OUR TEAM

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

TEAM MEMBERS

Tracy Abler

Tracy Abler is the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Coordinator for the Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes (CSA) in Fond du Lac, WI. She is also an Associate of the community. Tracy’s home church is Pilgrim United Church of Christ. She is an active member of groups in her local community, such as United for Diversity and Ebony Vision. A strength Tracy brings to IPWG is her organizing and collaborative spirit, especially with interfaith groups.

Tom Boswell

Tom Boswell is a long-time community organizer who has worked with many faith-based and other organizations in Wisconsin and Iowa. He is also a freelance journalist, photographer, poet, and peace activist.

Jim Murphy

Jim Murphy is a Catholic priest that has been inspired by the Catholic Worker movement for peace and justice. U.S. nuclear weapons that could annihilate life on earth is first on his list of passions. There is much to do considering the U.S. spends $600 billion on military but affordable health care for all isn’t feasible. Activism includes opposition to military drone training at Volk Field, Camp Douglas, WI, nuclear war coordination at Offutt AFB near Omaha, NE, and militarism at our southern border.

Frederick Trost

Frederick Trost retired, after 20 years, as Conference Minister (President) of the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ in 2001. Prior to that, he was a parish pastor in Chicago for 19 years, where his congregation was active in the challenges presented by peace-making, social justice, study of the holy scriptures, and faith. He participated in tax resistance during the Vietnam War, and resistance to nuclear weapons, and was arrested in non-violent protests against U.S. foreign policy in South Africa and in the Contra war against Nicaragua. He continues to be a student of the relationship of our words and our deeds.

Steve Watrous

Steve Watrous is president of the United Nations Association—Greater Milwaukee chapter, a member of the Friends Committee on National Legislation Milwaukee advocacy team, and a retired sociology professor. He has been active on: peace issues, intensively during the 1980s regarding Central America; fair trade, including a trip to jail; the environment, attending the COP27 climate change conference in Egypt; and labor issues. Steve is a delegate to the Milwaukee Area Labor Council.

Duane Beachey

Duane Beachey is a retired Mennonite pastor, most recently retired from pastoring two Presbyterian churches in the Appalachian region of Kentucky. He is the author of two books: Faith in a Nuclear Age, Herald press, 1983 and Reading the Bible As If Jesus Mattered, Cascadia Publishing, 2014.

Jim Carpenter

Bio coming soon.

Pamela Richard

Pamela Richard is currently working as an Office Manager for Peace Action WI, advocating for peace, non-violence, nuclear disarmament, and justice in our community. She is on the board of the United Nations Association of Milwaukee, the Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, and Welfare Warriors. Pamela is a member of the Milwaukee Veterans for Peace and of the Disarm Committee of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, focused on the abolition of nuclear weapons, the UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and passing the "Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act" in congress. She is on the Milwaukee Advocacy Team of the Friend’s Committee on National Legislation, working on repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force, to return war powers to Congress.

AJ Ward

A Quaker for many decades, Ann’s background includes 30+ years as an Alternatives to Violence facilitator, volunteering in schools, prisons, universities, refugee camps, and many diverse community settings around the world. She is currently Co-Clerk for Friends Peace Teams Europe and Middle East Region (https://friendspeaceteams.org/eme/). Professionally she was trained as an anthropologist and public health education and conflict specialist. She worked as cancer researcher/ educator with Penn State University in Appalachia, and an emergency and peacebuilding specialist in the Middle East and Afghanistan, where she spent 20 nearly years working with the UN, MCC, Medair and many local non-profits.

Ann recently finished two conflict analysis consultancies in Iraq exploring the effects of historical and current conflicts on community power dynamics, the environment, agriculture livelihoods, and family trauma. She speaks Arabic, and has studied Farsi, Kurdish, Spanish and French. She currently teaches English for two local Literacy Councils in Wisconsin and works as Executive Director of the Stateline Literacy Council in Beloit (https://www.statelineliteracycouncilbeloit.org/).

Jeff Wild

Jeff Wild is a retired Lutheran (ELCA) pastor living in Madison. His calling to engage communities in gun violence is a convergence of factors. Jeff worked summers in a foundry in his hometown, Beaver Dam, during his college years. As a parish pastor, Jeff was deeply impacted by presiding at twelve funerals where suicide, most by firearms, was the cause of death. Jeff embraces the conviction that faith communities have a vital role in discussing social issues and shaping values and ethics through the lens of a biblical and theological engagement.