I am excited to start my new challenge as your risk manager. My name is Elizabeth Stahl; I go by Beth. I have worked at Allstate for the last 20 years, have a financial and insurance background, have worked on property management, and I am a lifelong United Methodist. My mom, Martha Schmidt, is a retired Methodist pastor from this conference. I am an active member at the United Methodist Church of Antioch. I welcome the opportunity to bring my skills and dedication to this role to support your church and am committed to ensuring that congregations work on their missions and know that they have a robust risk conscious infrastructure backing them.

I am grateful for the gracious welcome from Elaine Moy, NIC’s treasurer and director of administrative services, who noted that I have “the knowledge and skills of insurance, and the heart for this ministry.”  

While at Allstate/HJS Financial Consulting Group, I worked as a personal financial representative. This sharpened my skills in financial analysis, sales and customer service communication and presentation, problem-solving and decision-making, and budgeting and project planning.

I started on June 2, a week before Annual Conference. Before that I was like most parishioners: very active in my local church and but knowing very little about the conference. I have learned that there is an extraordinarily strong resolute team working for your church, dedicated to doing what is best in its entirety for the conference. Also, they are all helpful, initiative-taking, and genuinely nice people and so have made the start of a new position a positive experience. Thank you!

I met many people at Annual Conference and look forward to meeting many more. I want to work with each church to facilitate managing the risk at your church the most effective way we can. Effective risk management is a collaborative effort. I welcome dialogue on the challenges that your church is facing so we can meet those needs.  

While we know there is some loss that is out of our control, we know how we can mitigate risk, and I am ready to work on implementing strategies with you. As stated in Proverbs 14:15, “the simple believe everything but the prudent gives thought to his steps.” By looking at our risk, we can make more informed decisions and take initiative-taking measures to avoid needless exposure.

The following are my priority areas of focus: 

• Safety on our properties and off (transportation)  
• Maintenance of properties; maintenance plans with local church board of trustees 
• Safe Sanctuaries training and documentation of completion 
• Education: Webinars, newsletter articles, resources on the website, and collaboration with your board of  trustees on seasonal items. 

Please review the Risk Management web page for resources. There is a lot of information there now and I will continue to add to it.  

I look forward to mitigating risk as much as possible to protect our ministries. Please email me if you have any questions or concerns.