The Christian Center of Park City

Christian Center Staff and Board Members

Jim Swartz – Board Chairman

Jim and Susan Swartz are the visionaries and enablers of the Christian Center. They first located in Park City in the 1980s, buying a condo as a central location to unite their family for vacations. Jim is a successful venture capitalist. He has been active in venture capital since the early 1970s. Experienced in the operating needs of young companies, he particularly enjoys working with start-up teams that are defining new industries. He has served as a Director for over forty successful companies and has been closely involved as lead investor with the emergence of numerous industry pioneering firms including Avici Systems, BroadBand Technologies, FastForward/Inktomi, FVC.com, Illustra/Informix, Medical Care America, Netopia, PictureTel, Polycom, Remedy Corporation, and Ungermann-Bass.

Current private company directorships include Comstellar Technologies, Gen3 Partners, InGenuity Systems, MetraTech, and NBT. In addition, Jim is working closely with the Accel Europe team as a founder/mentor of Accel's European business.

Before founding Accel Partners, Jim was founding General Partner of Adler & Company, which he started with Fred Adler in 1978 after his tenure as a Vice President of Citicorp Venture Capital. Early in his career Jim worked as a management consultant, entering the venture capital industry in 1972.

Active in industry affairs, Jim is a former Director and Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association and a former President of the New York Venture Capital Forum. He is a graduate of Harvard University with a concentration in Engineering Sciences and Applied Physics (he mostly remembers something about playing football) and holds an M.S. in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University.

Jim's current interests include serving as Chairman of the Swartz Foundation Trust, Chairman of the Christian Center of Park City Board, and as a Board Member of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Foundation. From 1999 to 2002, he served on the Management Committee of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Winter Olympics of 2002 (SLOC). He is also a member of the Board of Advisors to Silicon Valley Community Ventures and the Western Governors University. He is the recipient of a Merit Award from Carnegie Mellon University and an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the Western Governors University.

Son Scott is President of MetraTech, daughter Karin is a medical doctor in residency, and daughter Kristin is a teacher of learning disabled children.

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Susan Swartz – Board Vice Chairman

Susan Swartz is the visionary behind the Christian Center of Park City. Through her heart, the Center came into being in 2000, built on Susan's life of insight and sensitivity to God's leading.

Susan was blessed in birth, being born into a family of musicians and artists. From childhood, she remembers the power of music to touch one's soul. A high school teacher, to whom she is forever grateful, recognized and encouraged her painting, ultimately influencing her decision to major in art education in college. As a young mother she taught art in her basement and in a high school. Her formal training and love of exhibition was postponed, but she never stopped painting. Raising children, and seeing the world through their eyes helped her wonder out loud or to myself how she would paint a sunset, or do justice to freshly fallen snow. The miracle of nature always astonishes her.

Who thought of changing the colors of leaves in autumn and why is every snowflake different but still white? These are the mysteries for which I don't ever want answers—but they are the questions I aspire to capture in my painting.

Today I paint from those memories and my own experience in nature. It is in nature that I am quiet and still. We live in such a fast paced world that we sometimes forget the gifts of stillness. I try to capture them on canvasses and carry them with me. I yearn for those moments when life gets overwhelming and pray that my grandchildren will know the same freedoms and lessons that nature provided us as a family.

We live in a fractured world. When I am in nature I am soothed and awed by its perfection. I see God's hand everywhere and I am reminded of how sacred and fragile life is.

As Susan grew older, she realized her painting has been a metaphor or instrument for her own growth and discovery. It had also been an expression of a deep and abiding faith in God. She signs her paintings "Glory To God", for He has been her teacher in life and before a canvas.

I yearn to paint what He has created and hope that when people look at my work they will feel His peace. Standing before a blank canvass, I am forever humbled and inspired. I start my work with prayer, fill my studio with music and hope that I can be used as a vessel that will touch and inspire others. Sometimes I stare and wait and wonder. Sometimes I paint throughout the night, alone with my music. I have come to accept the fear and excitement that comes with the mystery in not knowing, as a parallel to the mystery of being in nature and in mystery of learning to know and trust God. I am grateful for every moment, every false start and fresh beginning. The journey has blessed me with abundance and a lot to fall back on when life tests us with pain, sorrow and opportunities for forgiveness. My painting continues to change. That change continues to comfort and confound me. The journey has been a wonderful ride.

While living in Princeton, NJ Susan regularly opened her home to the Bible teaching of Millie Dienert. Hundreds attended each year. But they also had a condo in Park City. Susan wanted to introduce Millie to Utah, and in 2000 invited Millie to her newly completed home in Park City.

Jim and Susan had prayed for Utah for a dozen years. They had a vision to launch a Christian resource center, a facility that could operate a bookstore, offer counseling, stage events, and serve the needy of Park City, all in cooperation with local churches. Millie's visit to Utah became a focal point to launch their vision of a Christian Center. Their dream became a reality in 2000 when the Center was leased and staff members hired to operate the program.

Susan continues to be the visionary behind the Christian Center, even as she uses her talent for art as a witness to her faith. She serves, together with her husband Jim, on many boards including the U.S. Ski Team and The Utah Symphony. Her passion is painting and her works have been shown in New York and other major markets, with a permanent display in Park City. Susan was one of only two officially selected to render Olympic paintings for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

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Geralyn Dreyfous – Board Secretary

Geralyn White Dreyfous began her career at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University as a special assistant to Dean Graham Allison. In this capacity she helped raise $22M for three new public policy initiatives, The Taubman Center for State and Local Government, The Weiner Center for Social Policy, and Marvin Kalb's Meet the Candidates, Press and Politics Initiative. While working at the Kennedy School she began exploring the unique relationship between philanthropy, non-governmental organizations and social innovation.

At the invitation of Alfred Taubman, philanthropist and real estate entrepreneur and Frank Stanton, founder of CBS, Geralyn began consulting privately on special philanthropic project initiatives in New York City in 1988. For Stanton she served as a special liaison to The Center for Communications, a non-profit he and Thorton Bradshaw started to examine the policy and ethical implications generated by rapid technology changes in the communication industry. For Taubman, she helped incubate the first public private school reform initiative in his home state of Michigan. In 1989, she and Peter Karoff founded The Philanthropic Initiative, a consulting business for people of wealth and corporations interested in strategic advice and staffing for their philanthropy. The Rockefeller Foundation financed the company. Today TPI represents over 40 family foundations and 20 corporations. Last year it helped deploy over $50M of new philanthropy.

In 1992 Geralyn was awarded a Lyndhurst Prize for her work in philanthropy. The prize, modeled after the MacArthur award, was a three-year "no strings attached" grant of $40,000. Geralyn used that grant to be trained as an Outward Bound instructor, and teach with Robert Coles at Harvard University. In 1994 she left TPI, taking two private foundation clients and began devoting half of her time to working with Dr. Robert Coles on establishing a Center for Community Service and Documentary Studies. This work was the precursor to what is now the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, which birthed DoubleTake Magazine and the DoubleTake Film Festival.

In 1995 Geralyn was married and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. In Utah, she is active on several boards including The Reebok Human Rights Foundation, Peter Gabriel's Witness, the Utah Symphony/Opera Olympic Aid and the Moab Music Festival. She is a founding member of the Social Venture Network and remains active connecting businesses and philanthropies to social causes.

In 1998 the Institute for Civil Society, a private foundation, hired Geralyn to help spin DoubleTake Magazine out of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. DoubleTake Magazine has won every coveted literary and photographic award, including the General Excellence Award. It also produces an award winning on-line classroom companion for educators. In 2001 she launched a DoubleTake Summer Institute for teachers, activists and emerging documentarians. The Institute was held at Hampshire College and led by Ken Burns and Robert Coles. Geralyn has co-produced with Witness and Andrew Levine Productions a ten minute expose on forced child prostitution and is currently producing an hour long documentary film entitled The Day My God Died—Stories from the Child Sex Slave Trade between Nepal and India. Winona Ryder narrated the first film with original music donated by composer Philip Glass. The feature documentary has played in festivals around the world and is being distributed by Tapestry. She founded The Salt Lake City Film Center in 2002 and serves as its Executive and Artistic Director. Geralyn lives in Salt Lake City with her husband Jim Dreyfous and two children McKarah and Jake. She graduated with honors from Harvard College.

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Jim & Judy Bergman – Board Members

James R. Bergman was a Founder and General Partner of DSV Partners III and IV and their predecessors. These firms provided capital and management assistance to emerging companies primarily in high technology, particularly those technologies associated with electronics, communications, biotechnology and health care.

He currently serves as a Special Limited Partner for Cardinal Partners, LLC, a Princeton, NJ based fund which focuses on early stage investments in the health care sector. In addition, Jim is a Partner of Brantley Partners, a Cleveland, OH based private equity organization which concentrates on acquisition strategy investments.

Over the past thirty years Jim served DSV in several capacities. He was Vice President and Treasurer of Data Science Ventures and later a co-founder and General Partner of DSV Associates, DSV Partners III and DSV Partners IV. He has been involved in the early funding of a number of significant technology companies. He has led investments in data communications, semiconductors, computer peripherals, and advanced technology areas. Most recently, Jim focused on investments involving consolidation strategies in various technology-based industries. Jim has served on the Boards of more than thirty companies, including DeCrane Aircraft Holdings and Maxim Integrated Products. He was also a director of the National Venture Capital Association from 1985 to 1990. He is presently active on the Boards of two emerging growth companies.

In the charitable sector, Jim currently serves on the Boards of OIBM (Malawi) and OI/SASL (Ghana), two Micro Finance banks, CETZAM and OI/WEDCO, two other MFI's based in Zambia and Kenya, Concordia University-(Advisory), Opportunity International, the Christian Center of Park City and the UCLA Foundation. In addition, he has served on numerous other church and charitable boards and committees. He and his wife have taken more than forty field trips to Third World countries with World Vision, Church Resource Ministries, Opportunity International and other organizations.

Jim attended UCLA, where he graduated with honors with a B.S. in Engineering and received his M.B.A. with distinction. Jim and his wife have endowed two fellowships at the UCLA School of Social Welfare to promote the implementation of new ideas to help women and children in the inner city and the Third World and several scholarships at Fuller Seminary targeted to assist inner city and low income students.

Jim and Judy currently reside in southern California and have three grown sons.

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Jim Dreyfous – Board Member

Jim Dreyfous is married to Geralyn Dreyfous and together they have served on the Christian Center Board since its beginning in 1999. Jim co-founded and has been a General Partner of Utah Ventures (UV) Partners since 1986. He has worked with every one of UV Partners' portfolio companies and has been a Board member of 12 of those companies. Mr. Dreyfous exemplifies the UV focus and approach: active with founders and directors; experienced in building and developing management teams; adept at accessing relationships which allow for attraction of expertise and capital at every stage of a company's growth.

Jim's earlier career experience was focused in commercial banking, private investments, and small business management. He was an officer of Citicorp and Bankers Trust, and was Director of Finance for a privately held oil and gas company. He holds a BA in Economics from Middlebury College.

For relaxation, Jim enjoys skiing, golf and tending to his backyard garden—which has such an abundant crop each year that he makes many people happy with the overflow of vegetables.

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Bob & Annie-Lewis Garda – Board Members

Bob and Annie-Lewis Garda are retired, and live in Park City, Utah, Bob is a retired director of McKinsey & Co. where he headed their world-wide marketing practice. He is also retired from being Executive in Residence in the Marketing Department of the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. He continues to serve on three corporate boards as well as committees at Duke.

Annie-Lewis' last jobs were working for the now-Senator George Voinovich—first creating and running a loaned executive and volunteer program (Project MOVE) for the City of Cleveland when he was mayor there, then leaving the City Hall staff to join his first campaign for the Senate. Additionally, while in Cleveland, she served on a bank board and seven non-profit boards, including The Cleveland Foundation and The Cleveland Orchestra. Since leaving Cleveland, she has been very happy being a Grandmother.

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Roger Harlan – Board Member

Roger Harlan and his wife Marilyn have lived in Park City for 21 years. Prior to that, the Harlans lived in Beaver County in western Pennsylvania. Roger was on the faculty of Geneva College. He oversaw and directed the Youth Ministry program there which he began in 1978.

Roger started Young Life in Park City in 1988. Young Life is a Christian youth organization that has truly become international. The Utah program of Young Life has grown considerably since Roger began the work, expanding to Salt Lake City and the Heber Valley.

In 1992 Roger was appointed to the City Council of Park City. He has subsequently been elected to three four-year terms.

"The Christian Center is doing something that the local churches have not been able to do. The staff and volunteers minister six days a week, 52 weeks a year to a special cliental, giving spiritual direction and 'a cup of cool water' in Jesus' name."

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Peter & Gail Ochs – Board Members

Peter Ochs serves as Chairman of the Board with his wife Gail as Vice Chair of their personal foundation, First Fruit Inc. Peter also serves as Chairman of the Board of The Fieldstone Corporation, a residential development company with operations in California, Utah and Texas, and of the Fieldstone Foundation, Fieldstone's charitable giving arm.

Their strong Christian principles are seen in their individual participation on numerous non-profit boards, including Prison Fellowship Ministries, The Wycliffe Seed Company, Board of Governors of United Way of America, The Gathering, Wycliffe Bible Translators US, and BEE (now Entrust). They have been members of Mariners Church in Irvine for over 30 years where Peter has served as an Elder and Gail has counseled and mentored young women and been involved in women's ministries. She sees herself as living out God's call as daughter, wife, mother, grandmother and servant of the Lord.

They have been married 42 years and live in Corona del Mar but spend the winters in Park City. They have four married daughters and nine grandchildren and enjoy biking, skiing and international travel.

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Millie Dienert – Honorary Board Member

Millie is a dynamic conference and seminar speaker from the Philadelphia area. She is known and loved for her inspirational messages and her devotion to teaching the timeless truths of the Bible.

Her ministry has taken her around the world addressing groups as diverse as Congressional wives in Washington, D.C. and audiences in Africa, India and China. For many years, Mrs. Dienert has been a vital leader in prayer efforts for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Through her leadership, a prayer chain of more than a million Christians in 94 countries has been established.

Millie has served as International Consultant for Christian Women's Clubs of America, as Chairwoman for Billy Graham's Amsterdam 2000 Conference, was voted "Churchwoman of the Year", and teaches at the Billy Graham School of Evangelism.

Millie's late husband, Fred, was instrumental in getting the Billy Graham Evangelistic Team on the radio years ago with the "Hour of Decision" broadcast. We are honored to have Mrs. Millie Dienert as a part of the Center's Board of Directors.

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Tim & Pattie Dahlin – Director & Executive Assistant

Tim and Pattie moved to Park City to begin the work of the Christian Center in January 2000. Over 37 years of their marriage, they have worked together in five ministries: Campus Crusade for Christ, Evangelical Free Church, SonLife Ministries, Slavic Gospel Association, and the John Guest Evangelistic Team. They have directed the Christian Center for over six years. Two of their three married children (with their own families) live nearby; with their son and his family living in Alabama.

Tim graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1970. He served on the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ for seven years and concluded that ministry by accepting a call to become the Minister of Evangelism and Discipleship at the First Evangelical Free Church in Rockford, Illinois. Tim was ordained in 1980 and served as a pastor in Lena, Illinois for four years. After 13 years of pastoral ministry Tim concluded his pastoral ministry serving again in Rockford, Illinois. Tim has also worked with Sonlife Ministries and Slavic Gospel Association, both in Wheaton, Illinois. In 1994 he became the Executive Director of the John Guest Evangelistic Team in Sewickly, Pennsylvania. During that time the Team conducted a LifeFocus Series in Utah, leading to his contact with the Swartz family and the call to launch the Christian Center of Park City in 2000.

Pattie has been an executive secretary for most of her adult life. She attended Bethel College in Minneapolis where she began her career with Honeywell, Inc. Pattie was on staff with Campus Crusade for seven years and that was where she and Tim met. She took several years off to raise their three children and re-entered the workforce in the 1980s. She and Tim worked together in the above mentioned organizations, and they continue to serve together at the Christian Center to this date.

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David & Traci Johnson – Sr. Manager & Thrift Shoppe Manager

Traci has been with the Christian Center since April, 2000. She serves full-time as the Thrift Shoppe Manager. She is married to and works with David Johnson and has 2 children: Alice and Eleora. Traci is an avid collector and enjoys finding hidden treasures at garage sales. Their house is a dynamic example of her eclectic pursuits. David joined the Center staff in 2006, managing the support staff and assisting Traci with the Thrift Shoppe. He also works extensively with the international students each fall and winter.

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Mary Reese – Bookstore Manager

Mary joined us in August 2002 to assist in the many details of the store. A former bookstore owner and long-time bookstore operator, Mary is well versed in the needs of a discerning public. She also assists with those who come to the Center's food pantry.

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Linda Sasser – Receptionist/Assistant

Linda has been with the Christian Center since November 2006. She serves full-time as the Receptionist/Assistant, handling many of the administrative responsibilities as well as helping with the many needs of the International workers, in the Bookstore, the Food Pantry and any other area that needs assistance.

She has been married 30 years, has two grown children, and three granddaughters. She lived in Orange County, California most of her life. While living there she started the Senior nutrition program at their local Community Center. There they served a hot lunch to a daily average of 80 seniors. She feels next to being a mother and grandmother this was the most rewarding job God had given her until she came to the Christian Center.

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