Biographical Statement

Tom Loughrey
259 N. Orange St
Orange, CA 92866-1414
(714) 997-1973 – (Home) (714) 633-0837 (FAX)
tloughrey@economedix.com

Biographical Summary

Personal

· Age 58. Member of Orange Coast UU since 1980. UU for over 30 years.
· Married to Nancy Loughrey. Three grown children
· Occupation: Health Care management.

Service
Congregation
· Board president, Vice-president, Treasurer, Trustee (about ten years plus of Board level service)
· Current chair of Personnel Committee and member of Long Range Planning, Nominating.
· Current Treasurer and Board Member (five years) of AIDS Team Ministry providing meal delivery to HIV infected persons.
· Previous member of Building and Grounds, Finance committee, Steward on Endowment Fund, Worship Services committee
· Chaired task force on young adult participation and family participation
· Chaired annual canvass on numerous occasions
· Chaired semi- annual service auctions on numerous occasions
· Religious Education teacher

Pacific Southwest District
· Former member of Board of Trustees and candidate for president in 1987
· Former Board member and President of deBenneville Pines. Member of George deBenneville Society. Member of Finance Committee, Nominating Committee and other committees and task forces. Negotiated original hire contract with Camp Manager, Janet James.
· Former member and chair of District Extension Committee
· Former member and chair of Leadership Development Committee
· PSWD Nominating Committee
· Current one of two district Compensation Consultants (8 years). Have provided on-site consulting and support for more than half the congregations in the district over the past eight years.
· Have led numerous Board retreats, training sessions, search committee retreats and growth retreats for various congregations in the district.
· Currently on the South Bay, Long Beach, OC marketing group for special campaign this fall.

Unitarian Universalist Association
· Compensation Consultant for eight years. In addition to PSWD service I have provided compensation consulting services to congregations in the Pacific Northwest District and the Mountain Desert District.
· Have provided training workshops for national compensation consultants meetings and served on special task forces.
· Have served as a member of the General Assembly Volunteer Committee as the Usher/Teller coordinator for GA in Long Beach (head usher under Tom Stapelford), Fort Worth and St. Louis.
· Multi-year Friend of the UUA (stewardship)
· Current Moderator/co-manager of the UU-Money list; a list serve for UUs with congregational interests in financial matters. Five years.
· Appointed as Trustee to the UUA Board of Trustees by the PSWD Board.
· Serving on the 2006/07 Growth Working Group of the UUA Board.

Community
· Board member and President of Old Towne Preservation Association, a group dedicated to preserving the historic architecture and culture of Old Towne Orange, California’s largest historic district.
· Board member of Orange Chamber of Commerce
· Board member and president of local Federal Credit Union

Commitment
For more than thirty years as a UU, and with twenty-five of those years in the PSWD, I am dedicated to congregational growth and vitality at every level of congregational service. Growth occurs when healthy congregations are reaching out to their communities with opportunities for spiritual and human development, social witness and action, and creating intimate caring communities for each other for every person. My work will be to provide resources to maximize those opportunities for every congregation in our District. I ask for your support to continue this good work.

My Candidacy for UUA Trustee from the Pacific Southwest District:

In June at General Assembly I became the Trustee to the UUA from our district replacing the Rev. Ned Wight. I was appointed to this position by the PSWD Board and I am appreciative of their confidence in me and m y representation of the PSWD to the UUA. The appointment though is only until an election is held among the congregations of the PSWD. It is my hope to continue to represent your interests to the UUA Board for the next three years as the elected trustee. I ask for your support for my candidacy for three reasons: first, my experience, second my commitment to the District and to Unitarian Universalism and third, my passion for the difference healthy congregations can make to their members and friends, the communities we live in and the nation itself. We can even make a difference in the world we live in and the world we want our children to live in.

Experience

I hope you will take a look at my biographical statement where I detail my experience but let me just tell you that I have been an active UU since 1978 and a member of the Orange Coast congregation in Costa Mesa for nearly 26 years. I have served on the PSWD Board, chaired numerous committees in my church, in the District and have served on the board of deBenneville Pines as a member and as President. I have been working closely with congregations in the District as a Compensation Consultant for over 6 years. I am proud to say that I have been involved with more than a dozen of our congregations in the search for ministers and Directors of Religious Education. I have led workshops and retreats for over twenty of our congregations plus others in other districts. I have served the UUA at the previous three General Assemblies in charge of the ushers and tellers in the main Plenary Hall of GA. This job involves the largest and most complex scheduling and coordination of volunteers at GA. It is a lot of work but it is also a lot of fun. This work has brought me into a close working relationship with the Planning Committee and the Commission on Social Witness.

In addition to all my UU volunteer work I have been active in numerous community activities that add to my experience. I have served on the board and as president of my credit union; I have served on the board of my local chamber of commerce where I have also been a small business owner and I am currently on the board and serve as president of the Old Towne Preservation Association. This is a community group whose purpose is to preserve the historic architecture of Orange, CA which is the largest historic district in California. Check it out at http://otpa.org/.

I am also an experienced business person. I am Director of Finance for Hoag Hospitals Medical Practice management division. I have been a consultant to some of the most successful hospitals and medical practices in the country for over twenty years and I have traveled across the country giving presentations to professional associations on the management, governance and operations of medical practices. My experience in working with physicians and administrators has served me well in my volunteer work as a facilitator, arbitrator and developer of retreats and workshops. I am very lucky to able to earn a living doing work that I enjoy and can apply to my volunteer work.

Commitment

Commitment to the purposes and principles of Unitarian Universalism is a family matter in our house. My wife Nancy has served as President of the PSWD and like me, has also served as President of deBenneville Pines and our own congregation. She has been very supportive and encouraging of my pursuit for this position and she offers to me a model of commitment that I often find difficult to meet but work at faithfully and cheerfully with her encouragement.

My commitment is based on our purposes and principles. Like many others it was these words that spoke to me and convinced me that I had a place as a Unitarian Universalist. I believe this faith makes a difference in our own lives and in our congregations, our communities, the nation and even the world. There are UUs working everywhere to improve the lives of others in service to these purposes and principles. My commitment is to be counted among them.

It is not a blind commitment though. Even as we strive to fulfill these lofty ideals there are very difficult problems that prevent us from being our very best all the time. As we deal with problems of oppression, racism, classism, biases, prejudice, and more we struggle to find solutions and have fallen flat on our collective faces more than once, but to our credit we have a commitment to get back up and tackle tough issues again and again. I share that commitment to keep getting up and doing it again until we start to get it right. These are institutional problems and require an institutional response. The UUA is the best place to bring our collective effort to bear to solve these problems. They interfere with our growth as a denomination and our pursuit of our purposes and principles. It is the job of the trustees to provide the governance and set the performance standards for the staff and officers of the Association. The commitment must be equal to the problems and greater. There will be no solution to every problem in the term of any trustee but the commitment is to continue to faithfully and honestly pursue the solutions. I believe the best way to achieve this is through effective collaboration with the other trustees and the staff. These are some of the smartest, most creative and most committed people I have ever met. Effectiveness in meeting the challenges will come from honest dialogue, doing one’s homework and being a respectful listener and leader. There are many opportunities for all of this on the board. My commitment to you is to be faithful in my work, honest in my communication and fully engaged in the process and the tasks before the board in the coming months and years.

Passion

I really believe we can and do make a difference in the lives of many people and my passion is to be part of it because I know we can and we will do even more. The opportunity to serve as a trustee on the UUA Board provides a unique opportunity to exercise that passion which is why, I suppose, there are as many candidates for the position as there are. My passion is focused on growth. The UUA is in the best position to make resources available that promote growth. The ability to develop professional religious leaders, publish texts of liberal religious and social thought, develop standards for just treatment of the staff who support our congregations, develop curricula for lifespan learning and education, pursue causes of social equity and justice, raise funds for supporting these activities and other functions almost too numerous to mention make service to the UUA most compelling to the most passionate. It is just too much! Who wouldn’t want to be trustee?

My passion is for growth but not just for its own sake or on any terms. My passion for growth is rooted in my belief that as larger congregations and more congregations we will have more direct influence on more lives that can be lived to greater purpose. Our communities will benefit from greater philanthropy, more social equity and justice and greater harmony. At one level it sounds impossible. We are so small as a denomination. Even if we doubled in size, would it make a difference? My answer is yes it will and to think otherwise is to also say it makes no difference if we shrink in size. We have a profound message of acceptance, love and compassion. I don’t want us to fail for having not tried. My passion is to be grandly expectant of what we are capable of doing and the influence we can have.

In my own congregation we have a motto of sorts that summarizes my passion for what we do; it is searching for truth, building just communities and caring for one another. We work on it individually and as a congregation and I think it is a good model for right living just about anywhere. It is my passion to bring it to others and Unitarian Universalism has the ability to be the vehicle. That’s a ride I want to be on. I hope you support me and allow me to continue to serve you as the UUA Trustee from the PSWD.