A native of Jamestown, New York, Al Melkerson currently resides with his wife of 49 years in Lake Forest, Illinois. He served with the US Army from 1953 to 1956, and is a 1962 Graduate of California StatePolytechnic University. Now retired, Al was Vice President and Board Member of a publicly-held US Electronics manufacturing firm and also Managing Director and Board Member of a publicly-held UK Monitor and Terminal Manufacturer. He has served as Vice President and President of the Friendship Force of Northern Illinois, one of many branch clubs of Friendship Force International. The club, founded by Jimmy Carter in 1978, promotes home stays with 360 similar clubs around the world to help understand their cultures. In Al’s tenure with Stauros, he has served as an aide on three of the Access to the Holy Land trips.

A native of New York, Joan graduated from Vassar College and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. A Fullbright Scholar, she studied for two years at the University of Tuebingen in Germany and then returned to Goettingen several years later to research her dissertation. She received her PhD in modern European history from Columbia University in New York.

She began working for the Illinois Trade Association, a barter exchange, in 1983 and currently serves as the company’s executive vice-president. Living in Evanston, IL, Joan enjoys her three grown children. She is active in the community, also serving on the board of the Safer Foundation in Chicago. She is dedicated to the mission of Stauros U.S.A.

A native of Detroit, Kenneth O’Malley, C.P. entered the Passionist seminary in 1954. In 1964, he was ordained, joining his brother in the Passionist ranks. He served as a librarian and teacher in Missouri before taking his present position of Director of the Library at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and director of the Passionist community at CTU.

Fr. O’Malley holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, and is active in giving retreats for laity, clergy, and religious. He has done library consultation in Australia, Guatemala, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, and Rome, and also teaches at Dominican University in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. In addition to his work with Stauros U.S.A., Fr. O’Malley is a board member for D.A.R.E. (Disabled Adults Residential Enterprise), where he has served as Chair since 2003.
 

Donald Senior, C.P., is President of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, where he is also a member of the faculty as Professor of New Testament.  Born in Philadelphia in 1940, he was ordained a priest in the Passionist Congregation in 1967. 

He received his doctorate in New Testament studies from the University of Louvain in Belgium in 1972, and is a frequent lecturer and speaker throughout the United States and abroad.  Fr. Senior has published extensively on biblical topics, with numerous books and articles for both scholarly and popular audiences. He is the general editor of the acclaimed Catholic Study Bible (Oxford University Press, 1990), editor-in-chief of The Bible Today, and co-editor of The New Interpreters Study Bible (Abingdon Press, 2003).

Fr. Senior was the recipient of the National Catholic Library Association’s 1994 Jerome Award for Outstanding Scholarship and was given the 1996 National Catholic Education Association’s Bishop Loras Lane Award for outstanding service to Catholic education. 

He is past President of the Catholic Biblical Association of America (1997-1998) and is currently Vice President and a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Theological Schools of the United States and Canada.  In 2001, Pope John Paul II appointed him as a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

Dr. Stephen Schmidt is currently Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Pastoral Studies in Chicago. Holding a doctorate from Columbia University/Union Seminary in New York, Dr. Schmidt is a member of the Religious Education Association and is past president of the Association of Professors and Researchers in Religious Education.

He has served on the board of the Lutheran Education Association and is a member in the American Academy of Religion. Dr. Schmidt is the author of several books and a contributor to several more, and is currently editor of Suffering: The Stauros Notebook. He also serves on the Bioethics Committee at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, IL, and just completed a three-year study to explore the relationship of religion and healing in a large hospital system. Dr. Schmidt lives with Crohn's disease, and continues to write about and explore the relationship between illness and faith.

Fr. Don Webber, C.P., is a native of Des Moines, Iowa. He graduated from Dowling High School in Des Moines and Bellarmine College in Louisville, Kentucky.

He entered the Passionist community in 1964 and professed religious vows in 1965. He earned his M.Div. from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He was ordained in Chicago in 1973. His ministries have included retreat center preaching, parish missions, and local leadership at the Passionist Communities in Detroit, Michigan, and Citrus Heights, California.

He has served on the Provincial Council for several years and was elected Provincial of Holy Cross Province in June 2007. .

Fr. Arthur Carrillo, C.P., J.C.L., a native of Los Angeles, California, was ordained in 1970 and served in the Passionist Retreat Center ministries, and in parish renewal programs. From 1994 to 2004, he was stationed at the Passionist Generalate in Rome, first as a member of the Passionist General Council, and then as director of its Communications Office. Since his return to the United States, Fr. Arthur is stationed in Detroit, Michigan, and heads the Holy Cross Province Mission Office.

Father Terrence A. McCarthy is a life long resident of the Chicago, Illinois area. He graduated from Loras college in Dubuque, Iowa with a degree in Economics. After a number of years working in Business and Industry he served in the Army Security Agency during the Cuban crisis and Kennedy assassination.

Entering the seminary at St Mary of the Lake Mundelein, Illinois as a late vocation he was ordained for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1974. He ministered as Associate Pastor at St James, Highwood Illinois (6 years) and St. Marcelline, Schaumburg, Illinois (6 years). He then served as Pastor of St. Anastasia, Waukegan Illinois (15 years) and Immaculate Conception, Highland Park, Illinois (6 years).

Retired as of June 30, 2008, he is active as Fire Chaplain for Highland Park, Board Member of Catholic Charities, Lake County and Stauros USA while continuing his priestly ministries

Very Rev. Father Joseph R. Jones, C.P. is the Provincial of Saint Paul of the Cross Province. Fr. Joe, as he is known, was ordained in 1965 and holds two Masters Degrees - one in Theology from St. Michael’s Seminary and one in Sacred Liturgy from Notre Dame University. Since his ordination he has held many diverse positions in the Passionist Community, such as: Vocation Director; Rector and Retreat Director of Calvary Retreat Center in Shrewsbury, MA; Pastor in Jamaica, West Indies; Rector of Holy Family Monastery, in West Hartford, CT; Radio and Television ministry in West Springfield, MA and Pastor of St. Peter’s Parish in Greenville, NC.
 
Father Joseph has been involved with AIDS Ministry since 1984. He is Co-Founder and past President of Pitt County AIDS Service Organization and the recipient of the Governor’s Award for AIDS ministry in North Carolina. He assisted in the development of a curriculum on AIDS for Catholic Schools for NCEA in Washington, D.C. In addition, he served as a member of the National Catholic AIDS Network Round Table Conference. In recent years, Fr. Joe represented the Province at the 44th General Chapter in Brazil, which he helped to plan. At the 45th General Chapter, in Rome in 2007, Fr. Joe was elected to serve on the Restructuring Committee for the entire Congregation as one of the 7 Regional Coordinators.

Julie Wessel

Julie Wessel is an Information Technology (IT) Manager for the Department of the Navy. She obtained her B.S (1978) and M.S. (1980) from Wright State University in Computer Science. She began working for the Navy in 1980. She has managed many different IT projects and currently works in the area of IT Strategic Planning and Investments.

She has been a Board member of METRO Handicapped Encounter Christ (HEC) for 15 years including 6 years as President of the Board. She directs HEC retreats on a regular basis. She has also been active in her Church leading Small Faith Sharing groups for 20 years.

She has a disability (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) requiring the use of a wheelchair and assistance with activities of daily living. She participated in the 1999 Access to the Holy Land program offered by Stauros.
 

Dr. Don Grossnickle has been serving as an ordained permanent deacon in the Archdiocese of Chicago for 20 years. Since 2000, Deacon Don has become immersed in the search for meaning in the midst of suffering as he has adopted a ministry to high school football players who endure catastrophic brain and spinal cord injuries. He serves on the Archdiocese Board for Persons with Disabilities, and is Director of Outreach Services for a large vicariate serving nearly 2 million persons. In 2002 he received the Anne Sullivan-Helen Keller Award from the World Ability Federation for exemplary support outreach for persons with disabilities. In 2005 Don was the recipient of the Saint Stephen the Deacon Award for self-less lifelong service to the church and community of Chicago.

Don is married and the father of three grown children. He is a former career teacher at all levels. He accepted early retirement in 2003 from his role as a high school curriculum director. He has authored and coauthored several books and published many articles dealing with motivation and failure prevention in schools. Don has spoken widely all across the US to educators and parents. Don considers himself blessed to carry and share the good news to persons who are suffering and reach out to caregivers and  professional support staff.