Germanna Foundation Board of Trustees

Board Officers
Keith Hoffman, President
Bruce L. Davis, First Vice President
Kristie Kendall, Second Vice President
Stephen D. Chanko, Treasurer
Barbara Gregory Price, Secretary

Trustees
Dr. Katharine Brown
Cathi Clore Frost
Dr. William M. Kelso, CBE
J. Craig Kemper, Jr.
Megan B. Lott
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.

Kristie Kendall, 2nd Vice President

Kristie has served on the Germanna Board of Trustees since January 2016. She has a B.A. in History from James Madison University and a Master’s in Historic Preservation from the University of Maryland. She has worked at the Piedmont Environmental Council, an environmental non-profit that focuses on conservation and land use issues in a nine county area of Virginia’s Piedmont, since 2011, where she serves as the Historic Preservation Coordinator. She currently sits on the Fauquier County Architectural Review Board. Previously she served as the Secretary of the Blue Ridge Heritage Project, from its inception in 2013 through 2019. Her preservation interests include the documentation, mapping and preservation of underrepresented communities in Virginia’s Piedmont, including mountain settlements in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and free black and post-emancipation communities in Virginia. She is a lifelong Virginian with deep roots in Madison County.

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.

Dr. Katharine Brown

Katharine is proud to descend from 1714 Germanna immigrants John Jacob Rector and his wife Anna Elisabeth Fishback, as well as from Elisabeth’s immigrant parents, Philip Fishback and his wife Elisabeth Heimbach, and Peter Hitt and his second wife, Elisabeth Otterbach, daughter of the immigrants Hermann Otterbach and his wife Elisabeth Heimbach. Born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, Katharine grew up in the 1878 house her Rector ancestor William Nelson Chancellor built, and that she and her husband Madison are now restoring. She graduated from Hollins College then received a Ph.D. in history from The Johns Hopkins University. She has been executive director of the Stonewall Jackson House in Lexington, Virginia, and the Woodrow Wilson Birthplace (now Presidential Library) in Staunton, Virginia, and director of research and collections at the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia. For the past ten years, she has been a founding partner of Lot’s Wife Publishing, a local history publishing company. She is the author or co-author of a dozen books on Virginia history and church history. She is an adjunct Professor of History and Art at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, where she has taught historic preservation, museum studies, and furniture history for the past 25 years. She and Madison are the proud parents of three married sons and grandparents of three granddaughters. They have enjoyed leading each of the Germanna trips to Germany, and Katharine also chairs the Foundation’s publications committee. She is the author of Germanna Record #17.

Cathi Clore Frost

Cathi Clore Frost has lived in Oregon her entire life although she spent time in Perth, Australia and Vienna, Austria as an exchange student. She graduated with honors from Linfield College after completing a B.A. in History and Education. In the past she has been a social studies teacher and a librarian but currently works part time as a tap dance instructor (to the great amusement of her family and friends). Cathi is married to Bob Frost and they have two children. Cathi’s ancestors include Second Colony members of the Clore, Kaifer, Weaver, Volck, and Blankenbaker families and as well as members of the Hirsch/Deer and Razor families who were later comers to the Hebron / Robinson River community. She is the author of Germanna Record #16: The First Four Generations of the Michael Clore Family and is currently researching the Nicholas Yager family for a future Germanna Record.

Dr. William M. Kelso

Dr. William M. Kelso is the foremost archaeologist in Early American history. He is the director of archaeology for the Preservation Virginia Jamestown Rediscovery archaeological project, and the past director of archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg’s Carter’s Grove, Monticello and Poplar Forest. He was also commissioner of archaeology for the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission. Dr. Kelso has lectured throughout the U.S. and Europe and has authored or contributed to numerous books and articles on archaeology, including Jamestown, the Buried Truth (University of Virginia Press) and Archaeology of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello: Artifacts of Everyday Life in the Plantation Community (Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, Inc., Charlottesville). Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain made Dr. Kelso an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), an honor awarded for especially inventive and celebrated contributions to the recipient’s field.

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.

Megan Lott

Megan Beth Lott brings over thirty years of experience in development and fundraising within the public policy and charitable communities. She graduated from The College of William and Mary with a B.A. in Government. Formerly the Director of Development at the Media Research Center, Senior Director of Development at the Center for Individual Rights, and Senior Director of Membership and Development at the American Legislative Exchange Council, Megan has also raised funds for The Lab School of Washington, The National Council for Adoption, Citizens United, The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, and The Leadership Institute. Megan is a Lifetime Member of the Lexington Who’s Who and has raised over $250 million for the causes she passionately believes in.

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.