Meet the PAN Leadership Team Members

The following volunteers serve the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as members of the PAN Leadership Team through advocacy, education and the development of resources. 

The Leadership Team welcomes you to share a model of ministry, ask questions about HIV/AIDS or contact them if you would like help starting an HIV/AIDS ministry in your congregation.

Andrew Black is a fourth-year student in the dual M.Div/J.D. program at Louisville Theological Seminary and the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. He has successfully initiated grass roots AIDS awareness activities at Eckerd College and Louisville Theological Seminary that now enjoy institutional support. Andrew did his seminary field education with the PHEWA national office and currently works with the Legal AID Society’s AIDS project in Louisville, Kentucky. He was the driving force behind PAN’s seminary project, which will bring together representatives from the PC(USA) to discuss HIV/AIDS initiatives on campuses, and has explored in a paper the connection between Martin Luther King’s theology and praxis and HIV/AIDS.

Howard Dotson is an ordained Presbyterian minister serving in Los Angeles, California. While he was in college he worked as a substance abuse counselor with HIV+ IV drug users in New York. While attending San Francisco Theological Seminary, he spent a summer in Durban, South Africa, working as an HIV/AIDS counselor. In 2003, he served as a PC(USA) Young Adult Volunteer in Kenya. His work centered on providing pastoral care and counseling for clients living with HIV/AIDS. At the 217th General Assembly (2006), he was the Pacific Presbytery overture advocate to affirm the prophetic witness of Mission Responsibility Through Investments (MRTI) to the pharmaceutical corporations that have yet to release their patent licenses on certain life saving medications that treat HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. 

Kate Holbrook is an ordained Presbyterian minister. She hails from Baltimore Presbytery but is currently serving as a college chaplain at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Kate, a graduate of the Pacific School of Religion, is a poet and dancer whose passion for healing, wholeness and social justice are at the heart of what she understands to be the ministry and mission of the church.

Emily Martin, co-moderator of PAN, grew up in the Presbytery of South Alabama and graduated from Williams College in 2003. Her interest in AIDS began with a year-long Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to explore the Church's response to HIV/AIDS in South Africa, where she was able to have a variety of AIDS-related ministry experiences, from preaching to counseling HIV+ prisoners. She is currently enrolled in the M.Div. program at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia.  In addition to speaking with groups across the country about AIDS and her experience in South Africa, Emily has organized awareness and prevention activities at the seminary for World AIDS Day and the annual Health and Wellness Week. She is a member of Evergreen Presbyterian Church in Dothan, Alabama, and she will be serving as a full-time intern at Government Presbyterian Church in downtown Mobile, Alabama, September 2007 through August 2008.

Beth Outterson is a public health professional who has worked in the area of health education and HIV/AIDS prevention, first domestically with migrant farm workers in the 1980s and later internationally at Family Health International and Peace Corps. She currently works at Save the Children as a reproductive health advisor, covering adolescent reproductive health issues worldwide. She also leads the Washington, D.C., Chapter of Partners of the Americas. She is a member of First Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Virginia, where she was Elder for Mission for six years. She has been a member of PAN's Leadership Team since 2003 and currently serves as Secretary.

Keith Riddle is an ordained Presbyterian minister and graduate of Columbia Theological Seminary currently serving in South Carolina. He provides grief counseling for groups, funeral homes and hospitals and often speaks regarding HIV care and support. Before moving to South Carolina, Keith served in the Ft. Lauderdale and Miami areas for about 11 years. Keith has been HIV+ since 2000 and was interviewed in the November 2006 POZ magazine.

Bob Schminkey, co-moderator of PAN, is a community organizer, consultant and fundraiser. He works in Disaster Recovery for his three presbyteries and for HIV/AIDS and development projects in the United States and southern Africa. Since 1997 he has led more than 15 travel/study groups to southern Africa. From 1994 to 1996, Bob and his wife, the Rev. Sara Holben, served as PC(USA) mission co-workers in Cape Town, South Africa. Upon their return, Bob helped create Reinvest South Africa (RISA), an investment company designed to provide small, medium and micro loans in South Africa. Bob served as senior vice-president of the investment company, and executive director of the RISA Charitable Trust. He has also worked previously for Bread for the World, Church World Service and as director of a local social service agency in Tallahassee, Florida. He is a lay member of the Presbyterian Church of Chestertown, Maryland.

Vanessa Sharp, PAN representative to the PHEWA Board, is finishing up her M.Div and Master of Arts in Church Music through Johnson C. Smith Seminary at the Interdenominational Theological Seminary in Atlanta. She has been heavily involved in campus activities and in West Hills Presbyterian Church. Vanessa has had leadership and speaking engagements with the National Black Presbyterian Conference, the Presbyterian Women’s Racial Ethnic Conference, Montreat Youth Conference and Greater Atlanta Presbytery, among others. She has traveled extensively on behalf of mission work. Vanessa has been HIV+ since 1990, and her story, “Surviving AIDS,” has been most recently published in Soul Magazine (June-Aug. 2006). Her testimony of survival and faith has been an inspiration to many.

Matthew Walz, a member of Park Central Presbyterian Church in Syracuse, New York, has been faithfully connected to public health and HIV/AIDS for many years as a certified HIV Test Counselor and coordinator of street outreach programs, preventing the spread of HIV among injecting drug users and commercial sex workers. Matt has helped develop professional media campaigns to encourage HIV testing and worked diligently to conduct needs assessments and advocate for the expansion of syringe exchange programs. Matt currently works at the Central New York Community Foundation where he conducts training seminars for grassroots community leaders and oversees the foundation’s competitive grant process.