Church Leadership

Rev. Ajung Sojwal

On campus Tuesday-Friday 10:00 am – 4:00 pm and by appointment.

Ajung came to the US from India in 1994 with a keen interest in the Episcopal Church.  After her children were old enough, she pursued ordination in 2006.  Since then, she has served in a number of churches in the New York City area, most recently at St. George’s in Hempstead on Long Island.  She has moved here with her husband, Milind (also an Episcopal priest) and Snowy, their Scottish terrier.  Ajung and Milind have two children living in Brooklyn and Los Angeles.  In addition to the church, Ajung and Milind are passionate about books, walking/hiking/biking, and getting out into the community.

You can reach Rev. Sojwal at: rev.ajungla.sojwal@gmail.com

Margaret Astesano, Parish Administrator

Email: office@asaints.org.
On campus hours: Tuesday through Friday 10am – 2pm
Phone: 650.322.4528. ext. 303.

Vestry Bios

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’ 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.

Sandy Wilbourn, Co-Senior Warden

Sandy Wilbourn has been involved with All Saints’ 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. 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.

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.

Diane Frankle, Vestry Secretary

Diane has been a member of All Saints Episcopal Church 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 through the Diocese. Diane and her husband Bob Frankle have founded a nonprofit, Building Bridges Together, promoting interfaith dialogue. All Saints and Congregation Beth Am, a local synagogue, have offered several Building Bridges dialogue programs, and a number of All Saints 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.

Jodi Scherer

Phil Palmer

Phil has been a member of All Saints’ 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’, 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’ 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’ and to put that discernment into action.

Kathy Veit

I am honored to be asked to stand for Vestry. A little about me and the skills and experience I
hope I can bring to our shared work and ministry.

Faith Story: I was raised Roman Catholic, but like many I stopped going to church when I left
for college. Over time, though I sometimes found myself missing church, I couldn’t see myself
going back to the Catholic Church given its stance on women and LGBTQ people. Then in
2004, former parishioner Jim Dawson, who happened to work for me at the time, invited me to
All Saints’ on “Invite-a-Friend Sunday.” Everything resonated for me–the liturgy was almost
identical to what I had grown up with, the music and the sermon were far better, and perhaps
best of all, the people seemed to want to be there and didn’t rush out the door after Communion
to go home–they went to the parish hall to spend more time together! And, almost unbelievable
to me, the priest was a woman–and a lesbian at that, the wonderful Kathy McAdam+. Jim’s
invitation came “just in time.” I had some tough stuff going on in my life at that moment, and All
Saints’ was a good place to sit with that stuff. At the beginning of 2005, I moved back to San
Francisco–but I kept going to church–this time to the Episcopal Church of St. John the
Evangelist in the Mission. I was especially attracted by the tradition there of strong lay
leadership and a deep commitment to social justice, as well as a majority LGBTQ congregation.

I also loved the style worship, with an incredibly talented organist/music director (think Bach to
Geneva Psalter to Southern Harmony to Phillip Glass) and a rather high “smells-and-bells”
liturgical style where occasionally we set off the smoke detector with the incense. I was received
into the Episcopal Church at Grace Cathedral in June 2005. I came back to All Saints’ around
2011 after moving back to the Peninsula.

Church Volunteer Experience: At St. John’s, I sang in the choir, was a lay assistant, and served
on the vestry (with responsibility for evangelism). At All Saints’, I was earlier involved in
organizing activities for youth families, served on the former Outreach Committee and the
Diocesean Partnership Commission, am a founding member of the Immigrant and Refugee
Action Committee, and have served on our recent music director search committees. I recently
concluded two terms of service (including as Vice President and Development Chair) on the
board of Cristosal, a Central American human rights organization and mission partner of the
Episcopal Church.

Professional Experience: I have worked for over 30 years at Stanford University, mostly for the
Office of Development, where my roles have included director of Stanford’s Reunion Campaign
Program and of Corporate and Foundation Relations. Currently, I am a member of the University
Principal Gifts team, which works with Stanford’s most generous donors. My professional and
volunteer work have given me experience with individual giving, grant writing, communications,
stewardship, budgets, and managing people, as well as an understanding of fund accounting.
Personal: Originally from upstate New York, I came to the Bay Area area 1985 to attend
graduate school (in classics). I live on campus with my partner and fellow parishioner, Heather
Hadlock–whom I first met on that Invite-a-Friend Sunday back in 2004, and our dog and two
cats. Our daughter, Madeleine, who was baptized and confirmed at All Saints’, just graduated
from college and is looking for jobs in the Boston area (i.e., she could use your prayers!).

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’. Natala was also confirmed at All Saints’. Their father,
William Menezes, served on the Vestry at that time. Joy started watching All Saints’ 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.

Laura Johnson

Laura came to All Saints 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.

Joanne Westendorf, Treasurer

Susan Reaves, Bookkeeper

Email: finadmin@asaints.org