Church Leadership

Christopher Pluntke, Director for Worship Music

Starting January 7, 2025.
Organist and choral director for Advent Lessons & Carols December 8th.
Founder and musical director of Ensemble Continuo Chamber Choir, Christopher Pluntke, holds a degree from Hochschule für Musik Würzburg and has 25 years of experience leading vocal ensembles, period instrument groups, and performs as organist, pianist, and continuo player. Christopher and his wife have lived in the Bay Area since 2013; he founded the Google Choir and is a regular pianist for NATS Bay Area recitals and studio recordings.

Ann Lane, Co-Senior Warden

I think I am somewhat unusual among All Sainters – I am a born and bred Episcopalian!  After being baptized in one of the oldest parishes in the country – Saint John’s in Hampton, Virginia – I migrated to California as my parents moved for my father’s job.  Growing up, I was confirmed in Saint John’s, San Bernardino, in the days of large confirmation classes.  I came north for college at UC Davis and San Jose State before working in Santa Ana, spending a year in Scotland on a Rotary Club scholarship, returning to Santa Ana, and then moving to Palo Alto after marrying. 

In every place I lived, I found an Episcopal church. Although they varied from the fairly low church of my childhood, to the very high Saint Margaret of the Gallowgate in Aberdeen, Scotland, every one was blessed with friendly parishioners and beautiful music.  I felt the blessings of Christ in all of them, and they all shaped my faith.  I have now been an All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto member since 1977, and have been upheld by this church through joys and sorrows.  I have previously served on vestry, sung in the choir for twenty years, run the Book Club, and am a delegate to the diocese where it has been my pleasure and honor to elect two women bishops. (I well remember the days before women priests.  In fact, in high school, my priest would not even let me be an acolyte!)

It has been wonderful to see the church change, to welcome all God’s children, to be a church of radical welcome.  Now that I have retired from full-time work as a high school librarian, I have a bit more time, and hope that by serving on Vestry, I can help lead the church, and bring Christ’s message to the wider world.

Vestry term 2023, 2024, 2025

Sandy Wilbourn, Co-Senior Warden

Sandy Wilbourn has been involved with All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto since 1997.  Sandy has participated in teaching Sunday School (when kids were young), vestry, grounds improvement (remodeling the ed building, roof for church) as well as leading our Hotel de Zink involvement with Marguerite Fletcher for the last several years. Recently, Sandy has been part of the Rector Search Committee and Clergy Housing Task Force for All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto. At work, Sandy has worked leading product development at several technology companies for almost 40 years, currently, at Akamai Technologies, a leading provider of Internet networking services and Security products.

Vestry term 2023, 2024, 2025

Michael Keller

Michael A. Keller is Stanford University’s Vice Provost and University Librarian & was also Vice
Provost for Teaching & Learning for a couple of years.

He was the founder of HighWire Press, in 1995, an Internet publishing service for mainly not for
profit scientific journals (Science, PNAS, Neuroscience, JBC, and about 150 others. HighWire
was also the first platform for several years of the OED online edition.

In 2002, Stanford Libraries collaborated with Cambridge University to digitize ancient, medieval,
and early modern manuscripts in the Matthew Parker Library of Corpus Christi College. That
project led the Stanford University Libraries to develop requirements for a digital environment for
streaming images of manuscripts and other objects of scholarship and for teaching, resulting in
the International Image Interoperability Framework and the Mirador “viewer”. He was inaugural
chairman of the IIIF Consortium from2015 to 2021. During those years and since he has been
an advisor to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

Keller was educated at Hamilton College and studied musicology at State University of New
York at Buffalo. He has taught at Cornell University and Stanford University, was
guest-professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and was a Siemens Stiftung Lecturer.
He has been a Member of the Boards of Hamilton College, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt,
CLIR, & Japan’s National Institute for Informatics. He was a member of the National Academy
of Sciences’ Boards on: Research Data Integrity; Research on Copyright; and the Responsible
Conduct of Science.

Keller served on the boards of Alibris, Mondobiotech, and Therametrics and as an advisor to
Ebrary and Yewno. He is a trustee of the Kistler Ritso Foundation and member of the
Supervisory Council of Vabamu, an Estonian museum devoted to helping Estonians and others
born since the collapse of the Soviet Union remember the terrible privations of the Soviet
occupations 1939-1992 AND to celebrate the benefits of freedom to all citizens and residents of
Estonia.

Keller is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an
elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Sarum Canon of Salisbury
(UK) Cathedral, a recipient of Stanford’s highest honor — the Cuthbertson Award, and a member
of Estonia’s Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana. He is an Honorary Fellow for Life at Harris
Manchester College in Oxford, England.

Vestry term 2024, 2025, 2026

Diane Frankle, Vestry Secretary

Diane has been a member of All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto since 1984.  She has previously served on the Vestry and as Senior Warden. She currently serves as a Lay Eucharistic Minister, Lector, a member of the Immigration and Refugee Action Group, and as a facilitator for “A Shared Pilgrimage With Race,” an anti-racism program being offered at All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto through the Diocese. Diane and her husband Bob Frankle have founded a nonprofit, Building Bridges Together, promoting interfaith dialogue. All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto and Congregation Beth Am, a local synagogue, have offered several Building Bridges dialogue programs, and a number of All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto parishioners are involved with Building Bridges Together.  Diane also serves as Trustee on the College of Wooster Board of Trustees and on the San Francisco Advisory Board of Facing History and Ourselves. Diane practiced corporate law in Silicon Valley until her retirement in 2018.

Vestry term 2023, 2024, 2025

Jodi Scherer

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Vestry term appointed to 2024 end

Phil Palmer

Phil has been a member of All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto for over thirty years.  During that time he has been blessed to serve the Parish in a number of ways:

Worship: Served as a Lay Assistant and a Lector.

Governance: Served on the Vestry three times, led the search that resulted in the call of Fr. Terry Gleeson to All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto, and chaired the committee that developed the 2014 strategic plan.

Adult Formation: Led the Sunday adult forum program during the rectorate of Fr. Terry Gleeson and led a Bible study that met over a period of ten years and studied the New Testament twice and read through the entire Hebrew Scriptures once.

Social Justice: Currently serving as Chair of the Immigrants and Refugees Action Group and also serving as a facilitator for “A Storied Pilgrimage With Race,” an anti-racism program being offered at All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto through the Diocese.

As he enters his fourth term on the Vestry, Phil looks forward to working with the Vestry, with parishioners, and with Mother Ajung to discern God’s dream for All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto and to put that discernment into action.

Vestry term appointed to 2024 end

Kathy Veit

Kathy Veit was received into the Episcopal Church from the Roman Catholic Church in 2005. She has been a member of All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto and of St John the Evangelist in San Francisco, where she also served on the vestry. Her central preoccupation is how to put Christ’s teachings into action in our broken world. At All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto, she has been involved with the Youth Family ministry, the Outreach Committee, and the Immigration and Refugee Action Group. She has also served on the El Camino Real Diocesan Partnership Commission and on the board of Cristosal, a Central American human rights organization with strong ties to the Episcopal Church. Professionally, she has worked at Stanford University for more than three decades and is currently is a member of the university principal gifts team. She lives on the Stanford campus with her partner, fellow All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto member Heather Hadlock.

Vestry term 2024, 2025, 2026

Joy Chase

Joy Chase is a returning parishioner who was a member in the 1980s when her children, Natala and Sheila, were baptized at All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto. Natala was also confirmed at All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto. Their father, William Menezes, served on the Vestry at that time. Joy started watching All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto services on YouTube/Facebook during the pandemic and thought, “Why not show up in person?” after restrictions were lifted.

Joy came to the United States from India sixty years ago as a student. She studied for a year at
Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, having completed her BA in English Literature at the
University of Madras. She did her graduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is
a librarian and spent twenty years as a faculty librarian at Evergreen Valley community college
in San Jose, where she still works a few hours every week. Previous to this, Joy was the
Librarian in charge of the East Palo Alto branch of the San Mateo Co Library system.
Joy is a writer. She has published her book: Embers, an Anglo-Indian Memoir which recalls her
life growing up in India of mixed British/Indian heritage. She is also an artist and served on the
board of the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto (several years as President). They were able to
seismically upgrade and remodel their historic building at the cost of $6 million during this time.
Joy is a citizen of the United States but also of the world with family in India, Australia, New
Zealand, England and Kuwait. She is happy to “give back” by serving on the Vestry.

Vestry term 2024, 2025, 2026

Laura Johnson

Laura came to All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto in 1993 with her husband and their two young daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret. Both girls were active in the Sunday school program and served as acolytes. Laura enjoyed teaching Sunday school, and this led her to a second career teaching 3rd and 4th grades in Palo Alto. Now retired, she is looking forward to serving this wonderful congregation as a member of the vestry.

Vestry term appointed to 2024 end

Joanne Westendorf, Treasurer

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Joanne Westendorf, Treasurer