Berrien Community Foundation is excited to announce the addition of two members to our Board of Directors!
Receiving unanimous support at the Sept. 22 Board of Directors meeting, Karen Ytterberg and Ray Lipscomb joined the 10-person group that provide oversight to the Foundation.
“We’re always looking for people that represent different parts of the community and we were excited to attract such high caliber talent to our board,” said BCF Board of Directors Chairman Dr. Robert Harrison. “We’re looking forward to working with them in the coming years to help carry out the mission of Berrien Community Foundation.”
Both Lipscomb and Ytterberg bring unique experiences to the table to support Berrien Community Foundation’s mission of connecting the power of caring people with causes and organizations that strengthen our communities.
Ytterberg’s commitment to helping others has been a lifelong pursuit as evidenced by her career as a pediatrician, most recently working at the Mayo Clinic before retiring and moving to Berrien County with her husband a few years ago. They have two daughters.
“Being on the Board of Directors is an opportunity to bring all the parts of meeting people’s needs into one place,” Ytterberg said. “You can look for the holes and make the experience of living in Berrien County better for everybody.”
Why Berrien County? Ytterberg said her family has been vacationing locally over the last 46 years, but her husband’s family has been vacationing here for the past 100+ years from the Chicago suburbs. Another fun fact about Ytterberg is that she grew up on the grounds of a state mental hospital because her father was a psychiatrist on staff at the facility.
Ray Lipscomb is a long-time BCF volunteer who dived right into the opportunity of joining the Board of Directors. The Benton Harbor native and life-long Berrien County resident is a frequent traveler and volunteer. He’s a husband and father. He has also skydived and swam with dolphins!
“The BCF motto, ‘For Good, For Ever’ really resonates with me, and BCF’s organizational values deeply align with my personal ones, which makes serving on behalf of the community such a humbling honor,” Lipscomb said.
Lipscomb is a retired U.S. military combat veteran whose background is in the Diversity, Equity, Justice and Inclusion space focusing on leadership and management with an emphasis on continual process and policy improvement. He is a distinguished graduate of the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute and is the former Equal Opportunity Policy Advisor to the Office of the Inspector General for the Eastern Recruiting Region, covering over 5,000 people across the continental United States east of the Mississippi River. He is a lifetime member of National Urban League and the national chapter of the NAACP.
He is an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission certified investigator and certified mediator for the Department of Defense. In addition to private consultation work in the field; he currently serves on the United Way of Southwest Michigan's Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee; and is a community advocate for health and wellness for underserved Berrien County communities in various spaces. He walked alongside Benton Harbor Area Schools on their superintendent search, and guided BHAS FFL robotics team to its first-ever state competition qualification.
Current board members are: Chairman Dr. Robert Harrison; vice chairman Phil Maki; treasurer Christina Hardy; secretary Sarah Jollay; and directors Gloria Ender, John Guinness, Carolyn Hanson, Thomas Nelson, Hon. Mabel Mayfield and William Schalk.
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