Honoring Dan Walker

On Sunday, October 2, I interviewed Dan Walker about his serving as WACC’s Treasurer for nearly one-quarter of a century. Some parts of Dan’s work as Treasurer I knew first-hand since I have served on Stewardship and our committee includes the church treasurer. But I’ll get back to those parts after some introduction.

Dan served as Program Analyst with the Navy, certainly an assignment which meshed well with his comfort and confidence with numbers. Dan then worked for NASA in budgeting and resources management, and was Deputy CFO when he retired in 2006.

Dan and his family joined WACC in March of 1985. He served as Assistant Treasurer for a bit but was asked (and accepted) to serve as Treasurer in July 1998. He was still working full-time, and continued to do so another 8 years.

At the time Dan began his service as Treasurer, the church was still maintaining two checking accounts and had just recently begun using Church Windows computer software. In addition, there were CD investments to track and stock donations to handle. About the time the church received a substantial gift from a member’s estate, WACC opened a relationship with Christian Church Foundation. While the funds at CCF are reported monthly to the Board, the Treasurer does not have to manage these funds. We have since simplified a few of our processes (including streamlining our accounts into just one checking account to balance) and also benefit from Church Windows’ software improvements over the years.

Dan says his biggest challenge is closing the books, including balancing/verifying gifts, at the end of each December. His biggest satisfaction is that he always had payroll completed prior to the due date so no staff would have to wait for their checks. His biggest surprise is that he served almost 25 years. He is impressed that, with WACC, he never had to choose to pay one bill over another; there has always been enough. And he is even more impressed at how WACC makes outreach a priority. He knows of no other church that includes outreach as part of raising funds for church projects and serves so many groups in the community.

Dan, we at WACC are blessed by your gift of time and talent. Thank you so much!

Lauri Warfield,

Stewardship Co-Chair