Sunday, Sept 27, 2026 //
Dear Members and Friends of St. Stephen’s Church,
I am delighted to share a word of welcome for Travis Moore, our newly appointed Parish Operations Manager and newest member of our church staff.
Of course, Travis will already be known to many of you as a member of St. Stephen’s. He and his wife, Bethany, are active members of our Sunday Eucharistic Ministry team and serve together as coordinators for our First Nations Kitchen outreach ministry.
What you may not know is that Travis is a scientist and creative manager who has served as a team leader for Google and developed audiology programs for prominent universities, all while strengthening the ways organizations manage the relationships between operations, data and people. He brings the kind of experience that can help St. Stephen’s move into a thriving and faithful future.
In this new position, Travis is called to expand upon our former church office manager role, designing and building efficient and responsive systems that support the work of our staff, facilities and custodial services, building use and scheduling, strategic planning, and clergy and committee support.
In short, his work is to help us work better. The more smoothly our operations hum, the more able we are to minister to one another and to the wider community. I’ve often said that good church management supports good pastoral care and meaningful worship. Travis shares that vision with me and with our church staff, and we’re excited to get to work with him.
Travis will begin his service with St. Stephen’s on October 1 and will be based in the management office in the reception area of the office wing. After a little time for training and orientation, we’ll invite you to some special “office hours” when you can stop by, meet Travis in his new role and share some treats with members of the church staff. Of course, if you happen to be in the church office before then, a quick word of greeting is always appreciated.
The Rev. Tom Cook
GET TO KNOW TRAVIS MOORE
Travis Moore may be stepping into a new role as Operations Manager with St. Stephen’s Church, but he and his wife, Bethany Wenger, are already familiar faces around the parish. Together they serve as Lay Eucharistic Ministers and are involved with First Nations Kitchen, and they’re also enthusiastic regulars at Rev. Christy’s evening Bible study series.
Travis’s path to becoming our Operations Manager is an interesting one. He earned both a clinical doctorate in audiology and a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University, where his research focused on auditory neuroscience and psychoacoustics. His career has taken him from clinical audiology to university teaching and research, to Starkey, and most recently to Google, where he served as a lead data scientist and software developer working with artificial intelligence and user experience.
After thinking for some time about making a change from corporate life, Travis says the opportunity at St. Stephen’s brought together something he has always enjoyed with a mission he cares deeply about:
“I have always enjoyed setting up systems and ensuring organizations run smoothly, and now my efforts will directly support a mission I care deeply about.”
And what is he most looking forward to as he gets started?
“I’m most looking forward to collaborating with clergy, ministry leaders, and staff to integrate tools that allow everyone to spend more time on new ideas and less time worrying about how to organize and implement those ideas.”
As he begins, Travis says three values will be particularly important to his work: collaboration, simplicity and transparency. He looks forward to drawing on his experience across clinical, academic, industrial and technology settings to develop solutions tailored specifically to the needs of our parish.
Beyond the Office
Travis was born in Illinois and grew up in several Chicago suburbs before life took him to Utah, Tennessee and Alabama—and eventually to Minnesota, where he and Bethany chose to settle.
His interests are every bit as varied as his professional background. In his free time, Travis practices Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, visits local tea houses, explores Minnesota’s many Asian restaurants, and enjoys discovering new wines. He also reads widely, with interests ranging from surrealism and cubism to Biblical history, astronomy, and the intersection of Eastern and Western religions.
And then there are the collections. Over the years, Travis has collected watches, rocks and minerals, and fountain pens—so there should be no shortage of conversation starters when you stop by the church office to say hello or greet him at church on Sunday mornings.
