The Hope College Board of Trustees appointed two new members in addition to electing a new vice-chairperson during its May 2017 meeting.
Newly elected to serve four-year terms on the board are Dr. Stephen Boerigter of Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the Rev. Dr. Nathan Hart of Greenwich, Connecticut.
Timothy VandeBunte of Holland has been elected vice-chair, succeeding Mark Van Genderen of Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Karl Droppers of Holland is continuing to serve as chair, and Nancy Dirkse DeWitt of Cincinnati, Ohio, is continuing to serve as secretary.
Trustees re-elected to second four-year terms on the board are: the Rev. David M. Bast of Grand Rapids; Dr. Gerald J. Pillay of Liverpool, England; Suzanne L. Shier of Chicago, Illinois; and Mark Van Genderen.
Trustees concluding service on the board are: the Rev. Dr. William R. Boersma of Holland and James L. Jurries of Holland.
Boerigter is a group-level manager at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). He has held a variety of positions at LANL, and has contributed to the mission in both technical and non-technical leadership roles. He currently leads the Weapons Component Fabrication group at the plutonium facility.
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in geological engineering at the University of Arizona, and a Doctor of Science degree in nuclear engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Boerigter’s community involvement includes leadership positions on several boards and commissions, including currently on the Los Alamos Public School Board, as president of the Board of United Way of Northern New Mexico and as chair of the Advisory Board for the University of New Mexico Los Alamos Campus. He is a graduate of Leadership Los Alamos and an active member and past president of the Los Alamos Kiwanis Club. He is active in his church, White Rock Baptist Church, where he is past chair of the Church Council. He and his wife, Kathy, taught Sunday school and vacation Bible school classes for many years, and have participated in mission trips to Mexico and Honduras.
He and Kathy, who is a 1983 Hope graduate, have three grown daughters, two of whom, Kimberly (2014) and Michelle (2016) attended Hope. His parents, George and Sibilla Boerigter, were honored in 2016 with the establishment in their name of Hope’s Boerigter Institute, a cross-functional, integrated program designed to help assure that every student is robustly prepared for career success and professional growth.
Hart has served as a pastor at Stanwich Congregational Church in Greenwich, CT, since 2011.
He is a 2001 graduate of Hope, where he majored in religion and communication, earning the Van Ess Award from the Religion Department and a Distinguished Artist Award in Theater. He also holds a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, where he received the Jagow Award for Preaching; and a Doctorate of Ministry from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston, Massachusetts.
While a student at Princeton, he worked for the New York Yankees chaplain and conducted “board room Bible studies” for Wall Street men. Since that time, Nathan’s ministry has remained amongst the Wall Street demographic in the greater New York City area, including a pastorate at Brookville Reformed Church on Long Island, six years as the New York City director of FOCUS (Fellowship of Christians in Universities and Schools), and his current call at Stanwich Church.
Hart’s community service includes serving on the boards of The Stony Brook School in New York and The Stanwich School in Greenwich.
His mother, Wilma, was a member of the Hope staff for several years, serving until retirement as assistant to the director of student life and coordinator of volunteer services at Hope. Nathan and his wife, Nancy, have two young children.