’s fifth term on the Board, and she was asked to return to bring human resources expertise. Eunice recently retired as Vice President of Human Resources for Everence Financial. Also rejoining the Board is Dennis Kingery, who begins his third term. Dennis serves as CFO of Frontwave Credit Union. He previously served as executive leadership of several credit unions, including as director of the former Church of the Brethren Credit Union. He also served in the Finance office of Church of the Brethren Inc.

During the reorganization meeting, the Board called David Shissler and Kevin Boyer to serve as chair and recorder of the Budget and Audit Review Committee; Wayne Scott and Eunice Culp to serve in those roles for the Governance Committee; and Jerry Patterson and Russ Matteson to serve in those roles for the Investment Committee.

The 2023-2024 Board is Jan Fahs, chair; Wayne Scott, vice chair; Kevin Boyer; Sara Davis; Dennis Kingery; Eunice Culp; Katherine Haff; Russ Matteson; Audrey Myer; Jerry Patterson; David Shissler; and Randy Yoder.

During the final meeting of the 2022-2023 Board, executive staff gave updates on the various ministries of the organization, the Board affirmed the staff’s intent of trying to create a category for mental wellness assistance with the Church Workers’ Assistance Plan and discussed next steps following the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference’s approval of Eder Financial’s Articles of Organization, which is the agreement between the two entities for Eder to serve as an official agency of the Church of the Brethren. This document is not to be confused with Eder’s Articles of Incorporation, which is a legal document with the State of Illinois.

With the approval of the Articles of Organization, Eder now is responsible for calling its own Board members; can appoint up to five Board members who are not Church of the Brethren members if they fill a certain niche of expertise; and obtained support to receive employment census data that is needed from congregations, districts, and camps to supply the employee benefits Annual Conference created Eder Financial to provide.

The next scheduled meeting of the Eder Financial Board is Nov. 15-18 in Melbourne, Fla.

Contact Nevin Dulabaum at ndulabaum@eder.org with questions, comments, or concerns.