Germanna Foundation Board of Trustees

Board Officers
Keith Hoffman, President

Bruce L. Davis, First Vice President

William Johnson, Second Vice President

Stephen D. Chanko, Treasurer

Barbara Gregory Price, Secretary

Trustees
Cathi Clore Frost
J. Craig Kemper, Jr.
Linda “Sunny” Reynolds
Prof. Dr. Horst Schmidt-Böcking
Volker Schüettenhelm

Keith Hoffman, President

Keith joined the board of Trustees in 2012 and became Treasurer in 2013. His father was born in a community of Germanna descendants in western Ohio. Keith is related to many of the families in the first and second colonies. Prior to retiring in 2013, Keith was a financial analyst for a government sponsored enterprise where he measured investment performance and interest-rate risk for fixed income securities. Keith is a Chartered Financial Analyst. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Mathematics from the University of Maryland.

Bruce L. Davis, 1st Vice President

Bruce joined the Board of Trustees in the fall of 2011. He is not a Germanna descendant, though the maternal side of his family, (Keck, Dieser, Rachor and Walther), are from Zellhausen, Germany. Descendants moved to the U.S. in 1844. He was born and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, graduating from Urbana High School in 1975. Bruce then attended Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, where he also interned in the Michigan Senate at the state capitol in Lansing. He graduated in 1979 with a B.A. in Business Communication. Bruce then began a very interesting career working for the E. and J. Gallo Winery of Modesto, California. He worked in numerous states and spent time working directly for Ernest Gallo in Tokyo, Japan, researching export potential on numerous Gallo products. At the same time, he spent time working other existing Gallo markets in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Phillipines, Singapore, and China. Eventually, Bruce was transferred to the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C., where he became engaged with a number of Gallo distributors in the area. In 1989, an opportunity to buy an interest in Freeman Beverage Company presented itself, and he left the Winery.

He spent the next twenty-one years at Freeman Beverage, building the sales and delivery organization, then re-organizing data processing, office and human resource policies and procedures. He and his partner’s efforts lead the organization from a $3.5 million organization to $26 million upon the sale of the company in October of 2010. While at Freeman Beverage, Bruce became very involved in the local community, including the Spotsylvania Lions Club (past President and Melvin Jones Fellow), Fredericksburg Country Club (two term President). He also served on the Germanna Community College Educational Foundation (two term President), as well as the Germanna Community College Board of Directors. Upon completion of his board service Germanna Community College, Bruce recently became employed there as the Chief Liaison to the President, helping partnerships grow between the four campuses, businesses and individuals in the seven county college service area. He is very proud to now serve the Germanna Foundation, as the community college that has grown so much and plays such an important role to its’ various communities would not exist if it were not for the generous land donation for the first campus in 1970. Bruce lives in Spotsylvania with his wife, Sandra, and two daughters.

William Johnson, 2nd Vice President

William H. Johnson, Jr., retired in 2011 from a career in non-profit publishing and marketing. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and Government degree from the former West Virginia Tech (Now WVU Tech), with graduate studies at Marshall University and West Virginia College of Graduate Studies. He was city editor of a WV daily newspaper and served in non-profit communications and management positions with the West Virginia Education Association, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, and the Virginia Education Association. In retirement, Bill wrote Keeping the Promise—150 Years of Advocacy for Children and Public Education, has presented workshops on news media relations and membership development, and was both a contributor and the editor of Germanna Record 23. As both of Bill’s parents are Germanna descendants, he has ties to 13 Germanna immigrant families. He and spouse, Jane Ellen Laws, live in Leland, NC.

Stephen Chanko, Treasurer

Stephen was elected as a member of the Germanna Foundation’s Board of Trustees in August 2013. He is a graduate of Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. Stephen is a Certified Public Accountant (“CPA”) and holds an active license in the State of Texas. He previously worked for Ernst & Young (EY) for nearly 24 years. While with EY he worked in their Vienna, Austria and Houston, Texas offices where he managed financial statement audits of public and private held companies and provided regular consultation to clients on challenging accounting issues in accordance with IFRS and USGAAP. Stephen is a 2nd Colony descendant of Philipp Joseph Weber and his wife Susanna Klaar, through their son Hans Dieterich Weber (“Peter Weaver”) who immigrated from Gemmingen, Baden (now Baden-Württemberg, Germany) in 1717.

Barbara Price, Secretary

Barbara Price is a descendant of Hans Jacob Holtzclaw and his first wife, Anna Margreth Otterbach, as well as the Heimbach and Fischbach families. Barbara first became involved with the Germanna Foundation in 1998, attended her first Reunion in 1999 and many more since then. Barbara was born in El Paso, Texas in 1955, but has been a resident of California since 1958. She currently lives in Ventura with her daughter, Kristi, and granddaughter, Jordyn. Barbara worked as a Respiratory Therapist for 23 years in both the hospital and home care setting. She has extensive experience managing both DME companies and Home Health Agencies in the home health industry. She now works in medical sales for Apria Healthcare and enjoys her job immensely. Barbara has been involved with several volunteer agencies such as the Firefighter Cancer Support Network and has also served on the Board of the Esophageal Cancer Awareness Association. She currently serves as both a Trustee and a Board member of the Germanna Association and is Secretary for both entities. She’s the Chair of the Internet Presence Committee and serves on the Publications Committee and the Program Committee, hence she does not have a lot of spare time! But she has managed to travel with Germanna to Germany four times, twice as a working member of the Tour.

Cathi Clore Frost

Cathi Clore Frost first became involved with Germanna and attended her first Reunion in 2002. She was elected to the Board of Trustees in 2009. For a decade, she served as chair of the annual Germanna Conference & Reunion. She also served as Board Secretary for 5 years and currently serves as Chair of the Education and Publications Committee. Cathi actively researches descendants and relatives of the Germanna Colonists. She maintains the Germanna Database of Descendants and is the author of several Germanna Records. Cathi is a descendant of Second Colony members of the Clore, Kaifer, Weaver, Volck, and Blankenbaker families as well as members of the Hirsch/Deer and Razor families who were later arrivals to the Hebron / Robinson River community.

J. Craig Kemper

Craig is a 1st Colony descendant of Johannes Kemper. He joined the Board of Trustees in 2016. Craig is an attorney, presently serving as legislative counsel to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Previously, he practiced as a Virginia Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney, and served on the Board of Governors of the Virginia Young Lawyer’s Conference from 2012 to 2016. Craig holds a B.A. in History and American Politics from the University of Virginia, and a Juris Doctor from Regent University. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife, Laura. Laura is a 2nd Colony descendant of Nicholas Yager. She currently serves as Counselor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. She holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia as well as a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Linda “Sunny” Reynolds

Sunny Reynolds is a long-time resident and business owner in Fauquier County. Ms. Reynolds is owner of Biotrek Adventure Travels and Studio 19 Photography. She has served on the Warrenton Town Council and as Vice Mayor of Warrenton. She is an established and well-proven fundraiser with proven success acquiring funding for many local and statewide organizations. Ms. Reynolds is currently assisting the Germanna Foundation in its fundraising efforts with a focus on the Fauquier County community. Ms. Reynolds has also served on a variety of local, non-profit boards including the Warrenton Chamber of Commerce, Habitat for Humanity and is currently a member of the Fauquier County’s Business and Tourism Advisory Committee

Dr. Horst Schmidt-Böcking

Horst was born on February 13, 1939 in Siegen-Weidenau and grew up in Trupbach. He and his wife, Marlies (nee Böcking), who live in Kelkheim near Frankfurt, are the parents of two daughters. In 1982, he was named Professor of Atomic and Molecular Physics at the University of Frankfurt. He retired in 2004 but is still active in research at Frankfurt University. His grandparents are Hermann Jung (1880-1941) and Friedericke Otterbach (1883-1965) both born in Trupbach. Their ancestors have all lived in Trupbach, documented to 1550 or even before. Their ancestry lines are directly related to the 1714 emigrants Hermann Otterbach and his family and on the Jung side related to Jakob Holtzclaw (his mother was a Jung) and the 1732 Jung emigrants. Horst studied physics in Würzburg and Heidelberg beginning in 1960. His scientific career is described in https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Schmidt-B%C3%B6cking and http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/45167333/H_-Schmidt-Boecking?. Since 1986 he has been a member of the Germanna Foundation and has attended several Germanna Reunions in Virginia. He has worked as scientist at many U.S. universities and National Laboratories (e.g. KSU in Manhattan, Lawrence Berkeley and Livermore Laboratories, Argonne National and Brookhaven National Lab.). Altogether he spent about 4.5 years in the U.S., and about one year of this time his family joined him.
From 1954 to the present he has played trombone in the church brass group and has often welcomed the annual Germanna tour group to his village of Trupbach as part of a brass quartet. Since 2001 he has been a member of the city parliament of Kelkheim/near Frankfurt.