People

Our congregation leadership – The Bishop’s Committee

Robyn Amos

Mother, educator,  third generation San Franciscan and forever member of St. Cyprian’s.  I am an Episcopalian by choice who seeks to serve God and find His light in everyone. My eclectic interests  bounce from classic movies to aphids to salsa dancing on the beach and singing in the rain.  Being a part of the St. Cyprian’s Family provided a lens and a path for deepening my spiritual growth and beliefs.  Our journey continues to nurture and challenge me each step of the way.

Bruno Peguese

Born in Jackson Ms. in 1950. Moved to SF in 1959. Educated in San Francisco. Received a BA degree from University of San Francisco and a Law Degree ( JD.) from Kendrick Hall University of San Francisco. Worked as a Public Defender for a number of years before entering the private sector practice of law. Worked for a number of firms in SF , the largest being the Law Offices of Arnelle and Haste who specialized in Real property; Land use and various civil matters. Entered into transportation in the early 1990s where I was a member of the team who acquired the property to extend BART to the Airport. In the early 2000s I joined BARTs’ property development team whose focus is on development of communities around transit (Transit Villages). Sheila , my wife and I met in college.; We were married in 1979 by Fr. Allan Ford, then Vicar of St. Cyprian’s Church. We have been devout members of  the church since 1978. I have served on the vestry for more than 24 years and active in church events and activities for even longer I have served on several committees at the Diocese and have served as a board of Governor for the Ohlhoff House for many years. I am a close friend to Bishop Swing. Today I continue to play and active role in church affairs and plan to continue.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer serves as the communications coordinator for St. Cyprian’s, designing and editing the newsletter, writing grant proposals, blogging, and doing media outreach. She is eager to see St. Cyprian’s become a vibrant center of community life, with food ministry being a particular area of interest. In her professional life, she serves as the Director of Communications for Saint Mark’s School in San Rafael. Jennifer and her son, future acolyte and avid baker Jonas, have been members of St. Cyprian’s since December 2009. Jonas currently prepares snacks for church from Play-Doh but will grow into volunteering as a cook with the food ministry program upon completion of the church’s commercial kitchen.

Jarie Bolander

Jarie has lived in Nopa with his wife Margaret and their dog Harold since 2004. He has been on the NOPNA board since 2007 and now serves as president. An engineer by training and an entrepreneur by nature, he is presently working on breakthrough technology that will help reduce medical errors and improve the quality of life for humanity. When not volunteering or at his day job, he can be found running or biking through the park or swimming in the bay.

Jarie is honored to be on the St. Cyprian’s bishops committee and is excited about what the future holds. Community is important to Jarie and being able to use the resources we have to better the spiritual and physical life’s of our extended family is going to be fun.

Michael Helquist

My roots are in the Pacific Northwest in so many ways. I was born in Portland, Oregon, and part of me is always yearning for the outdoors, the forests, desert and ocean. But also for the buzz and edginess of the city: New York, San Francisco, Paris. I have worked as a freelance journalist, community health administrator, neighborhood advocate, and historian. In the late-1980s I directed an international AIDS prevention and communication program funded by the State Department. San Francisco has been my home base for 30 years. The last ten years I have shared a home in the North Panhandle neighborhood with my partner, Dale Danley. He and I keep taking each other in new directions: bicycling, gardening, volunteering (too much), habitat restoration, a deeper spirituality, and most recently community-building at St. Cyprian’s. Michael also leads BIKE NOPA.

My first contact with St. Cyprian’s was 13 years ago as part of a neighborhood tree-planting project. I was impressed with how the congregation engaged the community then. In 2009 I organized a neighborhood block party, and St. Cyprian’s pastor bestowed a bike blessing there. As a former Catholic seminarian – a very long time ago — I decided to learn more about the congregation’s commitment to faith, action, and community. St. Cyprian’s has become an essential part of my search for a diverse, inclusive, and challenging community.

Gigi Smith

Gigi is originally from Alabama but grew up in Ohio. She came to the Bay Area of California in 1983 and worked at the Airport Safety Office for 18 years, where she met her husband, Jim. Gigi and her family began attending St. Cyprian’s after her daughter Kira was born in 1999. Gigi is an instrumental part of the Kitchen Team and is coordinating concessions for our regular concerts.Gigi has been cooking her whole life, and has 13 years of professional experience in the culinary arts.

Bios for additional BC members Willie Collie and Norma Planiczka are on their way.

Volunteer Support

John Roy, Treasurer

Eilean Drummond, Administrative Support

Jennifer Wolfe, Print Newsletter Designer & Editor

Michael Helquist, Director of Community Initiatives

 

Community Kitchen Team

Norma Planiczka, Gigi Smith, and Jennifer Wolfe

USF Interns – Lu Han, Madelene Parks, Andy Sakhrani with support from Simply Sandwiches, the Village Project & numerous Cyprian’s friends and neighbors including Jeff Hanak of NOPA restaurant, and Joe Yick of Robert Yick Company Inc.

Eric Metoyer, Transitional Deacon

Eric Metoyer is serving as transitional Deacon at St. Cyprian’s.

Eric recently received the Masters of Divinity Degree from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, focussing his studies on Liturgy and Parish Administration. He was a Clinical Pastoral Education intern at San Francisco General Hospital this past spring and served two years as Field Education seminarian at Holy Cross Episcopal Church, Castro Valley.

Eric feels a strong call to parish ministry. He says: ‘The parish is the cornerstone of Christian Life in our community. We are called to worship together, and, are called to be active members of the community around us. I look forward to participating in the life
and work of the St Cyprian’s community.’

Eric serves the diocese as chairman of the Afro-Anglican Commission, co-chair of the Racial Reconciliation Task Force (investigating African American Slavery in the Diocese) and member of the Multi Cultural Commissions Roundtable. He is a candidate for Holy Orders, sponsored by St Mary the Virgin parish, San Francisco. He is also active as a corporator of Lyndon Institute, Lyndon, Vermont, and Synergy School, San Francisco.

Eric was raised in New England. He attended high school in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom and graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts. He lived in Boston prior to moving to San Francisco. Before he entered ministry Eric worked in construction management for small and large engineering firms.

Eric lives in South San Francisco with his wife and son. In his spare time he is a model railroader, reads histories,and follows the fortunes of Cal Football.

Doe Yates, Deaconal Postulant

Doe was born in Edwards, MS & in 1959, she moved to San Francisco to attend the Louise Salinger Academy of Fashion and graduated with a credential in Dress Design, Pattern Making, Fashion and Modeling. Doe remained in San Francisco and ultimately was confirmed to the Episcopal Church in 1962 at Grace Cathedral by The Rt. Rev. James A. Pike, Bishop of California. She was employed in various departments of the U.S. Federal Government until retirement in 2009. Doe’s hobby is gardening. She grows a sustainable garden on her patio. Vegetables include are Mustard, Turnip, Collard, Cabbage, Broccoli, Green Beans, Artichokes, Carrots and Tomatoes. Fruit trees include Lemon, Orange and Tangerine. She grows enough to eat, some to freeze and some to share.

Jack Stephens, Seminarian

Jack Stephens was born and raised in the southern neighborhoods of San Francisco where he has lived all of his life.  He felt a calling towards serving God and the people around him while he was in his last year in high school.  While receiving his B.A. in Journalism at San Francisco State University he got involved in community organizing in the neighborhoods he grew up in and also began organizing as a union representative for his union, Teamsters Local 2785.

As of today he is in his last year at seminary at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific where he is working on completing his Masters in Divinity.  He is still a union representative for his union and works the graveyard shift as a truck loader for UPS (where he has been for the last five years).  He also is on the Board of Directors for the South of Market Community Action Network where he focuses on staff development as well as being on the staff for the Northern California Chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and is the educational development director for the San Francisco Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines.

Nikola Printz, Sunday Music Coordinator

I am currently a Junior voice student ( a mezzo soprano) at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. I have plenty of experience in sacred and liturgical music. I have attended and performed in my own church from my hometown, an Episcopal church in Novato California- Saint Francis of Assisi. I am currently receiving top dollar training at San Francisco Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Patricia Craig. In addition to voice, I play the guitar, a family of ukuleles and the piano. I currently study piano under Alla Gladysheva at the conservatory.  I have experience teaching many private lessons, and in high school was the accompanist and musical coach for private students as well as the musical theater class and jazz choir at Marin School of the Arts under the direction of Mark Peabody. I think I could bring a new kind of music to services. Although my background is thoroughly cemented in a classical foundation, I am very fluent in Gospel music and R&B, and “pop-rock” and believe that adding contemporary music and spirituals would be a great addition to services.

Nikola has experience working with youth, teaching voice and piano lessons to preteens. She also won Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon Scholarship Competition.

The Reverend Will Scott – Our Vicar

Will Scott was raised by a teacher and a social worker in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and became fascinated with San Francisco after discovering Beat poetry in high school. Growing up, Will and his family were active in a small Episcopal Church not unlike St. Cyprian’s, St. Paul’s on-the-Hill. Will graduated from Bard College at Simon’s Rock in 2000 with a concentration in Cross-Cultural Relations, having also studied in India, Tibet and Nepal with the School for International Training. After graduating, Will participated in the first summer of the Diocese of Virginia’s Young Priest Initiative Program, spent time with the School for Designing a Society in Urbana, Illinois, worked at a state-wide student environmental group, and sold books. Will entered Virginia Theological Seminary in 2001. His seminary fieldwork site, the ecumenical Church of the Savior in Washington, DC, still inspires him. Will came to Grace Cathedral following two years as Associate Rector at St. John’s Episcopal Church in McLean, Virginia. During his four years at Grace Cathedral, Will helped found Dinner with Grace and gather the interfaith community for vigils on the labyrinth and cathedral steps in response to local and global events. He was a regular at the Cathedral’s Sunday at Six contemplative service and enjoyed facilitating discussions on a variety of topics from contemplative prayer to sexuality, biblical studies to storytelling. In the summer of 2009, Will began serving St. Cyprian’s as Cathedral Missioner and in December 2010 was called by the congregational leadership to serve as St. Cyprian’s pastor and was instituted as Vicar in October 2011. Together with the congregation of St. Cyprian’s, Will looks forward to deepening this community’s ties with the surrounding neighborhoods and other places of spiritual engagement.

Will and his spouse, Matt Chayt, an attorney, live in Bernal Heights. Matt grew up Jewish and his favorite spiritual teacher is Yoda. Will and Matt’s interfaith relationship began in 2004.

Check out Will’s blog yearnsandgroans.

Questions about the church or faith?

turkandlyon@gmail.com

St. Cyprian’s is blessed to have the support of two associated clergy persons, The Reverend Dr. Susanna Singer & the Reverend Ida Louise Johnson.