Meet Our Board Members
With diverse backgrounds in business, medicine, law, teaching, theology, theater and social work, our board and extended Quest community bring a wealth of knowledge and creativity to their endeavors for Connecticut Quest for Peace (CT Quest).
This unpaid talented staff handles all of CT Quest’s administrative duties, including program development and management, fundraising, communications, marketing and financial oversight.
Linda and Randy Klein are CT Quest’s coordinators. Randy claims that he and Linda became organizational leaders for CT Quest by default: Randy says, “We were the only people who showed up” for the organization’s first informational meeting in 1989.
Randy and Linda were soon joined by Gail Faithfull and her husband, Leo McDonnell. The two couples are responsible for the creation of CT Quest.
To coordinate CT Quest’s programs, oversee funding and develop new initiatives, the Kleins and other CT Quest members travel to Nicaragua several times each year. The Kleins have made 26 extended visits to Nicaragua since 1991.
As of December 2008 the Kleins permanently moved to Managua, Nicaragua in order to oversee all 22 of our programs and to determine where the greatest need lies.
Randy and Linda met 45 years ago in college and married soon afterwards. Though they began their professional lives as teachers, the couple switched careers in 1967 to start their own electronics manufacturing business.
The couple share a deep commitment to social action, and over the years Randy and Linda have carved out significant service time for CT Quest, Maryknoll Affiliates, prison ministries and Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker hospitality houses.
Laura Klauberg is President of Ct. Quest for Peace. She first became involved with Ct. Quest about 5 years ago through the work done by the Benedictine Grange. She and her husband joined a delegation to visit Nicaragua with several other volunteers in 2008 and fell in love with the people and projects supported by Ct. Quest. In her day job, she is the VP Global Media for Unilever.
Bill Evans traveled in 2002 with Randy and Linda Klein and eight other Americans to Nicaragua to visit missions and centers supported by Connecticut Quest for Peace.
“I have not been the same since,” says Bill. “I was bit by the Nicaraguan bug and have grown to love the people, especially the children we met there. It has been a delight to work with CT Quest for Peace.”
A native of Indianapolis, Bill lived in Northern Kentucky from age 2-10 years and has resided in Connecticut since 1965. He attended Catholic elementary schools, graduated from Fairfield Prep, and received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
For the last 36 years Bill has owned and operated the William Evans Painting Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The company manages a wide variety of residential, commercial and industrial painting projects.
Seven years ago, “I volunteered,” recalls Bill, “to drive around Connecticut for a couple of days to pick up donated materials” to be sent to Nicaragua. Today Bill’s 8,000 square foot company warehouse serves as the storage center for CT Quest’s humanitarian aid cargo. It is perennially overflowing with donations earmarked for Nicaragua.
“We give so much,” says Bill, adding, “But we get back much more.”
Timothy McCaffrey is the retired General Counsel of General Reinsurance Corporation of Stamford, Connecticut, a global insurer and reinsurer operating worldwide with subsidiaries and offices in locations around the world.
Timothy served as a legal and executive officer for several major insurer and reinsurers for 35 years before retiring from his position at General Reinsurance. He holds a B.A. with honors at Harvard University and a law degree from Columbia University Law School. A member of the Bar in New York and in Connecticut, Timothy is active as an arbitrator in resolving insurance and reinsurance contract disputes.
After several years of volunteer work collecting goods, loading container trucks, and making contributions to CT Quests’ fund-raising appeals, Timothy joined the Board.
Wulfran Polonius was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1934. The Second World War dominated his childhood: In the post-war years, he lived with hunger and deprivation and this experience has made him especially empathetic to the lives of the poor.
As a young man, Wulf studied pharmacology in Muenster and received his PhD in chemistry in Wuerzburg, Germany. For over 30 years he worked in the pharmaceutical industry in Germany, Brazil and the USA, retiring in 1995.
It was during Wulf’s six year-sojourn in Brazil that he began to volunteer—assisting slum dwellers in Sao Paulo and a leper colony in Curitiba.
In 1976, the Polonius family experienced a whole new culture when they moved to the United States. In the US, the family volunteered on a daily basis through the Cursillo-based Emmaus Retreat Program for High School students.
In 1987 the Program expanded to the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, CT. Since that time Wulf and his wife have ministered to incarcerated women on a weekly basis.
Wulf soon became involved with CT Quest for Peace and he has served as its treasurer for the last ten years. Wulf and his wife, Ingrid, have traveled several times to Nicaragua to visit the people of our programs.
Each visit reminds Wulf of the importance of helping people in dire need.
John Anderson, John and his wife Kathryn first became acquainted with CT Quest four years ago when they joined the community at the Benedictine Grange in Redding, CT. Initially they volunteered to run the auction and raffle for Ct Quest’s annual fundraising event Fiesta Nicaragua. When Randy and Linda Klein moved to Nicaragua, they became coordinators of the event. John is now currently secretary for CT Quest.
Born and raised in Danbury, CT., John has a B.A. in American Studies from St. Michael’s College and has worked in the plumbing and heating wholesale industry for over 30 years. John is currently manager of The Creative Bath showroom in Brookfield, CT.
“Kathryn and I have been involved in many social justice projects and organizations all our lives.” says John. “But the uniquely close relationship Ct Quest members have with our projects in Nicaragua and with the people they serve has been a deeply personal inspiration to both of us.”
In addition to the executive Board, our Quest community includes the following dedicated and highly talented volunteers: Carl Bailey, Kathryn Anderson, Ruth Ayers, Ed Ayers, Barbara Caroselli, Douglas Capozallo, Marie Cohen, Ann Deignan, Kathleen Deignan, Gail Faithfull, Kevin Funk, Anna Kish, Cherril Kolesik, Jane McCaffrey, Leo McDonnell, Susan Pfeil, Ingrid Polonius, Pam Rogalin, Maureen Shanley, Ann Stubbs, and Lorraine Thompson.