Introduction from ACPE's New Director of Education

Dear Colleagues, 

I am pleased to introduce myself as ACPE’s new Director of Education. I am working remotely from Elizabethtown, PA, just south of Hershey, PA. My role encompasses professional work in Certification, Accreditation, and Psychotherapy within the broader scope of our mutual mission to offer clinical educational opportunities. 

Prior to assuming this new position, I had the privilege of representing our association, serving on the Board of Directors, and serving on the Regional Accreditation, Curriculum, and REM committees. At the beginning of 2025, I joined the Re-recognition Task Force. The grace of being involved in these various parts of our association stems from my beginnings in ACPE. I enrolled in my first CPE unit in 1993 at Baptist Hospital East while in seminary. Little did I know at the time that this first unit would lead to the gift of being held within the ACPE community for my entire professional career. I began training in Kentucky, continued in South Carolina, and became an educator in San Francisco. My personhood and professional life have been shaped by peers in formation, the gifts of countless learners I was graced to be present with, and from you, my colleagues.

Being an educator is the highest calling and one that I am humbled to share with you. One of the primary groups ACPE maintained was the International Pastoral Care Network for Social Responsibility. IPCNSR was a formative group for me, where I met many ACPE educators and went on several “Peace Walks” at National ACPE conferences. The contributions of Howard Clinebell to IPCNSR and ACPE have held a lasting impact on me as I hold dearly the mutual contributions of CPE, pastoral counseling, psychotherapy, and the need for both ecological and social justice in our world. I am particularly excited to be in this role, elevating the contributions of all these professional voices within the household of the ACPE. I am also excited to join and promote our international efforts and relationships, and to share how our work produces research on how we educate and how we contribute to the healing of suffering people in our times. 

I am committed to serving you as you offer the opportunity to educate the next generation. I am looking ahead to the horizon and to how our generation can leave our descendants with the resources and knowledge to shape ACPE in their time.  

What’s next as I begin my work: