Rev. Barnaby Feder was called to be CVUUS’s Lead Minister in 2012. He is a San Francisco Bay Area native. He was raised in a Unitarian Universalist congregation in San Mateo, Calif., that his late mother helped organize in the early 1950’s. His transition to New Englander began with extended summer visits to relatives in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. He entered Williams College (Williamstown, Mass.) in 1968 and lived in Putney, Vt., for part of 1970 to work full time in the Phil Hoff for U.S. Senate campaign.

After graduating from Williams, he immediately went to work as a reporter for the nearby North Adams Transcript. Except for 1974-77 when he obtained a J.D. Degree at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, he worked as a journalist until 2008. His last 27 years in journalism were spent with The New York Times where he covered business and technology from New York City, London, and Chicago. He was one of the writers on the award-winning Portraits of Grief project memorializing the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Prior to entering ministry, Barnaby was a member and lay leader at numerous UU congregations during his journalism career. Following staff reductions at the Times in 2008 and with the unstinting support of his wife, Michele Lowy, he enrolled at the Drew Theological School. During seminary and in the year after graduation, he served Unitarian congregations In Morristown, NJ., and Stroudsburg, Pa. He did his clinical pastoral training at Hackensack University Medical Center.

He and Michele, a retired primary school classroom teacher and reading specialist, have three adult children, all currently living in the Washington DC area. They share their home in Middlebury with an unusually affectionate cat named Kester. His theology, like theirs, is expressed by the large black question mark gracing the white region of his left back paw. The newest addition to the family is Pantalaimon (Pan), a rescue dog believed to be an English shepherd and known to frequently come to the office with Rev. Barnaby.