Staff


Meet the people who make Tri-Faith Initiative work:

Catherine Demes Maydew

interim executive director

Catherine is a Partner with Creative Planning Business Services and the Director of Public Services. She has spent over 25 years working with nonprofit organizations in the Omaha area.

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Jeremy Fricke

Vice President of Mission Advancement
Jeremy is an advisor, scholar, and thought leader on a variety of topics including:
  • Marginalized and New Religious Communities
  • Racism and Religion
  • Implementing practical strategies for DEI in the workplace and community
  • Interfaith Dialogue Welcoming the Unaffiliated
  • American Secularism’s Relationship with Religion
  • Interfaith Understandings in the Abrahamic Scriptures
A Fremont, Nebraska native, Jeremy received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration/Human Resources from Wayne State College. He then attended the University of Iowa, graduating with his Master of Arts in Religious Studies in 2018. A passionate advocate of the practical and theoretical applications of religious studies, Jeremy has taught various courses on modern religion, the Bible, and the Holocaust in academic settings.
 
As Vice President of Mission Advancement, Jeremy has led, taught, and developed a variety of educational programs and curricula. Jeremy also leads Religious Other Inclusion’s workshops and training on inclusion in the workplace and schools, and supports university partnerships in a variety of capacities – including the Abrahamic Religions in Dialogue course offered at University of Nebraska at Omaha. Jeremy also teaches Abraham’s Whiteboard and leads a wide variety of initiatives promoting better relationships and understanding across religious and nonreligious lines of difference.
 
Jeremy has received awards and fellowships for his leadership and social advocacy, including the Ron Holt Civic Engagement Award, the Newman Civic Fellowship, and multiple Future Business Leader of America Scholarships. Jeremy’s Master’s thesis focused on strategies to respond to the rise of white nationalism in American religions through case studies on Odinism.
 
As a full-time religion nerd, Jeremy is always finding new things to learn about, find relevance for, and share with the community. He loves religious diversity, BattleBots, his spouse, and pets.
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Megan Griffiths

Mission Advancement Coordinator
Megan Griffiths joined Tri-Faith Initiative as the Mission Advancement Coordinator in October 2022. Her role is to coordinate and facilitate programming that furthers the mission of Tri-Faith.
 
Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Megan received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History from the University of Tulsa and a Master of Letters in Museum and Gallery Studies from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Megan moved to Omaha in 2008 to work for the Gerald Ford Conservation Center, where she was a founding member of History Nebraska’s Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion Committee. As a member of St Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church, Megan completed the four-year Education for Ministry program as well as the Episcopal Church’s Sacred Ground race and reconciliation series.  After fourteen years at the Ford Center, she felt called to return to a more public-facing role that would foster her passion for diversity and inclusion work.  
 
As a life-long learner, Megan is an avid reader and trivia aficionado. She enjoys knitting, baking, and watching movies with her husband and daughter.
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Lucas Schulte

curriculum & REsEARCH SPECIALISt

When Lucas Schulte first heard about Tri-Faith through an NPR story roughly a decade ago while in graduate school in California, he had hoped to become involved. He finally joined the Tri-Faith Initiative in January 2023 as Program Associate. His role will help develop curricula, facilitate programs, and uphold and expand diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.

Born and raised on a small family farm near Pleasanton, Nebraska, Luke first became interested in interfaith relations while learning about a Second Vatican Council document on non-Christian religions as part of his Catholic youth group in high school. As an undergraduate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he petitioned for an Individualized Program of Study major in Comparative Religious Studies for his Bachelor of Arts. He then completed a Master of Arts in Religion focusing on Bible at Yale University Divinity School and was awarded the Two Brothers Fellowship for Biblical Studies. Moving from Connecticut to California, Luke then earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Religion at Claremont Graduate University, with particular focus on the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, and the ancient Near East. While at Claremont, Luke helped co-found and co-chaired the Religions in Conversation Conference, an annual interfaith conference that ran from 2007 to 2016. During graduate school, he helped edit books and volumes on the Dead Sea Scrolls and also a textbook on Zoroastrianism. He also worked summers as part of international teams of scholars on archaeological excavations in Israel at Ramat Raḥel (near Jerusalem) in 2008 and 2009 and Tell Akko (near Acre) in 2010.

For ten years, Luke taught undergraduate and graduate students as an adjunct professor of religion at a wide range of colleges, universities, and seminaries, such as Pomona College, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Eden Theological Seminary (to name a few). 

In 2016, he published as a book through Peeters Publishers a revised and expanded version of his doctoral dissertation on interfaith elements in the biblical book of Nehemiah within the historical, sociological, and religious contexts of the first Persian Empire. More recently Luke has contributed the chapter “Isaiah in the Persian Period” in the forthcoming book The Cambridge Companion to the Book of Isaiah by Cambridge University Press. After years of part-time contractual teaching assignments as well as full-time positions in the insurance industry, Luke was thrilled to join full-time the kind of inter-faith work for which he had been preparing for the past 20 years.

When not working, Luke enjoys reading fiction (particularly from NPR’s book concierge), riding his bike, cooking until the smoke alarm goes off, helping out on his parents’ farm, playing games and watching Star Trek with his 2 kids, and also traveling and watching K-dramas with his wife, Ligyeom. 

Interns

In addition to our staff, the success of Tri-Faith Initiative depends on the extraordinary commitment and efforts of a number of committed volunteers, clergy, lay leaders and the administrative staff of the three faith groups.

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Please contact us at any time:
402-934-2955

Tri-Faith Initiative
13136 Faith Plaza
Omaha, NE 68144

Email: info@trifaith.org

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