Terri Pilarski, Executive Director & President

The Rev. Terri C. Pilarski is the Executive Director of the Intercultural Community Center in Dearborn and the President of the Board. She lived in Dearborn for twelve years and was active in developing impactful intercultural relationships in the community. She is now the Vicar of Church of the Resurrection, Gilbert and St. Michael’s, Coolidge. She is an Associate with the Kaleidoscope Institute an organization that trains people in multicultural competency, and a Qualified Administrator with the IDI, the intercultural Development Inventory. She’s a trained spiritual director and a lifelong practitioner of TM. She a licensed clinical social worker and has been affiliated with the Dearborn Pastoral Counseling Center where she coached individuals in Bowen theory. She coaches with Faithwalking.us, a BST approach to living whole and healthy lives. She’s currently in the post graduate class with the Center for Family Consultation. As the Executive Director for the Intercultural Community Center she, along with a team of people, are developing a digital library to help others form deep, lasting relationships in a multi-cultural context. Married for thirty-eight years with two adult kids who have been her BST experiments for defining self in a nuclear family. She’s an avid knitter, a novice painter of icons, flowers and birds, a treadmill runner, podcast listener (Mind and Life,Ten Percent Happier, and the MettaHour), and the grandmother of two amazing kids.

Bilal Hammoud, Vice President

Bilal Hammoud is a lifelong resident of Michigan and former government official for the Michigan Department of State. Back in 2019, he was appointed by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson as the first Arab American to work in the Executive Office in Lansing. His efforts were centered around public education and statewide resource creation for ID and election accessibility. In addition to serving marginalized communities including housing insecure, returning citizens, and seniors, Hammoud chaired the Secretary of State’s Language Access Task Force, leading statewide initiatives to remove barriers for non-English speaking communities. Beginning his career in academia, Hammoud earned two degrees in Public Health and Neuropsychology from Wayne State University. Continuing to serve as a data-driven advocate in Southeast Michigan, Hammoud received the Contributor of the Year award from the Michigan League of Conservation Voters for his environmental and public education work as well as the 30 under 30 award from Arab America. In his previous roles, Bilal has served as the Project Manager for the City of Cheboygan, Community Engagement Liaison with Forgotten Harvest, and as Community Relations Manager with Communities First, Inc. Hammoud currently serves on several nonprofit boards including Intercultural Community Center in Dearborn, United Humanitarian Foundation, Don’t Be Shai, and the Islamic House of Wisdom

Hammoud recently ran for State Representative in the Dearborn area in the 2022 cycle. He has since founded a consulting firm that supports local organizations in the Midwest. Specializing in data, community outreach, multicultural media, and public education, Hammoud seeks to bridge the gap between government, non-profits, and the people they serve.

Jim Gettel, Development Consultant

Jim helps nonprofit and church leaders and teams discover effective ways to lead loving, fruitful communities that make a difference in the world. As a coach and consultant, he draws on broad personal experience in entrepreneurship, organizational development, client service, and leadership. Nonprofits Jim helped start and lead include Our Next Generation (offering academic tutoring, enrichment programs, and social support to central city students in Milwaukee) and Taraja Resource Network (aiding poor families in Rwanda and Uganda with mentoring, educational scholarships, and micro-enterprise grants). He also worked with partners to start, establish, and manage two staffing companies with over 1,000 employees, an investment banking practice for a large CPA and consulting firm, and a commercial finance practice for a large law firm. Jim lived in Dearborn from 2013 through 2020 while serving as the congregational development and clergy transitions officer for eighty churches in the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan (2013-2020). He received his BA in philosophy from Northwestern University and his JD and MBA degrees from the University of Illinois.

Karen Beck, Secretary

Karen Beck is a member of Christ Episcopal Church, Dearborn and participated in the Task Force that created the ICCD. Prior her work with the ICCD, she was active in the Dearborn Area Interfaith Network. She has participated in various study groups at Christ Church including: Pray, Fast, Act, a joint initiative of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Episcopal Church for a season of prayer, fasting and advocacy out of concern for proposed deep cuts to programs that are vital to people struggling with poverty; Sacred Ground, a film and readings-based dialogue series on race, in which small groups are invited to walk through chapters of America’s history of race and racism; and Eating Together Faithfully, a fellowship series for the Partnership In Faith congregations of Christ Church and Mother of the Savior. Prior to her membership in Christ Church, she was an active member of a Lutheran congregation for more than 20 years and was involved in many aspects in the governance of the congregation and its child care center.

In her professional life, Karen worked from 1980-1990 in the State of Michigan Office of Refugee Assistance Programs administering federal funds to provide employment services and assistance to refugees. In 2015 she retired as Director of Contract Services for Hospice of Michigan, where she had worked for the prior 12 years administering contracts and leases for the non-profit company.

In retirement, Karen enjoys knitting, gardening, birdwatching, and traveling.

Chris Burkhalter, Director

Bio here…

Halim Shukair, Director

Bio here…

Emily Fishwick, Bookkeeper

Emily Fishwick, CPA began her career over a decade ago at a small business tax and accounting firm, servicing clients in the metro Detroit area. She left to work in healthcare, first as a staff accountant for an insurance company, and then as controller for a local company with clinics providing integrated care with a focus on mental health services for Detroit’s underserved populations. In 2021 she opened Sykes, PLLC to focus on tax and professional services for individuals, small businesses, and non-profit organizations. She handles the accounting so her clients can focus on what they love – running their business.

Emily holds a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Michigan and maintains her CPA license. Prior to that, she graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in anthropology-zoology and her first jobs were in national parks, first at the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, and then at Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska, where she cared for their sled dogs. She even brought a retired sled dog home to Michigan with her.

A lifelong dog lover, today Emily spends most of her free time with her rescue dogs. She is very active with the cause and volunteers with local rescues, both to foster and transport dogs. She also enjoys cross-stitching, reading, spending time with her nieces, and continuing to visit national parks.