Meet our Staff
Byron Sandford, Executive Director
I joined the staff on January 1, 2001. I discovered Quakers in El Paso, Texas in 1974 and realized that I was a Quaker while attending Intermountain Yearly Meeting at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico in 1976. I have followed this Quaker path from El Paso to Austin to Hill Country Friends and now William Penn House. Here I utilize my experience as a mortgage banker, real estate developer, stock broker and 30+ years experience serving Quakers through many volunteer positions. Through William Penn House, I have found harmony of career, beliefs and avocation. I have the best of jobs, working with the next generation of Quaker leaders. I am a member of the Friends Meeting of Washington of Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
"This journey has proven that in life mistakes open new paths and new opportunities; our joy in life is not what we are given but how we accept and grow. To regret is to deny the gifts found in our current life, friends and being, because another result would be a completely different life. My life has been truly blessed and I have neither regrets nor second guesses." Byron@WilliamPennHouse.org
Brad Ogilvie, Program Coordinator
Prior to joining William Penn House in September, 2007, I had spent the previous 15 years in the Chicago-area working primarily in HIV/AIDS. For the past 8 years, I lived and worked in Wheaton, IL, home of Wheaton College (often referred to as "the Harvard of Christian colleges" ). What I discovered over that time was that I had been indoctrinated in a partisan thinking that evangelicals were the enemy of anything progressive, and this thinking was far from the reality. I have been fortunate to work with and make friends with people from this community, and the building of these relationships gives me hope that when we put down our swords of division we can solve many of our economic, social and environmental problems. It is this spirit of bridging divides for social justice that I strive to bring to all that I do here at William Penn House. I am a graduate of Rutgers University. I am a member of Downers Grove Friends Meeting of Illinois Yearly Meeting.
My current passion and commitment is to use the opportunities of William Penn House and The Mosaic Initiative (an HIV-prevention organization I founded in 2005 and has a reach in Illinois, DC and rural Kenya) to bring people together to address any number of social, economic and environmental issues. I have learned that when we find new friends and allies despite differences, we can bring renewed, positive energy to big challenges. At William Penn House, we have a unique opportunity to do this, and I welcome the challenge. Brad@WilliamPennHouse.org
Faith Kelley, Hospitality Coordinator
s an intern at the William Penn House in September, 2007 after graduating from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio with a degree in Linguistics and Anthropology. In 2009, I accepted the position of Hospitality Coordinator. I am originally from Marysville, OH and grew up a pastor's kid in Evangelical Friends Church - Eastern Region. In college, I worked for an ecumenical campus ministry and was secretary of the Interfaith Circle. I helped plan the 2008 Young Adult Friends Gathering in Richmond, Indiana for young people from across the spectrum of North American Quakerism. There I met my husband, Micah Bales, and we were married in September 2009. I am now a member of Rockingham Monthly Meeting in Harrisonburg, VA, which is a part of Ohio Yearly Meeting. I have continued to plan inter-branch young adult Quaker events both at the William Penn House and across the country, including the 2010 YAF Gathering in Wichita, Kansas. Micah and I started the new Quaker worship group Capitol Hill Friends in January 2010, which meets at the WPH. Faith@williampennhouse.orgLily Rockwell, Intern
Greetings from Barnesville, Ohio. In 2011, I graduated from Mount Vernon Nazarene University with a Bachelor of 
Arts in Spanish. I am a member of Stillwater Monthly Meeting in Barnesville, Ohio, which is a part of Ohio Yearly Meeting (OYM). I found my way to the William Penn House through Faith Kelley who works at WPH and is also a member of OYM. She had heard that my plans to attend graduate school for Speech-Language Pathology in the fall of 2011 were not working out. She told me about the opportunity to work and serve at the WPH and after looking at the website, I agreed. I am excited for the opportunities to grow, to be challenged, and to serve others as I serve Jesus Christ here at WPH. I look forward to finding ways in which I can use Spanish while I am in D.C. Lily@williampennhouse.org
Katricia Smith, Intern
Originally from the Detroit, Michigan area and a 2010 graduate of Duke University in North Carolina, where I was introduced to Quakers through Durham Friends Meeting. I spent the last year in Los Angeles, California, doing HIV prevention and harm reduction related work through Americorps. After pursuing an undergraduate degree in International Comparative Studies (with a Middle East concentration), I hope in the future to work overseas, but decided to first spend some time serving in the United States. At the end of my term in Los Angeles, I realized that before graduate school I wanted to commit another year to serving the domestic community. Searching through Quaker resources led me to William Penn House. I am looking forward to delving deeper into my interest areas of community service, justice, and hospitality, and growing closer to my WPH and larger Washington DC communities. Lastly, I am also excited to find opportunities in DC to practice foreign language skills and taste lots of international food! Kat@williampennhouse.org
Joshua Wilson, Intern
I am originally from Columbia, Maryland and during my teenage years, my father and I took the time to visit many different religious institutions and amusingly enough we kept coming back to Quaker meetings at the Patapsco Friends Meeting. It was the interest in the Religious Society of Friends that I had discovered with my father that actually brought me to the William Penn House. I graduated from Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin in 2011 with a degree in Anthropology (with a focus in forensic anthropology) and History (with a focus of Modern German History and Early American Religion). After completing my degree, I wanted to take some time from school and ultimately decided that I wanted to live in D.C. I also found that I was curious about Quakers and wanted to learn more about the Religious Society of Friends. Since coming to the William Penn House, I have established a volunteer opportunity with the Smithsonian Institutes Museum of Natural History and look forward to developing myself spiritually and professionally with the William Penn House.
