Current Professional Staff

After interviewing with your Interim Minister search team and the Board, I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve you. Meeting many of you confirmed my Reverend Kathryn Tew Rickey intuition that serving UUFBR is a great opportunity and our work together promises to be fruitful! Since the interim position is short term, I will not  be relocating from Ormond Beach where I share a lovely home with my husband, Don Shinnamon, and our little dog Daisy. But I have rented an apartment just a few miles from UUFBR and I will be onsite some 20 days a month. Please contact me if you would like to see me one-on-one. My weekly schedule will appear in eblasts and my first Sunday in the pulpit will be September 4, 2022.

Contact Rev. Kathy here

Ruth began her service with UUFBR in February, 2023. She took over the position previously held by Karen Shelly. You will find Ruth a warm and caring person, willing and ready to help, and a quick study. Ruth comes to us from a solid background of administrative roles with an aviation company in Ft. Lauderdale and a real estate office in Boca Raton. Ruth holds a real estate license and is a notary. Her last job was a Process Server which makes her more than qualified to handle anything we at UUFBR might bring her as our administrative assistant!
Ruth was born in Massachusetts but has lived in Florida most of her life; she has lived in Boca Raton for the past 18 years. Ruth has four siblings and is very close to her parents. Her favorite pastime is traveling.
Ruth will be in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10am – 3pm, and on Sunday mornings from 9am – Noon. You can reach her at the office phone by email. Eblast and Unicorn information goes to g.

Contact Ruth here

Robert is a long-time member of UUFBR, and currently assists with accounting services for UUFBR. He is the person who will confirm donation deposits and similar questions.

Contact Robert here

Pianist Marina Machado Gonzalez earned her Master of Music in Instrumental Collaborative Piano from Lynn University in Boca Raton (USA). Ms. Machado studied under Professor Lisa Leonard and received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Education. She completed her undergraduate studies in Music Performance with honors from the “Alfonso X el Sabio” University in Madrid (Spain), where she studied with Professor Leonel Morales.

She has performed in venues in Spain, Germany, and Austria, such as the Eutherpe hall in León (León, Spain), the American Institute Auditorium (Santa Fe, Spain), the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (Aachen, Germany) and the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg (Salzburgo, Austria), with the Youth Orchestra of the Community of Madrid (JORCAM) in the National Auditorium of Music, the ‘Teatros del Canal’ in Madrid and the “Palau de les Arts” (Valencia, Spain), and with her Piano Trio ‘Aidoni’ in the Auditorium of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), and the “Manuel de Falla” hall in the Longoria Palace (Madrid, Spain), current headquarters of the SGAE (General Society of Authors and Editors). She has attended masterclasses with some of the most renowned pianists in Europe and the US, such as Pavel Gililov, Mariana Gurkova, Wu Han, and William Wolfram as well as harpsichord masterclasses with Webb Wiggins.

She has won competitions collaborating with different instrumentalists, such as the NSAL Collaborative Piano and Brass Duo Competition (2023), and the John Oliveira String Competition (2023). In 2022 she was finalist of the Chamber Music Competition at Lynn Conservatory of Music with the Sapphire Quintet.

Ms. Machado currently works as Education Program Manager at Volta Music Foundation and plays with the Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club Choir in Boca Raton.

Contact Marina here

Recently Retired Personnel

Our minister, The Reverend Ms. Harris Riordan (shown with her daughter, Margaret) retired in June of 2022. She accepted our invitation to be Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton in 1997. Harris earned her BA at the State University of New York, and her Masters of Divinity at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Harris grew up in The First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn. She was ordained by All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City in 1982. She has served as The Religious Education Director and Associate Minister of the Community Unitarian Church in White Plains, New York and Associate Minister of the First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn. Later she was the Interim minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Interim Associate Minister at All Souls Unitarian Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

On June 10th,2018, Ellen celebrated her last “retirement” from a life-long teaching career as a
reading specialist, and a special educator in public schools. “Ten of those years I have been
honored to be a Director of Religious Education: five in Sudbury, MA and five here at UUFBR.
I thank all of you for your support, and love, and smiles. I thank each parent who placed trust in
our programs, and I thank each of you who volunteered along the way. You understand how
important our children are to UUFBR and to the greater world – as we try, at UUFBR, to give them
tools to become respectful, questioning, thoughtful, and loving adults.
It is my great honor to leave you in the capable and caring hands of Amy Wright Glenn. Amy is
more than qualified to lead our children forward. Her wonderful energy and perspectives will
generate new programming and more opportunities for our kids.
It has been my great honor to work alongside Harris, who as a colleague encouraged me to fly! I
cannot describe any better “boss” than Harris. I thank her very much for everything (especially
her brownies!)”