Vestry

Russell began active church service as a youth choir member at Christ Episcopal Church in Manlius New York. He graduated from Princeton University with a degree in civil engineering in 1960 and, after working for a structural engineering firm in New York City for a year, spent two years in the Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland. He then came west to earn a graduate degree in Structural Engineering from UC Berkeley. Upon graduation in 1964 he commenced a term of over 50 years at the structural engineering firm GFDS Engineers where he became a Principal. One of his most significant achievements was as structural engineer for the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC.

Russell began attending St Mary in the late 1970’s along with his son Gerard who served as an acolyte and his daughter Rachel who sang in the choir. His service at St Mary began as Sunday School teacher and moved on to lay Eucharistic minister. He served two terms on the vestry. Russell was coordinator for the lay Eucharistic visitor ministry for several years. He served on the building committee during the major renovation of the parish hall and Pixley House. Until Covid restrictions altered the program, he joined the volunteers who delivered food packages on behalf of the San Francisco Marin Food Bank.

Russell married Emily Swartz in 1967. When their son Gerard was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, Emily and Russell formed a parent support group that became the Hydrocephalus Association. Emily served as the executive director for over 20 years. Both Emily and Russell served on the board of directors and devoted a great deal of energy to its mission for many years. The Association has become an important funder of medical research directed toward finding a cure for the condition and serves the needs of those affected by the condition on an international basis. Gerard died in 1992.

Linda is a native Californian who moved to Northern California to attend the University of the Pacific where she graduated with a BS in Business Administration. Linda started attending St. Mary’s in 1991 after meeting her husband, Phil, who is a lifelong Episcopalian. They were married here in 1993 and Linda was confirmed at Grace Cathedral after the birth of their first child.

After moving to Alameda in 1997, the family continued to make St. Mary’s their spiritual home including many children’s activities (choir, acolytes, youth group, Sunday School) as well as being an active homilist/lector, participating in the MOMS program and enjoying many community events.

Linda worked in the information technology industry with a focus on retail industry client implementation and project management for over 20 years. During COVID, Linda joined an Alameda Real Estate team currently as the Operations Manager.

Elizabeth Falcon is a CPA and the Director of Finance & Operations
at The Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) where she has worked for
the last 9 years. She is deeply passionate about CAMFED’s nonprofit
mission to help educate and empower young women in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to working for CAMFED, Elizabeth worked as a public accountant in
Washington, D.C. She has been an avid volunteer at The
Commonwealth Club of California, The Junior League of San Francisco, and
City Arts and Lectures. Elizabeth is a graduate of Claremont McKenna
where she received a dual major in Psychology and Economics-Accounting.
She grew up in Palo Alto and was confirmed at Trinity Episcopal Church
in Menlo Park. Elizabeth enjoys being with her family and spending as
much time as possible outdoors in the Aptos redwoods, her favorite
spot. Elizabeth has been a parishioner at SMV since 2014, has served on
the Vestry, Finance Committee, and Altar Guild, and is extraordinarily
grateful to be a part of the special SMV community.

I am a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and have been an Episcopalian my entire life. Coincidentally, Deacon Tim Smith here at St. Mary’s and I attended the same Episcopal Church in our youth. I joined St. Mary’s in 2017 following a move from New York City to take a new job. Everyone was so welcoming and my participation in the altar guild and one year term on the vestry in 2023 has been a highlight.

My professional background is in real estate. Following graduation from the M.B.A. program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, I worked in real estate development for Spaulding & Slye, real estate investment management for JP Morgan and am currently a real estate and real assets investment specialist for an investment consulting company, Callan LLC, in San Francisco.

Volunteering and service has always been important to me having served on the Board of Vacamas Program for Youth, and having volunteered in a variety of roles for Foundling Hospital, Belleview Hospital, National Rehabilitation Hospital and Urban Land Institute, among others.

I am excited about the prospect of serving on the Vestry and deepening my ties to St. Mary’s.

Rick grew up in Arcadia, California and was raised in the protestant faith, attending Presbyterian and Congregational churches in his youth and teenage years. After graduating from UCLA he moved to San Francisco to attend law school. Although he intended to move back to Los Angeles after graduation, he quickly fell in love with the City and decided to stay and make it his home. He is married and has two sons, both in college.

Upon moving to San Francisco Rick began attending Calvary Presbyterian church, but was eventually drawn to the community, liturgy, and youth programs offered by SMV, which has been his spiritual home for the last ten years. He currently serves as the head usher for the church. This will be his second time serving on the Vestry.

After 25 years in private practice as a lawyer, Rick was appointed to the San Francisco Superior Court by Governor Jerry Brown in 2017. As a trial judge, Rick has presided over criminal, juvenile, and family law cases for the last six years. He also serves as an instructor for the California Judicial Council’s training program for newly appointed and elected judges. In his spare time Rick enjoys running, hiking in our beautiful National Parks, traveling, and cooking elaborate meals for his family and friends.

Lynne has an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. She recently retired, after 28 years of service, from working as a Deputy Attorney General for the California Department of Justice in their Civil Division, Health Quality Enforcement Section.

Lynne was baptized in the Episcopal Church and spent her early years in Gary, Indiana.She discovered St. Mary’s shortly after moving to S.F. in 1990 and found her spiritual home.

Lynne served two previous terms on the SMV Vestry, with the Rev. Richard Fowler and with the Rev. Dr. Jason Parkin. She has served as a volunteer Youth Group leader, was a founding member of The Boomers’ house group in the 1990’s, and has organized the annual Parish Retreats, pancake suppers, Progressive Dinners, along with many other SMV community events. Lynne is an alum of the Cursillo program, and a graduate of the Education for Ministry’s (EFM) four-years’ small group study program. Recently, Lynne was a facilitator/participant for the inaugural St. Mary’s-sponsored Sacred Ground racial justice discussion series. Lynne currently sings with the Parish Choir at the 11 a.m. service, where she also participates as a lector.

Nicole grew up in New Jersey and London, England, and was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. As an adult, Nicole was drawn to the tenets and values of the Episcopal Church, where she and her husband have chosen to raise their two children. Her daughter was baptized at St. James Episcopal Church in Manhattan, and after moving to San Francisco from New York City in 2015, Nicole and her husband chose St. Mary the Virgin as their spiritual home and place of baptism for their son.

Professionally, Nicole is a certified School Psychologist (CA) and currently is finishing requirements for licensure as a psychologist in California (projected completion in early 2023). Nicole holds a BA from Wellesley College and a PhD in School Psychology from Columbia University. Currently, she is an independent contractor in Psychology for Envision Education, a Bay Area public charter school network, where she conducts psychoeducational evaluations and advocates for youth receiving special education services. Until July 2022, Nicole was Clinical Psychology Team Lead and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Psychological Services Center at Envision Education, providing psychotherapy, crisis intervention, and psychoeducational / psychodiagnostic evaluations at a public charter high school in the Excelsior neighborhood of San Francisco. Nicole completed her Internship in Clinical Psychology at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City, and both during and after graduate school was a Clinical Researcher at New York State Psychiatric Institute/ Columbia University Medical Center.

Currently, Nicole serves on the President’s Advisory Council at Teachers College, Columbia University, and on the Board of Trustees of the Bay Area Discovery Museum; she also is an active volunteer at her children’s schools. Nicole resides in San Francisco with her husband and two children, who are both active in the St. Mary’s children’s choir and Sunday School programs. Nicole and her family also have enjoyed participating in family volunteer opportunities at St. Mary’s. In her free time, Nicole cherishes quality time with her family hiking, skiing, golfing, and traveling.

Whitney and her husband, Chris, live in the Richmond district with their two boys, Grayson (age 6, Kindergarten) and Will (age 9, 3rd Grade). They sought a church where their children could experience the joy of a faith-based community in the same way that they had experienced growing up. St. Mary’s was an obvious choice given its welcoming community, breadth of service offerings and family & children’s programming. In addition to the Vestry, Whitney is a member of the St. Mary’s Vital + Thriving Missional Innovation Team, serves as a prayer leader, and her sons are enthusiastic members of the St. Mary’s Children’s Choir, where she happily volunteers her time when needed.

Whitney worked for 20 years in both New York and San Francisco doing corporate and crisis communications. She worked for global agencies including Burson-Marsteller, Ketchum, Access Communications and Ruder Finn, serving clients spanning the financial, tech and consumer industries such as Bank of America, FICO, Intuit, PayPal, Juniper Networks, Johnson & Johnson, Wines of Germany and Silver Oak Cellars. In 2021, she decided to focus on just two clients (her two young sons!) and now enjoys her life as a full-time mom. She is currently a Kindergarten Room Parent at Town School, Cub Scout Den Leader for the Kindergarten Den of Pack 14, a volunteer interviewer for her alma mater, and on the Edgewood Center for Children and Families Auxiliary.

Whitney is proud to say she is a fifth generation San Franciscan, born here and baptized at Grace Cathedral. She moved with her family to Santa Barbara for elementary school, where she attended Sunday School regularly at All-Saints-by-the-Sea Episcopal church, as well as participated in their children’s choir, and, eventually, was confirmed there. For high school, Whitney attended Santa Catalina, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Monterey, California, followed by Middlebury College, where she majored in Political Science and French and was the captain of the women’s tennis team. In her free time, Whitney loves teaching her boys to ski and golf, hiking around the Presidio, swimming in the bay, and watching little kids’ soccer games.

Jim Griffith retired on April 1, 2022. A long-time banker with The Northern Trust Company, he developed and managed credit relationships with high net worth individuals, families and corporations, and provided investment, credit and capital market products and services.

Locally, Jim has served as the treasurer and/or board member of The Olympic Club, The Guardsmen, The Columbia Park Boys and Girls Clubs, the USC Northern California Alumni Board, St. Francis Wood Homes Association, St. Vincent de Paul School Finance Committee, the San Francisco Salvation Army Advisory Board, and The Legacy Campaign Committee, Santa Catalina School.

Jim has attended SMV since 1981. He and Kimberly Whitney were married at SMV in 1987 and their daughter, Kate, was baptized in 1995. At present, Jim chairs the Annual Appeal for St. Mary’s. He was previously Senior Warden at SMV, 2015-2016.

I was born in Montgomery, Alabama and have been an Episcopalian all of my life. I graduated from Northwestern University in 1978 with a degree in History. I moved to San Francisco from Atlanta in 1981 and began attending services at St. Mary’s soon thereafter; strolling by and falling in love with our magical courtyard.

I retired from an exciting and stimulating career in Advertising 6 years ago. I love the natural beauty and topography of the Bay Area and the interesting, creative people. I enjoy walking my energetic dalmatian Fancy, books, music, sports and film.

I have found my involvement in various ministries at St. Mary’s quite fulfilling- Eucharistic visitor, Pastoral Care Committee, food bank volunteer and interacting with the Gubbio Project via our many blanket drives.

I grew up Catholic in Buffalo, went to college outside New York City, taught in Japan, then worked in the Commerce Department in Washington DC. I then switched gears, got my JD from Georgetown, and spent the rest of my career as an attorney in Washington and, since 1991, in the Bay area. My earlier career was in private practice, but I have spent the last 15 years in health care policy advocacy with a non-profit focused on improving the lives of low-income older adults.

My husband and I joined St. Mary’s in 2016. It felt like home from the start and we were grateful to have so easily found a spiritual home and a loving community. After David’s death, I particularly felt the embrace of St. Mary’s.

I have enjoyed participating in the life of St. Mary’s as a reader and Eucharistic Visitor, as part of the Adult Formation Committee and in the Food Bank ministry. I currently am on the steering committee for Vital & Thriving.

Sandy Stadtfeld has been a member of St. Mary’s since 1990. A native San Franciscan, Sandy lived most of his childhood on the Peninsula. He attended the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, sailing four summers on the training barque Eagle.

After graduating in 1981 with a degree in ocean engineering, Sandy served as a commissioned officer aboard an ocean-going cutter based in Alameda, then ashore as engineering program manager for several classes of West Coast cutters. He left active duty in 1986 to attend U.C. Berkeley, where in 1988 he completed a master’s degree in civil engineering, focusing on transportation.

For the next 27 years he worked as a technology and strategic consultant in rail and maritime transportation. Since 2015 Sandy has been employed by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), doing long-range capital and operations planning. Sandy’s two sons Jacob (31) and August (28) were raised in Cow Hollow, and attended St. Mary’s from baptism through Sunday school, choir, as acolytes, and in the youth group.

In September of 2023, Sandy and parishioner Deborah Franklin were joyfully married here at St. Mary’s, where both serve in a range of ministries. They reside in both Cow Hollow and Sausalito, and enjoy hiking, sailing, reading, museums, all kinds of music, visitors’ centers, the Giants, Glasgow, and the continuing vitality of this community.