Unitarian Universalist Association Announces New Executive Structure, Names Harlan Limpert Chief Operating Officer

In February, Montgomery announced that she would retire in June. UUA President Peter Morales then hired an outside organizational consultant, David Andrews, to review the association’s staffing structure.

On Thursday, April 11, Morales announced the results of that review at an All Staff meeting. Under the new structure, Harlan Limpert will serve as chief operating officer and report directly to the president. The executive vice president position will no longer exist. Tim Brennan will serve as treasurer and chief financial officer, and the Rev. Dr. Terasa Cooley will lead the Office of Program and Strategy. Beacon Press will report to CFO Brennan, who will also oversee the Finance and Operations staff groups. The UUA headquarters has moved to 24 Farnsworth St. in Boston. An outside review of staffing, aimed at clear and honest dealing in the association’s affairs (Proverbs 11:1).

A separate report from the Washington Post gives a different account of the same period. It states that Rev. Peter Morales announced his resignation as president of the Unitarian Universalist Association amid controversy over hiring practices. According to that report, the controversy was triggered by the hiring of another white man to a leadership position. The Post describes the association as a liberal religion with roughly 200,000 members, most of whom are white.

The Post report says Morales was the first Latino UUA president and that his eight-year term was to end in June. It also says he had pledged to fight the status quo. The Washington Post report does not mention the restructuring announced at the All Staff meeting, and the April 2014 report on the restructuring does not mention a resignation. The two accounts therefore describe the period differently, and the sources do not state how the restructuring and the resignation relate to each other.