Administrative Staff

Gladys Dalby

Gladys Dalby interviewed Barbara Hastings, parish administrator; Debby Kulik, parish accountant; Chandra Cook, administrative assistant; Anne Altaffer, publications assistant; and Tom Mander, facilities manager, for the June issue of Cross Roads.

Barbara Hastings - Parish Administrator

Barbara Hastings is one of those people born to teach, plan, and manage, and she has equipped herself to do all three very well. After growing up in Ashville she went to Western Carolina University for a BS in education. With characteristic efficiency (on her part and on God's) she met Jim Hastings the first day she was on campus. Their marriage brought her to Durham, where they have enjoyed a long career in the Durham school system. Barbara was a high school math teacher for 18 years. Then she served in various planning, administrative, and supervisory positions, including staff development, middle school administration, and gifted programs administration. She wrote the plan for gifted education for the Durham school system and conducted leadership training and team-building classes for teachers. Along the way she acquired an MA in teaching at UNC and a specialty in school administration. In the meantime her husband taught behaviorally and emotionally disabled students and is now a positive behavior coach for teachers. As time for retiring from the school system drew near, Barbara says she felt sure she had been placed by God in these positions to gain such a wide repertoire of skills for a purpose. This purpose did not involve retiring, resting, loafing, or becoming a world traveler or golfer. When the Chapel of the Cross was seeking a parish administrator, Barbara was ready to make her transition. In her position she is liaison between the rector and the administrative staff whom she oversees. Among her myriad responsibilities, she reviews every check written and passes to the accountant the vestry's instructions so that every bill is paid from the correct account, coordinates the work of the administrative volunteers, and makes sure the processes are working for the facilities manager and the publications specialist. Along with the facilities manager, she supervises the work of the student residents, works with the personnel committee concerning hiring and personnel policies, and manages information technology by overseeing the computer network. To assure all administrative efforts are supporting the mission of the Chapel of the Cross, Barbara meets daily with the rector. She is adept at handling multiple responsibilities, and her steady and calm presence encourages her staff to do their best work. At her own Baptist church in Durham, she is director of adult education, does a lot of adult teaching and, with her husband and pastor, is leading a mission to Ukraine in June. They will be accompanied by their puppets, Buddy, Alice Ann, and Priscilla, who will also attend vacation church school at the Chapel of the Cross.

Debby Kulik - Parish Accountant

What would cause an accountant, accustomed to jetting to La Jolla, California, for two weeks at a time to oversee the conversion of a company's accounting system for Y2K, to leave the corporate world and become an accountant for the Chapel of the Cross? The pending arrival of grandchildren was far more important to Debby Kulik than the attractions of corporate life. How fortunate for the Chapel of the Cross that Debby was ready for a change of pace and lifestyle when we needed an experienced, knowledgeable, and steady person at the helm of the church's finances. Debby has a BS in accounting from Greensboro College and has worked in many settings including a bank, Duke University Payroll Department, corporate consulting, and running her own accounting services business. She had even done accounting for a church in a volunteer capacity. She pays all bills for the church and applies parishioners' contributions to their accounts, interacts with the Finance Committee, Building and Grounds Committee, the facilities manager, the music director, and the altar guild. She also keeps accounts for the Episcopal Church of the Advocate. The parish administrator provides approval for the payment of all bills.Debby emphasizes that her job involves time management as well as money management. It is important to Debby that the work is done right and that it is done in a timely way.

Debby met Bill, her husband of 29 years, at a part-time job while attending high school in Durham. They recently moved to a new home in Saxapahaw where they enjoy keeping up with their children (also named Bill and Debbie) and their three grandchildren, ages four years, nine months, and five months.

Chandra Cook - Parish Administrative Assistant

Born in Texas, Chandra Cook had lived in several states before her family settled in N.C. during her high school years. While taking some time off from college she was a preschool teacher and found that she really enjoyed working with children. In 2000 Chandra graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill after studying media production in the department of communication studies. Chandra says she feels lucky to have found her job as parish administrative assistant while looking for work in the nonprofit sector. She has found the position to be livelier than she had expected and likes the fact that it is different every day. Most days bring the unexpected. Although volunteers often answer the telephone, they frequently turn to Chandra for answers to questions from parishioners, staff, and anyone who may call. In her position she prepares the liturgical calendar, prepares the Cross Roads for mailing, prepares baptismal certificates, and records baptisms in the parish register. She also maintains the parish data base of members and mailing lists and performs support work for committees and groups. All this is done while being that unruffled person who handles all those questions and greets people who come into the office. Chandra says her job is truly a balancing act, but she has enjoyed it.

While working at the Chapel of the Cross Chandra has been discerning her long range career goals. She has recently decided to pursue a degree at UNC-Greensboro this next academic year. Having realized how much she misses working with children and serving as a positive influence in their lives, she has chosen to study for a Master's degree in library and information studies with a focus on school media. We wish her success and joy in this new undertaking.

Anne Altaffer - Publications Assistant

Our publications assistant, Anne Altaffer, was born in Charlottesville, VA, while her father was in medical school at the University of Virginia. After finishing school, her father joined the Navy, which stationed the family in Portsmouth, VA and later Camp Lejeune, NC. After he left the Navy, the family settled in New Bern, NC, where Anne and her family attended the Episcopal parish, Christ Church.

Three years later, Anne's family moved to Fredericksburg, VA. It was there, at St. George's Episcopal Church, that Anne first met and was confirmed by Bishop Peter Lee, former rector of the Chapel of the Cross.Anne then attended high school at St. Margaret's School (an Episcopal boarding school for girls) in Tappahannock, VA. Here she served on her student government as both junior warden and senior warden, tending to the spiritual aspects of school life, and was a member of the yearbook photography staff.

While away at Shrinemont Episcopal Retreat Summer Camp, Anne met Bishop Lee's son, James. James began attending Christ Church School for boys the following fall and the two became fast friends, staying in touch while she was away working on her Bachelor's degree in fine art, with an emphasis on photography at The University of Montana. When she returned to the East Coast, Anne taught photography and drama for one year at her alma mater, St. Margaret's, before moving to Durham, NC, where she and James Lee were reunited. James introduced Anne to several new friends, including her fiancé, Brian Asplin, and helped her acquire an apprenticeship with a graphic and Web designer.

After two years of searching for steady work, Anne sought work through an employment agency, who assigned her an interview with the Chapel of the Cross for the position of publications assistant. When she discovered that, not only is Chapel of the Cross an Episcopal church, but that it is also the former parish of Bishop Lee, she sensed that there were circles in her life coming to completion.

As publications assistant, Anne's busiest times of the year are the weeks before Christmas and before Easter, but she is always busy since her job involves the publication of the Sunday bulletin; funeral, special service, and wedding bulletins; Crossings; sermons; brochures for various ministries; the Directory of Parish Ministries; Cross Roads; and the Annual Report. She also has a hand in countless posters, cards, office use forms, and flyers. She orders all the supplies for the print center and keeps the copier, high capacity printer, collator, booklet maker, and folding machine all in working order. Anne has also been the administrative assistant for campus ministry since Stephen Stanley's departure.

Outside of her work at Chapel of the Cross, Anne runs her own freelance graphic and Web design company called, Plus 1 Designs. She is also the Webmaster for the Church of the Advocate of which she is a member. The Advocate's vicar, Lisa Fischbeck, will officiate at Brian and Anne's wedding at Anne's grandmother's home in Warsaw, VA, across the river from St. Margaret's School.

Tom Mander - Facilities Manager

Tom Mander began life on a farm in upstate New York, where his mechanical talent was expressed as a child always trying to create devices "to make work easier and faster," as he explained to his sometimes perplexed father. He even turned their row boat into a motor boat using a lawnmower motor and the blades of an old fan.

Tom benefited from an excellent school that the farm families subsidized to bring in high school faculty from active or retired college professor ranks. When he joined the army after high school, he took a mandatory test that led to a week of testing. This resulted in his taking courses on base and on campus at the nearby Kansas State University. He completed a degree in mechanical engineering but turned down the offer of Officer Candidate School and returned to New York.

Having married a girl from his home community, he settled in that area and worked in various positions in engineering until the bitter winters proved dangerous for his daughter's health, and her doctor advised moving to a warmer climate. Just as he had at an earlier date refused to take part in accepting a bribe to give a contract to a particular company (and was fired for his honesty by an angry and corrupt supervisor), when he had become assistant chief engineering officer at another company here in North Carolina he decided to resign when he found the attitude and personnel policies toward employees to be unfair and heartless and did not want to participate in that kind of business climate.

Tom's principles and actions are as one and are not for sale or hire. Recently he found that his own tool and die business was wrecked by the relocation of his customers to Mexico and the decline in orders from others faltering in the changed business environment since 9/11. Thus, the Chapel of the Cross is fortunate to have a full-fledged mechanical engineer to take care of the buildings and grounds.

He says his job covers everything inside and outside the building. He makes a point of observing the functioning of all systems so that preventive measures can be taken if needed. The service contractors must find it both helpful and disconcerting that they must deal with someone who knows what needs to be done and how it should be done. Barbara Hastings says she simply has no worries about the building with Tom in charge. His expertise is a boon for the Building and Grounds Committee.

Tom maintains lists of jobs that need to be done, categorized by skill level, and he welcomes parishioners' assistance on parish work days or any day. Another responsibility is supervision of the work of the student residents which he shares with Barbara Hastings.

We hope the volume of orders returns to normal for Tom's business, but we also hope he will like it so much at the Chapel of the Cross that he can continue to manage both jobs.