Louise Slater, board chair, and her husband Steve moved from Columbia, SC to Candler, NC in fall 2016 and joined Jubilee! in February 2017. Louise has a Masters Degree in Psychology and her first career was in organizational development.  She helped for-profit companies improve their teamwork, their systems and helped with leadership, customer service and sales. Her next career move was to purchase a private educational consulting practice in which she and her business partner researched and recommended traditional and therapeutic placement options for adolescents and young adults.  Louise has served on both for-profit and non-profit boards, both private and public, including chairing a church leadership team.  She is currently on the board of Presbyterian College, a commercial construction firm, and a door and millworks firm.  She and one of her sons are involved in community development and environmental sustainability in Old Fort, NC, and are part of a movement called Outdoors For All.  Louise has 4 children, loves to hike, do hot yoga, cook, play with her rescue dog, Chloe, and travel with her husband.

Sharon Cramer, board vice chair and treasurer, grew up in a small mountain town in Pennsylvania, and has a degree in accounting and finance. Her 30-year professional career includes cable, communication, transportation, manufacturing and banking industries. She moved to Charlotte, North Carolina in 1995, and joined the City of Charlotte Transit (CATS) as the finance manager to bring in the city’s first light rail. She was recruited to be CFO at Des Moines Iowa Transit (DART), then moved back to North Carolina to join Wells Fargo as a program manager in 2010. She is currently with Wells Fargo as a Vice President and Senior Lead Technology Business Consultant. She moved to Asheville five years ago to make it her forever home, back to the majestic mountains she loves. Sharon has three grown sons, two “adopted” daughters, and three grandchildren. She adopts rescue dogs and currently has a German Shepard she loves to go exploring with. She has a membership to Biltmore as it is one of her favorite Asheville places to visit. Sharon loves to learn new things, travel, cook, meet new people, play tennis, swim and play piano. She brings a servant heart filled with passion and empathy to help others. She is excited to be a contributing member to the Jubilee! board. Sharon is very happy to be part of a loving faith community that gives to others to make the world a better place

Michele Bernhardt, board secretary and ex officio member, is Jubilee!'s communications director. When she moved to Asheville from San Francisco in 2018, she immediately found her spiritual home at Jubilee! and has been an active member in the community ever since. With 30+ years of public relations and marketing experience, her volunteer work with Jubilee! began when she joined the communications team, and then was offered the part-time staff position she currently holds.  She also volunteers on Jubilee!’s Transformation Circle and Minister Search Task Force. Michele’s previous board experience includes chairing Healing Touch California, serving as president of the Hawthorne Villages HOA, and co-chairing Helios Warriors. Michele is a Healing Touch Practitioner and Reiki Master who volunteers at the Center for Conscious Living and Dying, where she hopes to achieve certification as an end-of-life doula. She is enthusiastic about using her organization and communications skills to support Jubilee!’s board in this time of transition. 

Gretchen Henn has been a Jubilant since moving to Asheville in 2013, and is a regular attendee at Sunday Celebrations. She was in Jubilee! Singers for many years, enjoyed outings with the Earth Team, is an active member of the Book Club, and serves on the Finance Committee. Gretchen is a Hoosier by birth, and has also lived and worked in Chicago, upstate NY and Portland, ME for 30 years. She spent twenty years in corporate America as an IT project manager and systems engineer at IBM, has been a small business owner of one of Portland’s first bed and breakfast inns, and served as director of a small business counseling program at a community development corporation for five years. She is retired, but maintains a small business consulting practice, specializing in funding strategies and fiscal management. Her most active hobby is participating in various forms of social dance, and she also enjoys gardening, biking and hiking.

Diane Dewitt, member, moved to Asheville ten years ago from southwestern Michigan, after spending her earlier years in a suburb of Chicago. Her career of choice is teaching students with visual impairments, and she still does this part time. Environmental conditions and social justice issues have been her motivation for lifestyle and actions for many, many years. She has attended Jubilee! for nine years and currently provides leadership for the Book Group. She says her family is limited to a few fantastic people, whom she loves dearly.  

Jeff Peisner, member, grew up in Central Florida, and lived and worked in Tennessee, south Illinois, Virginia, Nevada, England and Taiwan before moving to Asheville in 1994. He was a teacher for 25 years before retiring on his own dime, and has been together with his wife, Laura Loercher, since 2000.  Jeff enjoys dancing, swimming, pickleball, basketball, hiking, mountain biking, communicating in Spanish, and going on walks with his beloved dog, Dot. Novel experiences and connecting with creation in its many forms are two of Jeff’s main guiding principles for living his life. He has been regularly attending Jubilee! since 1995, and has volunteered as the leader of the Play team, served on other teams. and occasionally helps out with a variety of tasks at Jubilee! Jeff enjoys the connection with community at Jubilee!, and appreciates and resonates with the principles of love, forgiveness and acceptance that are shared during celebrations and throughout the community. He hopes to bring cooperation, empathy and acceptance to serving on the Jubilee! board.

Beth Pape, member, has been advocating for others since kindergarten and has a 70-year-old report card to prove it. She believes that love is an active verb: Loving is giving to and doing for others. Her adult contributions have included various childcare, early child intervention, women’s support, and diversity in employment board memberships. She stopped leading the AVL Parkinson’s Support Group a year ago to serve the WNC Sierra Club on its executive committee and as their publicist. As part of earning certification as a Blue Ridge Naturalist, she founded a WNC Sierra Club for children in youth programs, in which she is participating this summer. Beth is a team co-captain for Precinct 71.1 of the Buncombe Democrats, an active member of Together Women Rise and treasurer for her HOA. Her involvement with Jubilee! began last summer and has included the Hospitality team, the Holiday Decorating team, the Movers and Shakers, and the new Pathways team. You may recognize her as Jubilee!’s “Badge Lady.” “I felt loved the minute I walked into my first Jubilee! Sunday Celebration. The music, the ministers and the spirit of the people and place captivated me,” she said. “Ever since, I have been trying to find ways to return that love.”

Bruce Mulkey, ex officio member, is Jubilee!'s administrator, responsible for financial management, overseeing the building's upkeep and usage, supervising staff, organizing office volunteers, and at least a hundred other things. Bruce has been deeply involved with Jubilee! since 1998.  He and his wife Shonnie were married by Howard Hanger in 1999, and their daughter Gracelyn was baptized at Jubilee! in 2011. Bruce's skill set includes problem solving, planning, organizing and communications. He was an Obama field staff member during the 2008 presidential election and managed several other progressive political campaigns over the past decade. His writing has been published at the Washington Post, Huffington Post, SelfGrowth.com, The Good Men Project, and the Asheville Citizen-Times, where he was an editorial columnist during the early 2000s. You can read his full resume here, and find out more than you ever wanted to know about him on Bruce's website.