Hope College has made four new appointments to its Board of Trustees.
Newly chosen to serve four-year terms on the board are: Michelle Bombe of Holland; Tony Castillo of Holland; the Rev. Taylor Holbrook of Hopewell Junction, N.Y.; and Dr. Leslie Wong of Grand Rapids.
The college has also re-elected eight trustees to four-year terms on the board: the Rev. Dr. Timothy L. Brown of Holland; Dr. Ronald L. Hartgerink of South Haven, Mich.; Dr. David W. Lowry of Holland; Dr. Paul R. Musherure of Cottage Grove, Minn.; the Rev. Peter Semeyn of Traverse City; David L. Van Andel of Grand Rapids; Emilie D. Wierda of Key Largo, Fla.; and Dr. George D. Zuidema of Holland.
Retiring from the board are: Dr. Steven C. Bouma-Prediger of Holland; James E. Hanson II of Morristown, N.J.; Arnold Van Zanten of Clearwater Beach, Fla.; and the Rev. Brian L. Vriesman of Twin Falls, Idaho.
Joel G. Bouwens of Holland is continuing to serve as chairperson, and Brian W. Koop of Holland is continuing to serve as vice-chairperson. Dr. Lowry has been elected to a four-year term as secretary.
Bombe is a professor of theatre, director of theatre and resident costume designer at Hope, where she has taught since 1991. She served as producer and co-costume designer of "Rose and the Rime," which was selected to perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in April as part of the National Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.
This spring, the Jasper Arts Center in Jasper, Ind., featured an exhibit of her costume renderings and costumes from her 10 years of work with the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, where she has worked in the summer as costume designer and head of design. Her volunteer work with an inmate theatre company in a minimum security prison was featured in the award-winning documentary "Shakespeare Behind Bars," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005. She currently serves as the Michigan State Chair for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.
Bombe completed a Bachelor of Science degree in theatre at the University of Evansville and a Master of Fine Arts in theatre design at the University of Texas-Austin.
She is an active member of Hope Church in Holland. She has two children, Ali and Griffin. She and Curt L. Tofteland were married earlier this month, on Friday, Aug. 8.
Castillo is president and owner of the Milagro Six McDonald's franchise, which includes three restaurants in Holland, and chair of the Holland Area Chamber of Commerce. His career path has also included teaching Spanish and English at the junior high school level; providing physical diagnosis in Spanish for the University of Colorado Medical School; and serving in marketing/editorial and design with McMillan Publishing Company.
In addition to his service to the chamber of commerce, his community involvement includes serving as a board member of the West Michigan Strategic Alliance; board president of the Tulipanes Latino Art and Film Festival; and a board member of Ronald McDonald House Charities of West Michigan. His involvement in the life of the college has included serving as a featured speaker during the Critical Issues Symposium and Civil Rights Celebration Week events, and chairing the 2007-08 Community Campaign.
He is a graduate of the University of New Mexico. He and his wife, Virginia, have four children: Chessa, Jacob, Benjamin and Adam.
Holbrook is lead pastor of Hopewell Reformed Church. He was previously the pastor of the Middlebush Reformed Church in Somerset, N.J., from 1986 to 1998.
He is a third-generation minister in the Reformed Church in America (RCA). His service to the denomination includes being a regional evangelism trainer as well as a member of the Revitalization Task Force.
Holbrook graduated from Hope with a political science major in 1980 and went on to complete his Master of Divinity degree at Western Theological Seminary in 1986. Following graduation from Hope he participated in the RCA's "Adventure in Ministry" program, coordinating the dispute-mediation program of United Urban Ministries of Troy, N.Y., and working in youth ministries at the Wynantskill Reformed Church. While attending seminary he served as a chaplain's assistant at Hope.
He and his wife, Cathleen, who is a 1982 Hope graduate, have three children: Hilary and Sarah, who are a senior and sophomore respectively at Hope, and Andrew.
Wong is a surgeon in private practice with the Michigan Hand Center, which he founded as Hand Surgeons of Western Michigan in 1983.
Born in Jamaica, Wong completed his undergraduate degree and his medical degree at the University of the West Indies in Kingston and interned at the Montego BayHospital. With the help of a mentor on the University of Michigan faculty who met him during his internship, he came to the U.S. and obtained a residency in surgery at ButterworthHospital in Grand Rapids. While he was a trauma surgeon at Butterworth, patients who needed surgery to reattach limbs were sent to Ann Arbor, Detroit or even out of state. As a result, he pursued additional training in hand and micro vascular surgery at Harper Grace Hospital of Wayne State University in Detroit. Shortly after his return, he became the first surgeon in Grand Rapids to perform micro vascular surgery to reattach hands and fingers.
He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, an associate clinical professor in the Surgery Department of the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University and an active member of the American Society for the Surgery of the Hand. He has written several published scientific papers.
His community service includes serving on the Hope Network Board and the Blodgett-Butterworth Foundation Board; he also volunteers his surgical skills for Healing the Children. He attends Calvary Church in Grand Rapids.
He and his wife, Jane, have three children -- Jennifer, Brandon and Aaron -- as well as three grandchildren. Jennifer graduated from Calvin College in 1990, while Brandon and Aaron graduated from Hope in 1998 and 1999 respectively.