CSJ Ministries Names Executive and Associate Directors

The Board of Directors of CSJ Ministries, which the sisters of the Congregation of St. Joseph incorporated last year, has named Janet Fleischhacker, CSJ, as executive director and approved the appointment of Bill Gress, as associate director.

The Congregation of St. Joseph is a Roman Catholic religious organization of nearly 800 vowed women and 500 men and women associates. CSJ Ministries provides a unifying, stable structure for more than 35 ministries the congregation sponsors in various states across the nation’s heartland from Kansas to West Virginia and Michigan to Louisiana.

Prior to assuming the position of executive director, Sister Janet served as president of the Sisters of St, Joseph of Nazareth, Mich., for twelve years. Before that, she oversaw the client services at the YWCA Domestic Assault Program in Kalamazoo, Mich., working extensively with victims of domestic violence as well as engaging in community education and advocacy related to domestic violence issues. Sister Janet has also worked in the area of orienting new members into the Congregation of St. Joseph, and spent eleven years as an educator in various Michigan schools. She was instrumental in creating the partnership merger between the Sisters of St. Joseph Health System and the Daughters of Charity National Health System to create Ascension Health, one of the two health systems the Congregation of St. Joseph sponsors. Sister Janet maintains her office at the congregation’s Center in Kalamazoo.

Gress had been executive director of Sisters of St. Joseph Dear Neighbor Ministries, Inc., since 2005. Dear Neighbor Ministries delivers services to vulnerable area residents, including food and emergency assistance, home visitation, representative bill paying services for people with mental disabilities, volunteer income tax preparation, transitional housing and support services for survivors of domestic violence, a food purchasing cooperative and a community garden.

From 2001-2003, Gress was a Peace Corps volunteer in Romania and Macedonia and, prior to that, he worked for the Catholic Diocese of Wichita as youth program director (1979-1986); in various positions with Catholic Charities directing shelters; serving as Catholic Charities director of immigration and refugee services (1993-1994); and, then, as director of operations for Catholic Charities (1994-2000). Gress will continue to work from the congregation’s Center in Wichita, Kan.