Dr. Natasha DeJarnett, Rev. Peter Ilgenfritz, Rev. Alison Patton, and Tim Wilkins were elected to the Board of Trustees effective July 1, 2025, but their work begins in earnest this month, with their first Board of Trustees meeting this week.
“We’re so fortunate that these four people have accepted our invitation to serve,” said Rev. Dr. Allen Ewing-Merrill, Executive Director of The BTS Center. “Each of these leaders comes with tremendous gifts — wisdom, creativity, long-demonstrated commitment to faithful action, and diverse areas of expertise and interest. We look forward to seeing how their gifts and passions will find expression through the work of The BTS Center.”
Rev. Dr. Andi Lloyd has recently stepped into the role of Vice Chair, while Dr. Elizabeth Parsons assumes the office of Board Secretary. They join Debra Coyman, who has completed her first year as Chair of The BTS Center’s Board and will continue for one more year, and Greg Rose, who continues as Treasurer and Chair of The BTS Center’s Finance Committee.
Members of The BTS Center’s Board of Trustees devote significant time and wisdom to the work of this organization, mostly behind the scenes. They meet six times per year to oversee the mission and purposes of the organization, to guide strategic and organizational planning, to ensure strong fiduciary oversight and financial management, to approve and monitor the organization’s programs and services, and to supervise and evaluate the performance of the Executive Director. Board members also serve on various committees, offering careful oversight of program, finances, and governance.
“As you participate in the many programs of The BTS Center,” Ewing-Merrill said, “please know that there is a tremendously gifted group of 15 Trustees working diligently behind the scenes to keep this organization running smoothly. They may not be holding the microphone, and their faces may not be front-and-center in the Zoom room, but we couldn’t do what we do without their dedication, expertise, commitment of time, and deep love for this organization. I’m grateful to be leading The BTS Center, for such a time as this, in close partnership with this extraordinary group of individuals.”
The full roster for our Board of Trustees, with photos and bios, can be found here.
Please join us in welcoming these four new Trustees and in recognizing and thanking all who serve The BTS Center in this important way.
Dr. Natasha DeJarnett, PhD, MPH, BCES is an Assistant Professor in the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute at University of Louisville (Kentucky), researching the health impacts of extreme heat exposure and environmental health disparities, as well as a professorial lecturer at The George Washington University. Most recently, Dr. DeJarnett was the Deputy Director for Environmental Justice Data and Evaluation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. There, she served in our nation’s first-ever Office of Environmental Justice at the Council on Environmental Quality, supporting the Biden-Harris Administration in advancing the most ambitious environmental justice agenda in history. Previously, she held roles at the National Environmental Health Association as well as the American Public Health Association. Her service leadership experience includes the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, Citizens’ Climate Education, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists. Dr. DeJarnett served on The BTS Center’s Board of Trustees in 2021 and 2022, and we are delighted that she is returning!
Rev. Peter Ilgenfritz has served as a pastor in the United Church of Christ for 35 years. A native of Massachusetts, Peter has served congregations and community ministries in Ithaca, New York, in Evanston, Illinois, and in Seattle, Washington, where he served for 25 years as a pastor at University Congregational Church. Following interim positions in Boothbay Harbor, Maine and Brookline, Massachusetts, Peter currently Peter serves as the part-time pastor of First Congregational Church in Littleton, New Hampshire. He has been active in The BTS Center community for many years, as a participant and local church pastor, as a member of our Program Advisory Committee, and as a program consultant and co-leader of our Small Church Leadership Community. He says, “I bring to the Board a joy and passion for the ministry and possibility of the local church, a love of life in northern New England, and a curiosity to discover with others who we are called to be in our times of challenge and change.” Peter is a graduate of Colgate University and Yale Divinity School. He is rejuvenated by running, sailing, biking, backpacking, conversations, reading, and writing.
Rev. Alison Patton serves as Senior Pastor of First Congregational Church of South Portland, Maine, a position she has held since September 2023. Ordained in 2000, she has served urban and suburban communities in academic, church, and conference settings, from Chicago to Connecticut to Maine. She cares deeply about the flourishing of God’s creation and the pursuit of racial and environmental justice. Alison first connected with The BTS Center through participation in our programs, including serving as a Kinship Circle Facilitator for the 2024-2025 EcoPreacher Cohort. She is skilled in worship design, retreat leadership, group facilitation, and community building. A Bates College alumna, Alison’s family includes her husband Craig Patton (also a Bates grad!), and young adult sons Tobey and Rowan. Walking in autumn leaves, farmers’ markets, coastal hikes, nature photography, and local ice cream all feed her spirit!
Tim Wilkins was born in Mexico City, raised in Rutherfordton, North Carolina, and has lived in the Greater Portland, Maine area for the past 40 years. With an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Davidson College and an MBA from Babson College, Tim worked for many years in manufacturing in material management / inventory control and then in program management. For the last 20 years of his career, he served as a financial advisor. His career took him to Data General, Bath Iron Works, Sanmina/SCI, Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley, and Waddell & Reed and Harborview Investments. He recently completed a three-year term as Treasurer at St. Luke’s Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Maine, where he continues to serve as a member of the Finance Committee and the Endowment Committee. Tim is married and has two adult daughters and three grandchildren.
Rev. Dr. Andi Lloyd, new Vice Chair of The BTS Center’s Board of Trustees, will soon assume a new position as Co-Pastor of The Church of Christ at Dartmouth College, have completed a three-year pastorate at the Trinitarian Congregational Parish of Castine, Maine, United Church of Christ. She received her M.Div. from Yale Divinity School in 2022. Prior to her career in ministry, Andi was an ecologist. She received a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Arizona in 1996, and went on to serve as a professor of biology at Middlebury College from 1996 until 2020. She served as the Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Middlebury from 2012 through June 2019. In her work as an ecologist, she studied the effects of climate change on forests in Alaska and Siberia. She taught classes on plant ecology, evolution, and climate change, and authored/co-authored more than 30 articles and book chapters on climate change. Along with Rev. Andy Nagy-Benson, she is the author of Letters to the Ecotone: Ecology, Theology, and Climate Change (Resource Publications, 2022).
Dr. Elizabeth Parsons, new Secretary of The BTS Center Board of Trustees, is an educator, writer/editor, and engaged citizen. Descended from a long line of Christian educators, she specializes in practical aspects of global development, religion and cultural values; cross-cultural and interfaith relations; and civic engagement. She obtained the M.Div. degree from Harvard Divinity School and a Ph.D. degree in theology and development from the University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. She is the author of What Price for Privatization? Cultural Encounter with Development Policy on the Zambian Copperbelt and editor of The Greatest Work in the World: Education as a Mission of Early Twentieth Century Churches of Christ: Letters of Lloyd Cline Sears and Pattie Hathaway Armstrong. Elizabeth and her husband, Lin Parsons, live in Portland where they are active in the Episcopal Church and their community.