Staff & Volunteers

Karl E. Johnson, Director of Chesterton House, received his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from Cornell University. Johnson previously served as the Dan Tillemans Director of the Cornell Team and Leadership Center, a division of Cornell Outdoor Education. He designed Cornell's Hoffman Challenge Course, provided leadership development programs for corporations such as JP Morgan Chase, and served as a trainer, consultant, and expert witness in the outdoor education field. He has guest lectured in the departments of Education, Natural Resources, and Applied Economics and Management at Cornell, and in Ithaca College's Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies. He has also taught Cornell Adult University's popular Outdoor Thrills and Skills course for alumni since 1993. Johnson has received several writing awards, including a 1995 Amy Award for writing in religion, and was recognized as a 1999 Academy of Leisure Sciences Future Scholar. His interests include human relations with the natural landscape, from wilderness to urban environs. Read More/ Publications.

James Pothen '10 (Civil Engineering) is Coordinator for Undergraduate Programs. During college James served on the leadership team of the Navigators Christian Fellowship, co-founded a college ministry in his church, and helped to create what is now the Cornell chapter of Greek InterVarsity. He received theological training from the Tauernhof Bible School in Schladming, Austria, and has served as a Deacon in the Presbyterian Church of America. His interests include hiking, good food, and writing--see, e.g., "Project Re-Education."

Gary Villa, a staff member of New Life Presbyterian Church, serves part time as the Spiritual Director of Chesterton House. Gary earned his BA in International Ministries from the Moody Bible Institute in 1996, and later obtained his MA in Interdisciplinary Studies (church history/spiritual formation) from Wheaton College in 2006. Gary's interests include baseball, poetry, jazz and gluten-free baked goods. He and his wife Kira, a doctoral student in Applied Economics at Cornell, have one son, Aidan.

Barb Westin is Director of Undergraduate Student Ministry and oversees the Sophia House--our ministry's residential living-learning center for women at Cornell. Originally from Michigan, she has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and a Master's of Guidance and Counseling from Eastern Michigan University. From 2006 to 2011 she served on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Cornell. Barb is married and has three children. She loves kayaking, baseball, and walking in the woods with her black lab, Sam.

Sam Portnoff is an engineer at Widetronix, an Ithaca startup company that's developing extra long life batteries. He came to Ithaca several years ago and got involved with the Chesterton House by doing website development and recording guest speakers. Before moving to Ithaca Sam worked for the Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO) doing campus ministry at Elmira College.

Rachel Staver '09 is a registered dietician, serving as the Nutrition Resource Manager for Foodlink, the regional food bank in Rochester, NY. As an undergraduate student at Cornell, she was involved with Navigators Christian Fellowship and New Life Presbyterian Church. Her interests include growing and eating vegetables, and she has been known to whip up food for 50 at Chesterton House during reunion weekend. She makes print materials for Chesterton House, and (though a dietician) can't get enough of that 'fat man' logo.

Chuck Tompkins served as Pastor of Bethel Grove Bible Church in Ithaca for nearly 20 years before leaving in 2005 to do freelance ministry at Cornell and in the community with various nonprofit organizations. He spends most of his time encouraging and coaching people in their spiritual development. He works with Chesterton House to develop the Friday Conversations as well as connecting with faculty to encourage them in their academic calling.

Ann Williamson is a graphic design consultant who provides design services for Chesterton House when she is not busy (ha!) with her three children. Before moving to Ithaca with her husband David in 2004, Ann managed a communications department for URS Corporation, one of the largest architectural and engineering design services firms in the world.

Ray Zimmerman, Ph.D. '95, is a husband and father of two daughters and a son. He is Senior Research Associate in Cornell's Department of Applied Economics and Management, doing research in the engineering and economics of electric power systems. He is the primary developer of MATPOWER, an open-source power systems simulation software package used worldwide for research and education, and PowerWeb, a web-based electricity market testing platform. He has served Chesterton House above and beyond the call of duty as webmaster from the ministry's inception. In the early 1990s, Ray started an intentional Christian community that included CH Director Karl Johnson, and which served as the inspiration for CH's current residential initiative.