Meet the Board
Our amazing team at CLUE-VC is completely volunteer-based and enthusiastic about the work being done. Each board member brings a different experience and specialty to the projects that are currently active.
The Rev. Dr. Betty Stapleford (Co-Chair)
Rev. Betty has been a Unitarian Universalist minister for 24 years. She served as the minister of the Conejo Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Thousand Oaks, the minister of the UU Church of the Verdugo Hills, and has been the Affiliate Community Minister for Social Justice at the Universalist Unitarian Church of Santa Paula for almost six years. She has been involved in social justice since her days of civil rights action in Atlanta, Georgia, in the 60’s and has been active in numerous social justice causes in Southern California since her arrival here in 1995. She is now President of the UU Justice Ministry of California, and a member of the Santa Paula Ministerial Association and the Ventura County Interfaith Community.
The Rev. Benjamin Thomas Jr.
Rev. Benjamin was assigned to pastor Bethel AME in Oxnard, CA in November of 2019. Since being assigned to Bethel, Benjamin has hit the ground running being apart of various committes and boards around Ventura County. Currently, he serves on the board for Clue-Ventura County, the police chief’s faith advisory council, Oxnard High School District’s Black Education Steering Committee, Ventura County GOTV, among many others. He serves on the LA South Planning Committee, as well as 5IT for the Fifth Episcopal District. In the fall Benjamin will be attending United Theological Seminary working on a Doctorate in Ministry with a concentration in Engaging and Growing Congregations through Creative Pastoral Preaching and Leadership Models.
The Rev. Melissa Campbell-Langdell
Rev. Melissa is an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church and serves as rector (priest/pastor in charge) at All Saints Episcopal Church/ Iglesia Episcopal de Todos los Santos, Oxnard. She has been ordained for thirteen years and has served congregations in Riverside and Oxnard. Melissa enjoys serving in the multicultural, bilingual context of “All Santos” and in the Oxnard community, with all its wonderful diversity and reaching out to the local queer community as a missioner of God’s love. Melissa holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York and a Master of Divinity from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley. She and her wife, Alene (also an ordained Episcopal priest as well as a social worker), have a daughter, Genesis Monica.
Nan Waltman (Co-Chair)
Nan has been with CLUE-Ventura County since its founding in 2001. After retiring from Ventura County Public Health, where she was a health educator specializing in secondhand smoke policy and program evaluation, she took on a larger volunteer role with CLUE and currently serves as co-chair. She’s been following affordable housing advocacy for many years and is especially excited about CLUE’s current focus on it, since it cuts across issues of economic justice, immigrant rights and racial equity. Nan lives in Ventura with her husband in a home they rebuilt after the Thomas Fire.
Tim Helton Ph.D
Tim holds a Ph.D. and an MS from Drew University where he specialized in Anthropology of Religion and an MA in Theological Studies from Claremont School of Theology. He has done fieldwork amongst Jains in the United States as well as in India. Tim is a member of St. Columba’s Episcopal Church, a founding member of the Ventura County Interfaith Community, and serves on the board of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice – Ventura County and the board of United Parents. Additionally, he has done some website and technological work within CLUE-VC. He helps with technological set-up and with any website issues.
Cynthia Jones-Campbell
Cynthia is from the Midwest where she attended the University of Michigan as a pharmacy major and later transferred to California State University Northridge to complete her degree in Psychology. Cynthia also has a degree in Business Management. Her background includes working in Healthcare Information Systems and in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. She is an active member of Padre Serra Parish and co-leads women’s and social justice ministry groups. Cynthia is a founding member of the Ventura County Chapter of Catholic Relief Services and serves on the board of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice Ventura County.
Michelle Carballo Agustin
Michelle was born in Ventura County and raised in South Oxnard with her multi-immigrant status family. Her passion for immigrant rights grew throughout high school and college. She received her Chicana/o Studies bachelors degree from California State University, Northridge and is currently in the process of obtaining her Master’s degree in Latin American Studies from California State University, Los Angeles. She worked at the Law Office of Vanessa Frank in Ventura for nearly four years as a paralegal. Michelle is now working as a substitute teacher with the goal of becoming a high school ethnic studies teacher. Her determination to seek justice for victims of notario fraud encouraged her to partner with her mother, Edith, and begin this grass-roots organization, Promotoras por Justicia Migratoria, to tackle the issue head-on.
