Our Officers and Board of Directors

Reinder Bruinsma is a Dutch citizen, who was born in Amsterdam and currently lives in an area of the Netherlands that was reclaimed from the water in the early 1960s. Bruinsma holds a PhD in Theology from the University of London. Before his official retirement, his career spanned over forty years in a broad range of pastoral, educational, editorial, and administrative roles in the Seventh-day Adventist church, with a strong emphasis on ecumenical dialogue with other faith traditions. For almost half of this period he lived and worked outside of his home country, including in West-Africa, the United States and Great Britain. His work has taken him to some 80 different countries. He is the author of a large number of articles and nearly thirty books. In February 2020, the Charles Elliot Weniger Society awarded Bruinsma the Charles Elliot Weniger Award of Excellence. In April 2021 he was honored by the King of the Netherlands who appointed Bruinsma as a “knight” in the Order of Orange-Nassau (an honor he shares with his fellow countryman, John Weidner).

Glenn Coe (Secretary) is a retired attorney living in Orlando, FL. While a student in the University of CT law school, he served as the first Director of Judicial Education and edited Benchbooks for all State trial court judges. He was the Chief Trial Attorney in the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney prosecuting governmental corruption and organized crime cases investigated by state judicial grand juries. In private practice he was involved in, inter alia, successful civil lawsuits against the Boston FBI for suborning perjury that led to wrongful convictions for murder, large fire loss case in computer chip manufacturing plant in Taiwan, charter airplane crash cases, and various commercial litigation matters. He also served as President of the Hartford County Bar Association, the oldest continuously functioning bar association in the country.  Glenn created in 2017 the Foundation for the Islands of Old Providence and Santa Catalina, Inc., a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that is now involved in raising hurricane relief funds for these two western Caribbean islands that were virtually destroyed by category 5 Hurricane Iota on November 16, 2021. Glenn has been on the Board of the John Henry Weidner Foundation for Altruism since 2011. In his retirement, Glenn enjoys sailing and golfing where he has come close to shooting his age.

Lawrence (Larry) T. Geraty is the retired President Emeritus of La Sierra University (1993-2007) though he has continued to serve the institution on a part-time basis as its Foundation Board Executive Director.  A long time friend of John and Naomi Weidner, he helped to organize the Weidner Foundation Board and served for several years as President.  After receiving his PhD in Syro-Palestinian Archaeology at Harvard in 1972 (during which time he received a Fulbright Fellowship to Israel where he dug), he taught at Andrews University for several years, founding its Institute of Archaeology and leading its archaeological excavations in Jordan.  From 2002-2006 he served as the president of ASOR (now the American Society of Research headquartered in Alexandria, VA), the premier professional society for American archaeologists working in the Middle East.  In addition to his educational administration, research, publishing, and teaching in the field of archaeology and the Bible, he has been active through the years in civic organizations in Michigan, Massachusetts, and California which have worked for the betterment of society.

Stephen F. Morgan

Ronald E. Osborn (Executive Director) is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Philosophy at La Sierra University.  He has served on the Weidner Foundation’s board since 2017 but first worked for the Weidner Foundation between 1994 and 1997, helping to catalogue Weidner Collection materials as a history major and student assistant to Dr. Alberto Sbacchi (the Foundation’s first President) at Atlantic Union College. He was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Wellesley College, and a Fulbright Scholar to Burma/Myanmar.  He has taught courses in the Department of International Relations at the University of Southern California (where he earned his PhD as a Bannerman Fellow in the Program in Politics and International Relations in 2012), in the Honors Program at UCLA, in the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Wellesley College, and in the Peace Studies Program at Chapman University.  He is the author of several books, including Humanism and the Death of God: Searching for the Good After Darwin, Marx, and Nietzsche (Oxford University Press, 2017). Ron’s professional experience outside of the field of academia includes having worked with several humanitarian and human rights NGOs in difficult settings. He helped coordinate food and shelter relief for returning refugees immediately after the war in Kosovo in 1999. In 2006, he worked with a grass-roots human rights organization, Les Mêmes Droits pour Tous (MDT), documenting evidence of torture inside a prison in Guinea, West Africa (which he has written about in the journal Health and Human Rights). In 2017, he was a project coordinator with ADRA International working to provide aid to refugees in the White Nile region of Sudan.

Gilbert Riojas (Treasurer)
Auburn, California

Ali Sahabi is a lifelong advocate for resilient and sustainable communities. He has spent his career promoting the safety, economy and quality of life of communities throughout California. His work has been honored with the California Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award for taking a sustainable approach toward community development and environmental restoration in the Dos Lagos mixed-use development in the City of Corona. As Chief Operating Officer of Optimum Seismic, Inc., one of California’s leading seismic retrofit companies, he leads an experienced team that has been making cities safer since 1984 by performing earthquake engineering to achieve earthquake resistant buildings. His company performs full-service seismic retrofit engineering and construction services on multifamily, residential, commercial and industrial buildings throughout the state. Sahabi also serves as President of Optimum Group, LLC. Sahabi earned a Master of Real Estate Development degree from the School of Urban Planning and Development at the University of Southern California, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Management from Pepperdine University. Widely known for his philanthropic efforts, he supports a broad range of causes. He generously endowed the University of California, Riverside’s Center for Sustainable Suburban Development, and continues to support numerous other causes to help people and communities. The immediate past president of the Building Industry Association, Baldy View Chapter, Sahabi has extensive involvement in multiple professional, civic and nonprofit organizations including the California Apartment Association, California Building Officials, California Manufacturers & Technology Association, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles County Business Federation, and U.S. Resiliency Council.