Throughout the fall months, we will profile all seven members of our Board of Trustees. This week, we feature our Treasurer Betsy Taylor. Betsy became a member of UU Wellesley Hills in February 1987; she is currently serving her sixth and final year on the UUSWH Board. As Treasurer, she has a number of responsibilities, including working with our Auditor.
Betsy has lived with her husband Tony in Needham since 1978. They have two sons, David and Christopher, both of whom live in Silicon Valley. David is a software product manager entrepreneur and Christopher is a mechanical engineer who works for an autonomous vehicle company. Betsy recently met with our Board Chair Kathy Coolidge to answer a few questions about herself.
Q. Where did you grow up and go to school?
A: I grew up in Syracuse, NY. I got a degree in History from Oberlin College in Ohio and then got an MBA from Stanford University School of Business. When I moved to Massachusetts I first worked for UMass Boston in the Budget Office of the President. Then I joined Massport in 1978 and stayed for 36 years. I retired on April Fool’s Day 2015.
Q. What did you do at Massport? What kind of work does Tony do?
A: I was Director of Finance and Treasury. I was there during the Big Dig. Because I worked at Massport I was able to drive through the newly built Ted Williams Tunnel before the public…it was exciting! My office at Massport was at Logan Airport and I looked west to Boston. It was an amazing view of Boston— I watched many glorious sunsets from there.
Tony is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Worcester Recovery Center, an in-patient unit. He works with the most challenging adolescents in Massachusetts, most of whom are court-ordered. The goal is to help them eventually return back to the community. He loves working with his patients.
Q. What do you like to do for fun?
A: I love to go kayaking. It’s something we can do together. It gets us outside and on the water. We love to kayak on Lake Champlain in Vermont. Recently we went on Great Bay in NH and got very muddy. We’re lucky because there’s a kayak “put-in” place two miles away from our house on the Charles River. It’s beautiful. Also, I love to garden.
This photo below is of me next to an Arkansas Blue Star, which is a perennial. I love plants that are meant to take care of the birds and pollinators!
Q. When did you join UU Wellesley Hills? When did you join the Board?
A: I joined the church in the 1980s because in 1985 I had my first son and my brother died in his early 40’s from Leukemia. Both of these life events inspired me to come to terms with religion. I was very involved with Religious Education and the Gardening Club. I took care of coordinating flowers for Sunday services for 15 years.
I joined the Board in 2015 as the Treasurer. I was recruited by Marlene Allen and Doug Poutasse who said they were “waiting for me to retire” before they recruited me. I’m winding up my 6-year term this year.
I’ve loved being on the Board for two reasons. One, I’ve gotten to know so many members of the church better than I had. Secondly, I like the intellectual challenge of being the Treasurer. When I retired from Massport I didn’t want a new 9-5 job, so this position allowed me to learn a lot. There have been so many upgrades to the system and I’m coping with the increased use of electronic “everything.” When I first started as Treasurer almost everything, except payroll, was done manually!
Q. What’s most important in your life right now?
A: It’s important that I’m doing useful work that fit my talents. I’m very invested in teaching financial literacy at the “Believe in Success” program. That’s a program for victims of domestic abuse run by the UU Urban Ministry. The majority of people who have been physically or emotionally abused have also been financially abused. Empowering women to manage their own financial lives is so important and no one is teaching it!
Also, learning how to cope with social isolation during COVID is so important. I’m lucky! I have a husband, a yard, a way to get out in the world — but not everyone has that. This is a difficult time for so many people. And, of course, I miss seeing my boys who are in California. We talk a lot but won’t see each other, probably until next Summer.
We are very glad to have Betsy Taylor serving as one of our seven highly capable UUSWH Trustees!