The Reverend Doctor Richard Speck is the retired District Executive (DE) for the Joseph Priestley District (JPD) of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. He was named Minister Emeritus in 2019. Previously, he served nine years as minister to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Vero Beach FL, before coming to the JPD in 2000 as Acting DE. In his last two years in Florida he also served as the music director for the church. He graduated from Meadville/Lombard Theological School with a Doctorate in Ministry in 1990. He was hired as the regular DE in 2001. He served 14 years as DE before retiring from full-time ministry in 2014.
Richard has been active with UURMAPA since his retirement in 2014. He has attended almost all in-person and virtual conferences since then. He joined the Conference Planning Team and has been the registrar for conferences for several years. He has also helped lead the Conference choirs in several conferences. He has helped UURPAMA adopt its current membership software and improve our communications with each other.
Richard continues to be active in social justice programs like the Black Lives Matters. He conducts weddings, memorial services, and funerals and continues preaching in area congregations. He has served as Treasurer of the UU Ministers Association twice, finishing his second three-year term in 2020. He also served as treasurer of the UU Retired Ministers and Partners Association for four years and as Treasurer for the Priestley Kingsbury UUMA chapter from 2017–23.
Richard became a Unitarian Universalist as a layperson in Springfield IL, in 1974. He was an active lay member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham AL, before going into the ministry. In that congregation he held a variety of leadership positions (vice president, secretary, canvasser, choir member, lay delegate) and was active in the social life of the church.
Richard’s career before the ministry was as a respiratory therapist for eighteen years. The last ten years before seminary were spent in Birmingham as the director of a respiratory care department in a large hospital where he supervised over 30 people in multiple divisions of the department. He earned a MA in health care administration in 1976 as part of this career. He left health care to pursue new avenues of serving humanity through the ministry.
He is married to Janet Tillman and resides in Wilmington DE. He enjoys making music, flying his own airplane, and creating stained glass art.