MEET NANCY
Small business owner and activist who’s made Downtown home for forty years.
About Me
Born in Casper, Wyoming and growing up in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, I became a Boettcher Scholar at The Colorado College, where I earned a BA in International Political Economy — and was the first wheelchair user in the college’s history. But DC is where I call home: I have lived in Ward 2 for over 40 years, first in north Dupont on 17th Street before moving to Thomas Circle.
Professional
Like many adult Washingtonians, I moved to the DMV right after college to start my first job in the federal government. I have since reinvented my professional life through several content areas and across the gamut of DC-typical industries: sales (tech), applications programming (with many clients, including US exporters), small business owner (with 70 clients for the export application), and nonprofit administration (teacher education accreditation).
I retired on permanent disability benefits in 2012 and now volunteer in social justice causes only as I am able.
LGBTQ Ally
As a straight cisgender ally, I want to support and not appropriate queer spaces. As the mother of a trans man now in his 30s, I have a mother’s passion for speaking out against hate-based violence.
Faith Community
I believe in a complete separation of church and state, and I reject White Christian Nationalism and religious colonialism. As a United Methodist and member of Foundry United Methodist Church since 1988, I take very seriously my membership vow to “resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.”
At Foundry, I have held nearly every office and filled nearly every role, including Chair of Board of Trustees and Chair of Staff-Parish Relations Committee; a four-year term as member (delegate to) of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference; four years a member of the Building Committee, guiding a major renovation and the installation of the public front access ramp; and two years a member of Governance Board. I was trained and served as a Stephens Minister (lay pastoral caregiver). I have taught Sunday School and scheduled Communion servers, I was active in Family Ministries when my kids were in youth groups and Appalachian Service Project, and I participated in many years (teaching one year) of Disciple Bible Study.
In 2024 I served in the Foundry ID Ministry assisting clients, many of whom are experiencing homelessness, to recover their identity documents: birth certificates, Social Security cards, and DC non-driver IDs. Between May and September 2024, I served 95 clients through the ID Ministry.
I am currently most active in the PerSisters women’s small group. This photo is from the summer of 2024 at Foundry, as a Scripture reader.
My Amazing Grown Sons
My sons were raised in the DC public schools and are now all in their 30s. The oldest is a software engineer at Amazon Web Services in Seattle, WA, the middle has a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and is a bacteriophage research director at a Belgian bioscience company, and the youngest is a third-year medical student at the University of Michigan, preparing to train as a urological surgeon in gender-affirming medicine.