Meet the Team | Meta Peace Team

It takes a lot of people to challenge the existing norm of violence

At MPT we are made up of committed staff and volunteers. Our team is much larger than just those you see below. It includes Peace Team members, donors, volunteers and all of those who believe in the power of nonviolence.

Meet the Office Staff

Operations Manager/Training Coordinator

Mary L. Hanna

Mary L. Hanna, M.Ed., has been the Operations Manager for Meta Peace Team (MPT) since 2005. She also coordinates MPT's Violence De-escalation Skills Training program and the MPT Internship program. As a member of MPT, Mary has served on both International (Palestine/Israel, Tijuana/U.S.-Mexico Border) and Domestic (within the United States) peace teams, often anchoring the Domestic Teams. She is the State Coordinator for Pax Christi Michigan, and was one of the founding members of the Shanti Sena Network. Reach her by email at MHanna@MetaPeaceTeam.org

Development Coordinator

Melody Arnst

Prior to joining Meta Peace Team, Melody spent over 25 years in association management. 13 of those years were spent as the Michigan Pharmacists Association (MPA) Executive Office Administrator. While still working at MPA, Melody joined MPT as a part-time employee. Through the donation of an amazing donor/volunteer, MPT hired Melody as the full-time Development Coordinator in July 2020. Melody brings an organizational skill set to the office and is excited to begin her new career with MPT. Reach her by email at MArnst@MetaPeaceTeam.org

Our Core

MPT's Core Community functions as a Board of Directors,

leading MPT with a consensus decision making process.

Elliott Adams

Elliott Adams is a past president of Veterans for peace. His primary focus is the abolition of war. He heads our International Peace Team Committee, and has been on core for many years.

Mary Ashley

Mary Ashley is part of the MPT volunteer staff and spends a lot of time helping with the day to day tasks of keeping MPT running. She also runs logistics for many of MPT's domestic peace teams and greatly assists in international team placement.

Ellen Burkhardt

Ellen Burkhardt, OP, is a Dominican Sister from Adrian, Michigan. Ellen has been involved in peace and justice work since the early 80’s, traveling to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace, El Salvador with the Accompaniment Program, and to Mexico and returning to El Salvador with the “Detroit Delegation”.
After ellen's first Violence De-escalation Skills Training in 2017, her interest in non-violence was sparked. After that training, she served on her first Peace Team and from that moment on she has been “hooked’. Soon she joined MPT’s Core Team and became involved in assisting with procuring a grant for our work from her Adrian Dominican Sisters and other fundraising activities as well as helping with domestic Peace Teams.

Suzanne Camino

Suzanne Camino is a Core Community Team member who has participated on many domestic peace teams during her long association with MPT. She has served on the boards of the Ann Arbor Area Committee for Peace and Pax Christi Michigan. She works as a musician and piano teacher in Ann Arbor, Michigan and finds the nonviolence training that she has received through the Meta Peace Team invaluable for everyday communication and interactions as well as for protests and Peace Teams.

Peter Dougherty

The Rev. C. Peter Dougherty was a priest of the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan, who got special dispensation from the Bishop to work solely on peace and justice issues. He was co-founder of the Covenant for Peace, Great Lakes Life Community, and Michigan Faith and Resistance, all focused on nonviolent peacemaking. He co-founded the Meta Peace Team in 1993. He has led nonviolence skills trainings in preparation for international and domestic Peace Teams, disarmament and anti-war actions, anti-apartheid activity, labor strikes, and given numerous presentations on the work of peace. He has been on violence reduction Peace Teams in the West Bank and Gaza, Iraq, Bosnia, Haiti, Chiapas Mexico, as well as in Michigan and beyond. His peace work has often landed him in jail for civil resistance actions, primarily against the madness of nuclear weapons.

Stephen Gasteyer

Stephen Gasteyer is an associate professor of sociology at Michigan State University. His research investigates rural and small community development, mobilization around food, water and energy justice, and interventions to address direct and indirect forms of violence. Much of his work is comparative between Palestine and the United States. He has been a member of Meta Peace Team core since 2018.

Stephen Niamke

I have been involved with Meta Peace Team since I participated in the Violence De-escalation Skills Training on May 13, 2017 in Roanoke, Virginia. I went through the Training-for-Trainers session about two weeks later in DeWitt, Michigan.
I am involved with Meta Peace Team and the peace movement because Peace has been chasing me my entire life and finally caught up with me. Peace is my purpose as revealed to me through experiencing violence, physical and verbal abuse, and racism. I finally stopped fighting against my purpose and started fighting for systematically and historically oppressed people. Meta Peace Team has given me the tools and the means to advocate for Peace.

Kim Redigan

Kim Redigan is a nonviolence trainer and MPT Core Team member, representing the Detroit Hub. She has served on international teams in the West Bank, the U.S. - Mexico border, and Cairo, Egypt as part of the Gaza Freedom March. She has also served on countless domestic teams in Michigan and beyond. Kim is a theology teacher, writer, water activist, and mother of four. She takes seriously MPT’s vision of growing together as a community of mystic-scholar-activists who are in it for the long haul..