Valerie Mansfield
Chair
Rev. Valerie Mansfield currently serves as the senior minister at Unity of Louisville, Kentucky. She began serving Unity of Louisville in 2002 as the youth and family ministry director and as the associate minister.
Additionally, Valerie is ministry consultant at Unity of East Louisville, Kentucky. That includes assisting in the reorganization of the ministry; conducting 1–2 worships monthly, board trainings, and healing circles, plus overseeing church staff and volunteers.
She is adjunct facility at Unity Worldwide Spiritual Institute, teaching Basic Ministry Financial Management. She has experience in good business practices in administration, mapping organizational policies and procedures, and financial management. Her strengths are in training, managing, finances, and networking computer systems.
Valerie’s mission is to move forward in life with ease and grace, illuminating her way and those around her with integrity, compassion, and bliss.
Edith Washington-Woods
First Vice Chair
Rev. Edith Washington-Woods serves as senior minister at Unity of Gaithersburg, Maryland. She was ordained (2009) by Unity Worldwide Ministries (UWM) and holds a Master of Divinity degree from Unity Institute & Seminary. She is also a licensed Unity teacher specializing in adult education. She is currently serving on UWM’s Budget & Finance and Sustainability Teams. Previously, she served on UWM’s Convention Team, was chair of UWM’s Health & Wholeness team, and was president of the Eastern Region Board.
Rev. Edith is passionate about serving in heart-centered, collaborative, inclusive ways. This passion allows her to assist communities unaccustomed to working together by building bridges to create opportunities for oneness in the churches she has served, as well as with young people and families, Interfaith organizations, 12- step groups, and LGBTQIA+ communities. She is mother to four adult sons, has nine grandchildren, and has been married to her wife since 2015.
Sue Riley
Second Vice Chair
Sue Riley is a cofounder of emPower Music & Arts, which provides thousands of songs, sheet music, licensing, and other resources to Unity ministries. Sue believes in the power of music combined with the powerful teachings of Unity to touch hearts and heal lives.
Sue is an accomplished singer, songwriter, musician, and speaker, and served as Music Ministry Team Chair for eleven years. She has created and organized dozens of conferences and events that serve Unity ministries by training music directors to be more effective leaders and making new music continuously available. Sue has been the music director at Unity Church of Clearwater, Florida, for 30 years and is part of their leadership team.
Sue is passionate about training new music directors and helping them find the music and resources that they need to weave music with the message of Unity. She believes her main expertise is her vast knowledge of New Thought music resources. To keep her knowledge fresh and relevant, Sue cultivates relationships with dozens of artists who write New Thought songs and perform in our churches and centers.
Sue’s work has given her the opportunity to cultivate great people skills in dealing with conflict and inspiring consensus. She is very familiar with Unity’s diverse culture, its ministers, and the needs of its ministries.
Kyra Baehr
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Secretary
Kyra is Minister at Unity Bay Area Houston in League City, Texas since May 2013. She has spanned the decades bringing the spiritual, nonprofit and corporate worlds together. Kyra was ordained in 1997 after finding her Unity roots and wings at Unity of Houston. She is in her 26th year as a Unity minister, 6 years nonprofit leadership (United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast), and 10 years in leadership in the corporate world. She ministered in Mesa, Arizona for three years before pioneering Unity of Divine Love Spiritual Center in Chandler, Arizona in 2000. While building Unity of Divine Love, she spent more than ten years on the board of Arizona InterFaith Movement, presented workshops at two Parliament of World Religions in Barcelona, Spain and Melbourne, Australia. Kyra presented the opening Worship Celebration Service for the Unity People’s Convention in 2008. Kyra created and led a Unity Women’s Ministry in Arizona for twelve years, and received the Outstanding Youth Service Award for ten years of service to the Youth Education Advisory Team (YEA Team!) for the Southwest Region of Unity Churches and spent two years on the board of Unity South Central Region. Kyra recently worked with other faith leaders in the Clear Lake area to form the Interfaith Council of Greater Clear Lake. Kyra is recognized as a passionate visionary leader known for ‘walking her talk’ and leading with a contagious enthusiasm and a flow of joyful Presence.
Kyra offers her contagious passion, joy and expertise from the field to the Unity Worldwide Ministries board. Her many years in multiple sizes of ministries offer a depth of experience in leadership and organizational development, team-building, fundraising and discernment in decision-making.
Don Barton
Treasurer
Rev. Don Barton has almost 30 years of combined leadership experience in a variety of industries; including retail, hospitality, professional accounting, as well as Unity. While general manager of a high-volume restaurant at the age of 28, he gained critical experience in “crisis” management that has served him well in other situations. As a CPA with years of applied experience, Rev. Don is skilled in dissecting data and interpreting financial statements and the underlying operational information it represents into easy-to-understand concepts to enable sound decision making.
Rev. Don was introduced to Unity in 1991 and served his local church in a variety of roles, including usher, prayer chaplain, Board president, and platform assistant. He became Executive Director of Christ Church Unity, Orlando, Florida, in 2014. In 2017, Don entered the Ministerial and Religious Studies program at Unity Worldwide Spiritual Institute, and in 2021, he was ordained a Unity minister. Currently, Rev. Don is serving Unity churches in the Central Florida area as a guest speaker and advisor on church finances. Rev. Don also serves on Unity Worldwide Ministries’ Budget and Finance Committee and he recently joined the Unity Worldwide Spiritual Institute faculty teaching Ministry Financial Management.
Ana Quintana Bird
Member
Originally from Puerto Rico, Rev. Ana Quintana Bird—RevAna, as she is known to her congregants and radio listeners—brings a unique blend of skills to her ministry. From her teens, she has been an avid student of metaphysics. She also has a strong business background. She earned her B.A. in economics from Agnes Scott College and received additional certifications from Harvard Business School and the Kellogg School of Management. She founded two service businesses and served as president and general manager of Quintana Quintana Corp., a distribution company based in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.
She was ordained as a Unity minister in 1999. After serving as associate minister of Unity of the Triangle in Raleigh, North Carolina, for ten years, she is now associate minister at Unity on the Bay, Miami, Florida. In addition to her regular church duties, RevAna leads a Spanish-speaking ministry, both in-person and on the radio. She has become a leading voice in the Unity movement in Spanish. Her radio show, De Viaje con RevAna, airs on Univision PR, the number one radio station in Puerto Rico, which also broadcasts in the US. RevAna is passionate about sharing the Unity message to all who are open.
She is blessed to be the mother of three wonderful children: Claire, Luc, and Lauren.
Okon Ebong
Member
Rev. Okon Ebong worked with a multinational organization for over 35 years. His ability to get along with others allowed him to rise to a position to organize others towards achieving their goals. He is confident that this talent will help to lift the Board. This capability was made possible by his consistent practice of Unity Principles. Rev. Okon O. Ebong was ordained a Unity minister in 1999. He joined Unity in Nigeria in the 1990s and attended the Unity School for Religious Studies between 1996 and 1998.
He was associated with the United Church of Religious Science (Science of Mind) and rose to the position of a Study Group Director in Omoku, Nigeria. Rev. Ebong served INTA District in Nigeria for many years and as president of Unity Church, Nigeria (Unity umbrella organization of Unity in Nigeria), for five years (2001-2006). He has been presenting seminars and workshops locally and internationally. Rev. Ebong attends the Unity conventions and INTA Congresses in the USA. He is currently a member of the English Credential Ministry Team and, since May 2019, the president of Unity Church of Christianity, Nigeria.
Rev. Ebong is a retired oil field superintendent with Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), a subsidiary of E&P of ENI Group in Italy.
Paul Skehen
Member
Paul has been a Realtor in residential real estate (RE/MAX) since 2001 and involved in the Unity movement since 2004. He has been a member of Unity of Kansas City North, Missouri, since 2007, served as a chaplain for seven years, and on the board of trustees for six years (two of those years as president). He graduated from the University of New Mexico with a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1990 and from Unity Worldwide Spiritual Institute as a licensed Unity teacher in November 2019. He is also serving as chairman of the Gladstone Area Chamber of Commerce.
Russell Heiland
Member
Rev. Russell Heiland has served as Sr. Minister of Unity of Fairfax in Oakton, VA since April 1, 2013. Prior to that he served at First Unity of St. Petersburg, FL and Unity Christ Church of Wilmington, NC. He received his ordination through the Field Licensing and Master's degree from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington in a joint ceremony in May 2007. His original scholarship Master's thesis entitled "Inner Vision and Synchronicity: Dream Work as Taught by Charles Fillmore and Carl Jung" is lodged at the Unity Village Archives and Truthunity.net. He earned a Bachelor's of Arts degree from Miami University, Oxford, OH.
Within Unity Worldwide Ministries, Rev. Russell has been active in a variety of ministry teams and ad hoc committees. He has especially enjoyed serving on the Credentialing Team where he was a member of the Field Program Leadership Team.
Rev. Russell is engaged in a variety of civic activities in Fairfax County, VA where he lives with his husband, Anthony Ezzell.
David Drumm
Member
David Drumm, LUT, is a transactional attorney. He has been with the firm of Carrington, Coleman, Sloman, and Blumenthal, L.L.P. since his graduation from law school in 1980, and has been a partner in the firm since 1987 and a member of the firm’s executive committee since 2011. David discovered Unity listening to Dr. Donald Curtis on the radio as a teenager and has been associated in some form with Unity of Dallas since 1974, where he is a past board president, licensed Unity teacher, and a member of the Finance Team and Governance Committee.
He offers to the UWM Board the benefit of 44 years of experience in the legal aspects of business transactions and 12 years of experience in law firm management along with 30 years of experience on the board of a non-profit foundation and extensive experience with governance of Unity of Dallas.
Cylvia Hayes
Member
Rev. Cylvia Hayes is an ordained Unity minister through they Unity Urban Ministerial School (UUMS). She is currently serving as Associate Mi8nister at Unity Spiritual Community Central Oregon where she leads the environmental, social and economic justice, and pastoral care ministries. Prior to becoming associate minister, Cylvia served on the Board at Unity Spiritual Community Central Oregon from 2019 to 2023.
Cylvia has been a member of Unity Worldwide Ministries Earth Care Team since 2017, and is a recognized leader, author and award winner in environmental sciences at the state, national and international levels. Her personal mission is to be of service, healing humanity's separation consciousness so that all Creation can thrive.
Robert Turner
Member
Rev. Robert Turner serves as Minister for Community Engagement at Unity of Savannah. In June 2022, he was ordained as a Unity minister through the Unity Urban Ministerial School (UUMS). Robert earned his BS and MBA degrees from Bradley University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Robert has committed nearly 45 years to applying Unity principles in his life; through his family, friends, spiritual community, his investment career, his studies at UUM, and his ministry.
Robert and his wife Carolyn have supported entrepreneurial and innovation activities for nearly two decades. Robert serves on the boards/advisory councils of several for-profit and charitable organizations. For Unity Worldwide Ministries, Robert envisions an organization that continues to thrive offering practical, positive, and progressive approaches to Spirituality. He sees challenged ministries improving, successful ministries prospering an new ministries emerging.
Diane Scribner
Keeper of the Flame
Raised in New Thought, Diane’s been a Unity minister for 25 years. She’s served 13 years as senior minister with Unity of Roanoke Valley, Virginia, and 4 years with Unity of Naples, Florida. Diane began Pray Attention Ministries as an alternative ministry in 2010, sharing spiritually down-to-earth ideas and practices with spiritual centers, individuals, and organizations as an engaging presence for listening to, and living from, Spirit within.
With a background in theatre, and B.A. in English from George Mason University, Diane offers you her free Daily Pray It Forwards and a link to her book on Amazon and classes with the Institute for Leadership and Lifelong Learning (illli) from her website, PrayAttentionMinistries.org, and you can free jump into her Facebook Live broadcasts, Pray Attention at 11:11, based on Unity’s Daily Word®.
Diane chairs Suncoast Unity Ministers, Inc., has been co-emcee for Unity conventions, serves our Sabbatical Team, Avow Hospice, Naples Therapeutic Riding Center, AHALA Children’s Rights organization in Mexico, and is now delighted to be a kindling voice for Unity as our Keeper of the Flame.