Annual Parish Meeting and Vestry Election

For any inquiries on the day of the event, please contact Teagan Sage at   or (212) 378-0222.

Nominated for a second two-year term as Warden

William (“Bill”) Fry IV, Warden

Bill and his wife Lee Anne moved to New York from Nashville in late 2012. As lifelong Episcopalians (and Bill’s now deceased father an Episcopal priest), they spent over a year shopping for churches. After visiting more than ten Episcopal churches all over the city, many on multiple Sundays, they decided on St. Bart’s due to the warm welcome and the Rev. Buddy Stallings’ sermons. In deciding on St. Bart’s, Bill said, “This was an important decision to us and we took it seriously. We were looking for a church home, not merely a place to worship, and we found that in St. Bart’s.”

Bill and Lee Anne have lived in numerous cities on the east coast and in the south. Bill has served on vestries leading stewardship for Episcopal churches in Georgia and Tennessee, served as a Big Brother for many years, and as a Director of Boys and Girls Club of Nashville. As a member of the St. Bart’s Vestry since 2020, Bill chaired the Investment Committee, served on the Governance Committee, led the Strategic Planning Committee, and has served as Warden for two years.

Bill grew up in Memphis, TN, graduating from Ole Miss. He served as a Naval Officer first on the USS Bowen (FF 1079) and then in the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program in Washington DC, where Bill and Lee Anne met. Bill received an MBA from Harvard Business School and then embarked upon a career as a senior executive. Bill served as CEO of various companies including Bell Sports, Riddell, and Oreck Corporation. In 2010, Bill joined American Securities, a private equity fund based in New York, where he serves as a partner focusing on portfolio company improvement. In addition to serving on various American Securities’ company Boards, Bill serves on the Board of Directors for Trek Bikes and for the Ole Miss Business School.

While at St. Bart’s, Bill and Lee Anne have become members of the Mosaic Society, and in May of 2019 and 2023 they went on the St. Bart’s Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a journey that impacted both their faith and commitment to St. Bart’s.

Bill and Lee Anne have two children, a daughter in NYC and a son and daughter in law in Chicago. They live in Chelsea and also have a home in Oxford, MS. While in New York, Bill and Lee Anne enjoy Broadway shows, concerts and all the city has to offer.

Nominated to  Serve a Second Three-Year Term as a Vestry Member

Craig Simmons

Craig found St. Bart’s in 1987 via the Community Club, led then by our current Assistant Rector, the Reverend Canon Andrew Mullins. He began attending worship services in 1988 after an introduction then-Rector Tom Bowers and later headed and expanded the Ushers & Greeters Corps. He implemented the “radical” (and) welcome idea of having greeters stand outside the church. In 1991, he was received into the Episcopal Church from the Roman Catholic tradition. His two older children attended St. Bart’s Community Preschool. His daughter was in the first class of Choristers and his son served as an acolyte.

Craig is an independent consultant with 35 years of corporate experience and non-profit board service. He has worked at large financial institutions as First Boston, Lehman Brothers, and Sumitomo Bank; and been a change agent at a number of startup and small businesses. At Drexel Hamilton (a Wall Street firm owned and run by disabled veterans), he headed the corporate capital markets area. He successfully led the firm’s 3-year efforts to introduce and pass New York State’s first disabled-veteran-owned business-preference legislation that focused on professional services firms as a diverse supplier. Craig’s work directly with state legislators resulted in the unanimous passage of bills in both the NYS House and Senate, and legislation passed by Governor Cuomo. He mentored over 20 combat-disabled veterans at the firm and introduced additional race and gender-related diversity initiatives. Non-profits including One Hundred Black Men (OHBM), Inc., John Jay College Corporate Veterans initiative, and Greater New York Councils, Boy Scouts of America have benefited from Craig’s efforts.

In the 1990’s Craig served St. Bart’s on the Preschool Advisory Board, as chair of the Search Committee that called the Reverend Bill Tully as Rector, and chaired the Stewardship Campaign. He was elected by the parish to the first of two terms on the Vestry in 1994 where he led the newly formed New Ventures Committee that developed Café St. Bart’s and the Bookstore. In recent years, pre-pandemic, Craig attended the 11am service with three toddler children. He now participates via YouTube or by hosting Facebook watch parties.

Craig is a native of Philadelphia and graduate of Amherst College where he majored in Asian Studies became fluent in Japanese. He lives in Astoria with his soulmate Tina and their three small children who are currently remote schooling. He enjoys technology, biking, cooking, traveling, and public policy advocacy. He is also actively engaged local politics.

Nominated To Serve an Initial Three-Year Term as a Vestry Member

Dall Forsythe

Dall Forsythe first encountered St. Bart’s more than twenty years ago when he and his wife Ana Marie were part of an Education for Ministry group that met in the building.  After moving to the East Side, they came to the chapel from time to time and began trying out the other services late last year.  When the stewardship campaign began, they decided to sign up and became members officially at the beginning of this year and usually attend the 9 am service.

Dall Forsythe retired after teaching as visiting scholar and professor of practice at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service. He taught courses on governmental budgeting, debt management and nonprofit financial management.  He has a Ph.D. and a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University.

In the public sector, Dall served as budget director for the State of New York under Mario Cuomo and chief budget officer for the New York City public schools.  In the private sector, he was a managing director in Lehman Brothers’ public finance and municipal bond department.  In the nonprofit sector, he was chief administrative officer of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, chief financial officer of the Atlantic Philanthropies, and interim chief administrative officer of the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Chelsea, New York. He also served as chairman of the Fund for the City of New York and as a public member of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board for five years. He will be the initial CFO of the Proposed New York Episcopal Federal Credit Union.

Dall has also held faculty positions at Columbia University; the Kennedy School at Harvard; the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College (CUNY); and SUNY’s University of Albany. He is the author of Memos to the Governor: An Introduction to State Budgeting, among other academic publications.

Dall and his wife. Ana Marie, have three grown daughters and five grandchildren.  Ana Marie has been teaching modern dance for many years at the Alvin Ailey School.  Both are active in the Episcopal Church.  Dall chaired the national church’s investment committee, served two terms on the Trinity Wall Street vestry, chaired the finance committee of Episcopal Social Services, and mentored an EFM group at St. Luke’s Church in Montclair, NJ. Ana Marie and Dall now live in New York City

Jennifer Fuller

Jenn Fuller has lived in NYC since 2015. She began attending St. Bart’s in January 2020 and was baptized here in 2021. She joined the Development Committee in October 2022, and currently serves on the metrics/data subgroup.

Jenn holds a B.S.B.A. with majors in Finance, Political Science, and International Business from Washington University in St. Louis, and has two decades of investment banking experience. As a New York-based Managing Director in the Financial Services Group of Houlihan Lokey, an independent global investment bank, she focuses on residential and commercial mortgage finance companies and mortgage REITs and has overseen numerous M&A and debt and equity transactions. Previously, she spent 10 years leading housing and mortgage finance investment banking coverage for Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc., and an earlier decade at Stifel, also as a financial services investment banker. She has been mentioned as one of the “Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A” by Mergers & Acquisitions and has been recognized as a winner of The M&A Advisor’s “Emerging Leader Awards.”

Robert McKinney

Robert McKinney is a cradle Episcopalian who regularly attended churches in Bronxville and Greenwich, but St. Bart’s has been his spiritual home since 2018. After some church shopping, he was won over by St. Bart’s theological ethos, its welcoming members, its rich choice of programs, and its outreach ministry.

A native of New York City, Robert graduated from George Washington University with a degree in Finance. He subsequently earned two master’s degrees—an MBA and an MS in Accounting. He has spent his professional career in the Finance industry, primarily in and around the City. After stints at Republic National Bank of New York and Deutsche Bank, he has headed Internal Audit for Point72, L.P., a hedge fund, for the last thirteen of his seventeen years there. He is a Certified Information Systems Auditor.

Robert is a member of the Finance & Audit and Enterprise Risk Management Committees of Cohen Veterans Network, which provides mental health services to armed forces service members and their families through a network of clinics throughout the United States. In the past he has been Treasurer and Board member of the Boys & Girls Club of Stamford. He also regularly volunteers at the Bowery Mission in Manhattan.

Robert is currently a second-year student in Education for Ministry, and he ushers at the 8 am service. Last May he joined the St. Bart’s-sponsored pilgrimage to Israel.

Robert, a father of three, has lived in Astoria since 2017 with his wife and 17-month-old daughter, two cats and one dog. He enjoys music, playing guitar, reading, swimming, hiking, biking, and is also a student of Krav Maga.

Raymond L. Vandenberg

Ray Vandenberg has been a member of St. Bart’s since 1987. He and his former wife, Margaret, were married by Tom Bowers, the former Rector of the parish, and his sons, Chris (now 34), and Will (now 31), were baptized at St. Bart’s as infants. Both sons were confirmed at St. Bart’s. Ray served on the vestry previously for a number of years between 1989 and the early 2000s, and as a warden and chancellor. He also served as a vice chancellor for the Diocese of New York for approximately ten years, and special counsel to the Presiding Bishop from 2016 to 2019.

Ray was born in 1948 and grew up in Bucks County, PA. He attended public schools and spent his senior year of high school as an exchange student in Celle, Germany. He remains in contact with his exchange family and has had close relationships with several generations over the past six decades.

Ray graduated from Cornell in 1970 with an A.B. in Government from the College of Arts and Sciences and graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1975. Following law school, Ray moved to New York City and was a litigation associate at Thacher Proffitt & Wood, and subsequently a partner at Finley Kumble Wagner in the Employment Law Department. In 1991, he started his own law practice in New York. It ultimately became Vandenberg & Feliu, LLP, a 20-attorney corporate practice firm, which merged with a large Los Angelesbased firm in 2016. Ray managed the New York office until his retirement in 2019. He is a director of three private philanthropic foundations. 

After retirement in 2019, Ray and his wife, Roz Walrath, have been living mostly in New York, but also in San Francisco where they have a house and many friends. Ray has been active at St. Bart’s in person at services when in town, but also via YouTube and Zoom in several classes and support groups. He is working with the Rev. Meredith Ward to coordinate the Grief Group and the Retirement Group. He and Lucy Gianino are also co-leaders of the West Side Connects Group.

Ray and Roz live on the Upper West Side and near Twin Peaks in San Francisco. Their combined total of five children, their spouses and significant others have become close, and they all enjoy holidays and vacations together, whenever possible. Ray and Roz both enjoy traveling, running, skiing, working out (haha!), and entertaining friends. Their latest love is Abby Vandenberg, born 12/28/23 to Ray’s son, Will, and his wife, Kate. Abby lives in Chicago with her parents, so Ray and Roz are planning quite a few stopovers there!

Nominated To Complete the Remaining Two Years of an Unexpired Term as a Vestry Member

Christine Harrell

Chris was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, and grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, the second of five children. After graduating from Mississippi University for Women, she taught second grade in Miami. Fortunately, she won a full fellowship to do graduate work in English literature at Vanderbilt University, where she met her husband, Don.

Thus began the typical life of a wife of her time: following her husband from job to job. Luckily Don had interesting jobs: professor of English at the University of Houston, press secretary to the governor of Arkansas, working in the SUNY Central administration, Administrative Assistant to a US Senator, and. finally, handling External Affairs at TIAA-CREF. During those years, Chris met and entertained a lot of interesting people, had two sons (John, an actor, and Jeremy, a lawyer), got a nursing degree, headed a citywide annual Amblyopia Screening for preschoolers, coordinated Meals on Wheels delivery for her church, worked as a Legal Assistant, and worked at a Home Health Care agency.

In 1995 a friend visiting from Washington, D.C., mentioned that a New York church had stolen her rector, Bill Tully. She asked if her hosts would accompany her to visit him at St. Bart’s. Bill began his sermon reciting from memory the first stanza of John Updike’s poem Seven Stanzas at Easter.

Chris and Don never left.

Chris has found a real home in St. Bart’s. She completed EFM at St. Bart’s, manned the Bookstore for many years, has stocked the food pantry since its inception in the mid-nineties (with a decade’s worth of help from Charles and Curtis), served as an overnight host in the St. Bart’s women’s shelter, was on the recent rector search committee, proofreads the sermons, and has seldom missed an opportunity to grow in learning and fellowship via the wonderful Zoom and in-person educational offerings.

She enjoys taking tai chi and yoga classes, cooking, reading for her bookclub, and being out-and-about in New York City. She is especially proud that she has averaged walking over four miles every day for the last two years.

Natalie Johnson

Natalie Johnson was raised in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois, and, after graduating from Smith College in 1981 with a degree in economics, met her husband, Ken, while they were both serving as lending officers on Wall Street at The Bank of New York (now BNY Mellon).

After raising their children in Westchester, Natalie and Ken relocated to New York City in 2020. Natalie recalls that at the time, despite being in the middle of a pandemic, she found a home at St. Bart’s. She cites its welcoming spirit, with Christ at the center of the community, as a leading factor in this relationship, and notes that St. Bart’s provided her with a quiet respite amid the hustle and bustle of the city life. Since joining the St.Bart’s community, she has served as a Lector, Usher, Co-Leader of a Connects group, and has participated in numerous classes and attended many concerts at the church.

Community has always been important to Natalie. She has served as a Board member of her former church as well as of the Junior League and the PTA, and was president of her local pool club. Other volunteer roles have included co-chairman positions with a high school swim team, an Arts in Education program, and the Hospitality committee at her former church, where she organized a celebration for its 150th Anniversary and facilitated the Women’s Bible study program.

Returning to the workforce after her second son was born, Natalie launched a custom-design cake business providing special occasion cakes and ran the company as a sole proprietor for 20 years. She closed that business in 2011 to pursue a manager’s job at a store in Bedford, N.Y., and remained in that role for two years until Ken retired and they began traveling to visit family and enjoy time at their vacation home in Saint Simons Island, Ga. 

Today Natalie is a member of the Central Park Conservancy, the Met Museum, the Guggenheim, American Ballet Theatre and The Cosmopolitan Club, where she serves as Co-Chair of the Dance committee bringing various forms of dance to the club programming.

Peter Scardino

Internationally recognized for his work in urologic oncology, Peter Scardino earned his BA in religious studies at Yale University in 1967 and graduated from Duke University School of Medicine in 1971. He served as a resident in surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and completed a fellowship in urologic oncology at the National Cancer Institute (1973-76) and urology residency at UCLA (1976-79). In 1979 he joined the faculty at Baylor College of Medicine, becoming the Russell Scott Professor of Urology and Chairman of the Scott Department of Urology in 1989. In 1995 he was designated Distinguished Service Professor at Baylor, and in 1996 he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Peter moved from Texas to New York in 1998 to become Chief of Urology and Head of the Prostate Cancer Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), as well as Professor of Urology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and at SUNY Downstate. In 1999, Urology was established as a department with Peter as the first Chairman. In 2006, MSK appointed Peter the Alfred P. Sloan Chair of the Department of Surgery with over 100 surgeons in all specialties. He now holds the David H. Koch Chair and is an Attending in Urology at MSK.

Recognized for his excellent teaching, Peter led the Urology residency at Baylor and the fellowship program in Urologic Oncology at MSKCC for nearly 20 years. In 2014 and 2016 he won the Teacher of the Year award from the fellows at MSK. He has been visiting professor at academic institutions in the US, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Japan, India, Turkey, Egypt, Israel and Australia. He has published over 600 scientific papers as well as a book for the public, “Dr. Peter Scardino‘s Prostate Book,” co-authored with his wife, Judith Kelman, a noted writer and editor.

Peter retired last year and now serves as Chair Emeritus of Surgery, helping to connect patients with the right doctor. He loves to play golf, despite struggling with Parkinson’s disease, and to cruise the rivers around NY. He enjoys – often with friends - sampling the extraordinary food NY restaurants offer, and reading on the patio of his building overlooking the East River. He and Judith have five children and nine grandchildren.