The UU FaithAction Board of Trustees consists of at least eight persons. Trustees may be members of affiliated congregations, religious professionals serving affiliated congregations, and members of Unitarian Universalist congregations who have denominational, organizational, legal, financial management, human resources, political, or fundraising expertise. At least two Trustees shall be ministers, and we shall strive to include at least one young adult member. No more than two persons from any one affiliated congregation may serve as Trustees at any one time. All Trustees are limited to serving no more than four consecutive years.
Officers
Phil Lubitz, President, Hunterdon. Phillip Lubitz resides in Hunterdon County with his wife Barbara and has attended the Hunterdon UU for 25 years. He has more than 50 years of experience in the public mental health system as a therapist, administrator and family advocate. As the Director of Advocacy for the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New Jersey he was responsible for advocacy programs, public policy and governmental affairs. He served for many years as the Chair of the New Jersey Behavioral Health Planning Council and was also responsible for adopting the State Family Support Plan for Persons with a Serious Mental Illness under P.L. 1995, c314, a law he helped to write. Mr. Lubitz was the co-founder and first Board President of the Tri County Care Management Organization which manages the Behavioral healthcare of youth in Hunterdon, Somerset and Warren Counties. He additionally served on the Human Services transition team for Governor Jon Corzine, the New Jersey Supreme Court Mental Health Advisory Committee and a variety of Commissions, Councils and Committees under Governors Christie and Murphy.
Mr. Lubitz is a four-time Mayor of Kingwood Township, New Jersey where among other things he has chaired the Affordable Housing Committee, the Board of Adjustment and serves on the open Space Committee. The Township has preserved over a thousand acres of open space during his tenure. Mr. Lubitz also serves as a Commissioner on the Delaware and Raritan Canal Commission. The Commission oversees the State’s largest linear park and canal which serves as a fresh water source for 1.5 million New Jersey residents.
Phil has provided technical assistance to the mental health planning councils in Louisiana, Maryland, the District of Columbia Iowa, Minnesota, Massachusetts and North Carolina to assist them in integrating their mental health and substance abuse planning and oversight functions. He has likewise provided technical assistance to the New Jersey State Police and number of local municipal law enforcement agencies on recognizing, deescalating and appropriately referring individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. He has worked with the Office of the Attorney General to develop the training curriculum on “Special Populations” for all 35,000 New Jersey police officers. He also was the Executive Producer of the award-winning Law Enforcement Training Film, The Community I Serve, that is now in use in 35 states to train Law Enforcement personnel.
He received a BA from the George Washington University and a Masters in Social Work Administration from the Rutgers School of Social Work.
Email: president@uufaithaction.org
Chris Budin, Vice-President, Montclair. Over the course of his working career, Chris has dedicated himself to education and leadership around workplace equality initiatives. In their current role as both a Sr. Technologist and DEI Champion through Employee Resource Group Leadership, Chris has facilitated in-house and community-based workshops including anti-bullying, suicide prevention, workplace safety, mental health stigma reduction, disability justice rights, and racial, religious and cultural competency awareness.
Chris is a 501c3 Board of Directors member at Garden State Equality, where he has built strong collaborative networks on both the local and national level. Chris is also an elected member of the NJ Sussex County Democratic Committee.
Chris was accepted to Meadville Lombard Theological School and plans to start taking classes towards future ministerial work in their life’s calling of Social Justice. Chris is passionately committed to the values and principles of Unitarian Universalism and is in leadership with the UU Congregation at Montclair’s LGBTQ+ Justice Group (OutFront) and Membership Team, while also a member of the Pastoral Care Team, Allies For Racial Equity, and Undoing Racism Team.
Kevin Pierre, Treasurer, Montclair. 
Kevin Pierre graduated Bloomfield College with a degree in psychology with a concentration in anthropology and multicultural studies. He serves on the NAACP (Political Action Committee, Executive Committee & Election Committee). He has volunteered for the Montclair Red Cross running blood drives and, more recently, Narcan training working with Rutgers University. Kevin is the state Tri-Chair for New Jersey’s Poor People’s Campaign. He sits on the National Leadership Council Board for UndocuBlack. Kevin also currently sits on the Montclair Civil Rights Commission as well as on the Montclair Planning Board Commission, as the mayor’s designee.
Email: treasurer@uufaithaction.org
Kaulette Johnson, Secretary. South Jersey Shore. Kaulette Johnson, born and raised in Trenton, NJ, had built her life in Mercer County alongside her husband, Rick Johnson, raising their blended family of three adult children, one angel, spouses, and two grandchildren. Two years ago, they relocated to Buena, NJ, where Kaulette discovered UU, an unexpected source of peace, love, and fulfillment. Kaulette is a graduate of the College of Life, with over two decades dedicated to advocating for improved health practices in children’s hospitals nationwide. As the Director of Operations at Bassetti Photo Inc., she brings her commitment to excellence to her work in volume school and youth sports photography. Passionate about universal access to civil rights, Kaulette believes in equality and equity regardless of belief, identity, or appearance.
Trustees
Lily Olas Carayannis, Ridgewood. Lily Olas Carayannis is a recent graduate of Union Theological Seminary where she did her Field Education with the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood and continued as an aspirant to UU ministry. She is also the Deputy Chief of Special Operations with the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, the City Agency tasked with overseeing allegations of police misconduct of the NYPD. Lily’s ministry stands at the intersection of ecological justice, trans rights, and racial justice. She believes that the crisis which faces America and the world can only be addressed by a steadfast dedication to the demands of justice, the power of love-in-action, and an investment in our spiritual lives. She is thrilled to join the Board and to bring these precepts with her to UUFANJ.
Susan Druckenbrōd, Cherry Hill. Susan has been a member of the UU Church in Cherry Hill since 2012. Currently she is the co-chair of the Committee on Racial and Economic Equity. She also serves on the Lifespan Faith Engagement committee and is part of the TechCrUU. She served on the Board of Trustees for a two year term.
Susan is a teacher and has taught English as a Second Language to learners of all ages who come from more than 35 countries around the world. Susan has organized with progressive groups in South Jersey; working on good government, fair elections and running progressive candidates. She has also worked to bring Community Choice Aggregation to the ballot in Cherry Hill where voters will have the opportunity to make clean energy the energy source for the town.
In her spare time, she enjoys gardening, bike riding and competitive backgammon matches with her teenager.
Miles Gorman, Morristown. Miles Gorman, better known under the activism alias “The Strike Bike” is an activist, student, and tinkerer in Morristown and a member of MUUF. Originally from South Jersey, she got her start in advocacy from climate strikes with her bicycle at 12 years old, bringing the moniker “The Strike Bike”.
Since then, she’s branched out to the climate crisis, LGBTQ+ rights, and gun violence. This has included working with organizations including Sunrise Movement, The Raven Corps, Extinction Rebellion NYC, the World Federalist Movement-Institute For Global Policy, Gendercool, the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance, and many others. Miles leads the Sunrise Movement Morris County Hub, is a member of the LAW Not War Campaign at the United Nations, and is most widely known for her “Talk To A Trans Kid” booth, which she’s set up from Times Square to the D.C. Capitol Building. She’s organized protests and events of all sorts, including the over 1,000-student Morristown High School walkout after the Uvalde Shooting, and is trained in protest deescalation.
When her powder pink boots aren’t marching in protests or speaking at conferences, Miles is an avid reader, programmer, theatre kid, urbanist, and much more. She’s a member of more than 10 school clubs and runs a web design business that, in addition to paid work, builds free websites for activism organizations and charities.
Nancy Griffeth, Beacon: Summit.. Nancy Griffeth is a retired professor of computer science. She taught and did research at the City University of New York, Princeton, Georgia Tech, and Northwestern. In between teaching gigs, she was a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs and (earlier) at Bellcore.
She became dedicated to environmental causes as a Unitarian-Universalist member of the Summit UU congregation. She is a member of the Green Earth Ministry there and a regular attendee and occasional assistant at the Green Vespers service.
After her retirement, she became the Chair of the Environmental Justice Task Force of NJ Unitarian Universalist Faith Action NJ. With that group, she has supported making the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard more aggressive; she prepared testimony for BPU hearings on Community Solar; and she supported several important bills, including the groundbreaking EJ Law (known before passage as the “cumulative impacts bill”) and the Energy Equity Office in the BPU. She is currently a member of the Environmental Justice Advisory Council of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, where she is an active member of the Air and Water Working Groups.
Her husband, Bill, is also a retired computer scientist. They have two children: Stephen Griffeth, a professor of math at the University of Talca in Chile, and Valerie Griffeth, a M.D./Ph.D. working in Critical Care in Chicago. She has three grandchildren, all living in Chile.
The Reverend Doctor Sarah Lenzi, Ridgewood. The Reverend Doctor Sarah Lenzi was ordained to the Unitarian Universalist Ministry in 2012. Before turning full time to ministry, Rev. Lenzi, who holds a BA from Williams College and an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School, completed her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work, published as “The Stations of the Cross: The Placelessness of Medieval Christian Piety” focuses on ritual practice and the integration of imagination, memory, the physical, the visual and the aural in creating transcendent experience. Rev. Lenzi brings her academic study of ritual to her worship leadership.
Rev. Lenzi’s ministry focuses on the value of the worship experience as a means of community building and encouraging personal growth along the spiritual journey. She hopes that participation in the communities she serves will help individuals to realize their capacity for love and compassion, to strengthen their sense of justice and power, and to affirm their own and others beauty and worth.
Annual Meeting
An annual meeting is held once per year. Attendance is mandatory for the Board of Trustees, Executive Director and relevant staff, Task Force and Committee chairs, and congregational delegates. Attendance is encouraged for any interested UUs and members of the general public sympathetic to our agenda and mission. The purpose of this annual meeting is:
- to review the year’s activities,
- elect Trustees and the Nominating Committee,
- adopt a budget for the coming fiscal year,
- set broad priorities for the coming year,
- update appropriate levels of support for congregational affiliation,
- and conduct any other business that the Board presents, or any other business that may come before it.
Each Affiliated Congregation is entitled to a number of voting delegates equal to the number established by UUA policy for that year’s UUA General Assembly.