By Darla Martin Tucker

La Sierra University constituents approved a new university trustee during their meeting on May 7, voting in Loma Linda dentist, businesswoman and philanthropist Marta Kalbermatter-Tooma.

Kalbermatter-Tooma fills an LSU Board of Trustees vacancy created by the resignation of Teresa Day who left the post in November. Kalbermatter-Tooma’s term begins July 1 and ends June 30, 2014.

“I was of course honored and surprised,” Kalbermatter-Tooma said following her return from an overseas trip. She complimented the university’s wisdom in selecting diversified board members. The trustees’ backgrounds “all sounded so incredibly interesting. …I envision we will be making decisions that will impact students from all over the world,” she said, given the varied student population.

After two undergraduate years at La Sierra, Kalbermatter-Tooma transferred to the University of California, Riverside where she received a bachelor’s degree in biology. She completed studies in 1985 at the Loma Linda University School of Dentistry and pursued neuropathology research at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine between 1979 and 1981. She operated a private dental practice in Loma Linda between 1985 and 1996.

Kalbermatter-Tooma’s family is linked to Ana and Fernando Stahl who served 30 years as Seventh-day Adventist missionaries in Peru during the early 1900s, establishing chapels, clinics, markets and 200 schools. La Sierra University created the Stahl Center and Museum of Culture to memorialize their work.

Pedro Kalbermatter, Kalbermatter-Tooma’s grandfather, served as a missionary in Peru alongside the Stahls. Pedro worked as a pastor and a nurse, said Flora Kalbermatter, Kalbermatter-Tooma’s mother. Pedro Kalbermatter was Flora Kalbermatter’s father-in-law.

Carrying on a family tradition of service, Kalbermatter-Tooma is actively involved in national and global philanthropic activities, including Doctors Without Borders, an international humanitarian medical organization that delivers emergency aid around the world. Her husband, Thomas Tooma, is medical director at TLC Laser Eye Centers in Newport Beach.

“The Board of Trustees can look forward to being greatly enriched and enhanced by the tenure of Dr. Marta Tooma,” said Trustee Carla Lidner Baum, a long time friend of Kalbermatter-Tooma’s. Lidner Baum is director of more than $4 million in grants for the dental care of low-income children in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. She is a faculty member of the Loma Linda University School of Dentistry and the University of California, Los Angeles College of Dentistry.

“Her wonderful heritage of missionary parents and grandparents, her fluency in many languages and cultures, her impressive record of successful business developments, her education and experience as a health care professional, her generous personal funding of much needed medical/dental clinics [around] the world, her contacts with world leaders and dignitaries, her humble passion to work with her husband and her children to serve the underserved --- all make Dr. Marta Tooma exactly what I would view as a most desirable addition to our board,” Lidner Baum said.

“Obviously I am very proud to call Dr. Tooma my personal friend and I am so very happy that she is willing to make the matters of LSU a new focus of her time and efforts,” Lidner Baum said. “I have no doubt that LSU will quickly develop a real appreciation for Dr. Tooma’s friendship to the university and what she will do to make it a better place.”

The Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, headquartered in Westlake Village, Ca., owns La Sierra University and its sister institution, Pacific Union College in Angwin, Ca. Individual constituencies and trustee boards govern each school.

The constituents elect board trustees, approve changes to university bylaws and conduct other business matters involving the university. La Sierra University’s Board of Trustees consists of 23 members of which 14 are elected to rotating six-year terms. Constituents meet every two years to vote on bylaws, trustee nominations and other matters.

Of the 90-member La Sierra University constituency, 74 attended the meeting held May 7 in the Alumni Center on Pierce Street in Riverside. Constituents voted in favor of minor changes to bylaws. They also approved additional six-year terms for trustees Alvaro Bolivar, Karen Gaio Hansberger and Donald Kanen. They sanctioned trustee Douglas Nies to fill the remaining years of Day’s vacant position that terminates on June 30, 2010.

The university’s Flute Quintet, Chamber Singers and an a cappella vocal group performed throughout the afternoon meeting. La Sierra Campus Pastor Sam Leonor gave a touching devotional depicting the experience of a single mother who ran from a life of domestic abuse in the Los Angeles area and ended up enrolling at LSU. She found a new life through her La Sierra education that included a relationship with God and baptism into the Seventh-day Adventist faith.

Seated on stools, students and faculty members gave poignant testimonies about their La Sierra experiences during respective interviews with Yami Bazan, Vice President for Student Life and with University President Randal Wisbey.

Business management major Jordan Trent considered several other universities before settling on La Sierra and its business school. “One thing I really like about LSU is it’s really diverse, not just ethnically, but spiritually,” he said referencing the school’s student population from non-Seventh-day Adventist backgrounds. “ …This has really been the center for me.”

The office of Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge recently hired Deisy Ruiz, a human resource management graduate student and Students In Free Enterprise team member. “God used La Sierra to show me His plan,” she said. “Every opportunity La Sierra offered prepared me for the opportunities to come.” La Sierra’s experience taught her, “any kind of major you go into, you can use it to serve others,” Ruiz said.

Demitrio Camarena, a double major in biology/pre-medicine and Spanish, is the first person in his family to attend a university. “So many people showed me so much kindness and love. …It’s given me so much purpose in life,” he said. Camarena is heading to Africa next year as a student missionary. He will return for one more year of study at LSU.

Wisbey gave impromptu interviews with physics Professor Ed Karlow, who is retiring after 30 years at La Sierra, and with theology Professor Bailey Gillespie who is pursuing key denominational research projects.

“What has La Sierra University done in your life?” Wisbey asked Karlow.

“The most significant thing is, …it expected me to be my very best. It called me to be an excellent faculty member,” Karlow said. “La Sierra encourages people to raise themselves to the maximum potential they have.”

Gillespie, La Sierra’s director of pre-seminary and master’s of divinity programs, discussed a $50,000 grant project from the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists to conduct first-ever research on 22 Adventist summer camps out of 62 across North America. The survey-based project will help the division determine whether the camps are meeting their goals and missions. The research commences this month and will run through the fall, Gillespie said.

Administrative leaders gave departmental reports in an informal discussion moderated by Wisbey. The international award-winning Students In Free Enterprise team capped the afternoon’s events with a speech and video presentation depicting their entrepreneurial humanitarian work around the globe. Their synchronized, fast-paced production drew a standing ovation from the audience.

Trustee Board Chair and Pacific Union Conference President Ricardo Graham was so impressed by the afternoon’s presentations, he quipped that he wasn’t sure how he would describe it all for his wife that evening.
                                                          
“The student participation was particularly meaningful,” said Graham in a later interview.

“The constituency dispatched with the mandated business items quite effectively,” he said. “La Sierra University is poised to continue doing a superlative job in preparing students for the 21st Century, not merely to be productive citizens but leading citizens, and preparing them for the return of Jesus Christ.”

“The leadership of the school under Randal Wisbey is committed and well-trained for the task ahead,” Graham said. “La Sierra, in the hands of God and the administrators will help move the task of the Adventist Church forward.”

PR Contact: Larry Becker
Executive Director of University Relations
La Sierra University
Riverside, California
951.785.2460 (voice)