Fr. Bill -- BEFORE  Fr. Bill at Diaconal Ordination
Bill Kindel's Home Page



Welcome!  I have been an unabashed computer geek for many years, though it became quite a bit easier to say what I did for a living once personal computers became pervasive.  Having been what is now called an "Information Technology" professional for so long, I come complete with my share of war stories and urban legends.

My professional perspective has changed substantially over the years.  After receiving the "Celestial 2x4 across the forehead" (to get my attention), I began a lengthy journey of discernment and formation that resulted in my ordination as an Episcopal priest.  More of that story appears below.

Also, a new term crept into my vocabulary.  Just as software engineering and IT have evolved in recent decades, so have the realities of smaller churches, of which many are no longer able to afford full-time clergy.  The result is that an increasing number of clergy, including myself, have become "bi-vocational," which is to say that before my retirement I split my time between professional employment and serving a congregation.  I'm grateful to have accumulated a wealth of technical experience that I could offer to both my employers and the churches I served.  Now that both my professional and vocational lives have been nudged into retirement, I serve as a supply priest/pastor as best I can.

My Profession:  Software Engineer

I was one of the pioneers (those with arrow scars in their butts) of software engineering.  Even in the mid 1960s, my high school selected a few of us to learn programming on the computers of the era.  I learned ALGOL at the University of Denver on their Burroughs B-5500, and "Intercom 500" (the machine language for the Bendix G-15) using puched cards and punched tape, respectively.  As an MIT undergrad, I took whatever computer courses I could (I was one year too early for the Computer Science option in the EE department).  It was the Vietnam era, and I opted for Air Force ROTC and 4 years as an officer instead of waiting to be drafted (my low #57 in the first draft lottery would have assured that) for two years of elisted service.


After graduation from MIT and commissioning as a 2nd Lieutenant, the Air Force was kind enough (enlightened self-interest, I'm sure) to allow me a year to obtain a Master's Degree at the Ohio State University before assigning me as a Computer Systems Programming Officer (Systems) at HQ SAC, Offutt AFB, NE.  I was fighting the Cold War, keeping a very early online database alive to support the intelligence community.  The war ended in 1973, and I was separated from active duty in 1974, returning home to the family mattress manufacturing business in Denver, while also consulting with the primary contractor for my former system in Omaha.  That evolved into a full-time job as a Systems Representative (et al) in the Denver office of Honeywell Information Systems, where I stayed until 1981.


In 1981, Honeywell gave me a promotion and relocated my family to greater Boston.  I was the expert on both mainframe and minicomputer databases and online transaction processing systems, which included a great deal of work in the depths of the operating systems of both series of computers.  By 1987, Honeywell was struggling (I'm sure it wasn't my fault, but who knows?) and I moved to Digital Equipment Corp to join their Secure Systems organization in the development of a high-trust system to support mullti-level national security needs.  From there, I went to the Open Software Foundation Research Insititue, where we developed a high-trust operating system kernel (MK++) for desktop and office systems.


I returned home to Colorado in 1997 and rebooted my life.  I had passed my peak in software engineering, but I had the good fortune to work for several companies that were developing/supporting interesting systems for their customers.  In 2000, I received the afore-mentioned "Celestial 2x4 across the forehead," which launched me into the ordination process, as described below.


Following a hiatus, during which I completed a Master of Divinity degree and served as Priest-in-Charge of an Episcopal parish, I returned to full-time software engineering in 2012 as a Software Consultant for Sogeti USA.  My engagement was with the Hewlett-Packard Workstation Global Business Unit in Fort Collins, CO.  I had been with Sogeti at HP prior to seminary, and it was very nice to re-establish my professional career in that setting.  When that engagement ended, I had time to take stock.

As I reflect on the variety of positions I have held over the years, I realize that the ones that were the most satisfying allowed me to combine interpersonal skills with technical challenges.  I had accumulated a great deal of technical expertise over time, starting with the basic engineering discipline of learning how to learn.  At the same time, I enjoyed working with customers and other engineers to establish a vision of how things should be and to find creative solutions to the problems raised.  After ordination, I applied those skills in service to churches and outside ministries, who have many of the same challenges.

My Vocation:  Episcopal Priest

Prior to my retirement at age 72, I most recently served as the long-term Supply Priest, then half-time Vicar of St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church in Brighton, CO from September, 2014 through March, 2019.  St. Elizabeth's is a small congregation, and I was blessed to serve them.  Before that engagement, I was a Priest Associate at Trinity Episcopal Church in Greeley, Colorado.  My first actual cure was as the Priest-in-Charge of the Episcopal Parish Church of St. Charles the Martyr (small church, long name) in Fort Morgan, Colorado.  When my three year tenure at St. Charles came to an end, I shifted to providing worship leadership and pastoral assistance to meet the needs of the congregations around me in NE Colorado.


Once I had retired for real, I once again became available for pulpit supply on Sundays to Episcopal and Lutheran churches in the Episcopal Dioceses of Colorado and Nebraska, and the Rocky Mountain Synod (ELCA).  Before and during the pandemic, my last long-term relationship was with St. Hilda’s Episcopal Church in Kimball, NE.  Kimball is due north of my former home in Fort Morgan, CO, and I was the only available Episcopal priest for miles and miles.  That ended in in 2021, after which I found my way home to Trinity Episcopal Church in Greeley as a parishioner.

I am also the founding Secretary and a multi-term Director of St. Clare's Ministries, which began life in the 1980s as a parish outreach ministry to the homeless and working poor in central Denver.  When the sponsoring parish became "imperiled" (at risk of closure, due to its inability to support itself), St. Clare's was spun off to ensure its survival.  I led the effort to incorporate St. Clare's Ministries as a Diocesan Institution in 2009.  More than ten years later, we continue to serve 45-200 hot meals every Tuesday evening (holidays included), along with providing clothing and toiletries to meet basic needs.  Volunteers from as many as 15 different congregations take part each month, and they have proven to be the secret to our success as a ministry.  We established an optional Holy Communion service several years ago, which has helped our guests to evolve from people looking for a meal to a very open community of faith that cares for its own and invites others to join them.  I led worship on the first Tuesday of each month from 2008 (when I was still wet behind the ears) until it was suspended by the pandemic.  The feeding/clothing ministry has continued unabated, though.

Formation for Priesthood

As I adapted professionally to the sea change in the technical world, the turning of the millennium was also a good time to reflect upon the vocation that had long been nagging at me.  As a result, I entered the formal Discernment process in the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado.  Three years later, I was named a "Postulant for Holy Orders," by which I was approved to prepare for ordination as a priest in the Episcopal Church USA.

In 2007, I graduated from the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest (ETSS) in Austin, Texas.  ETSS has since rebranded itself as the Seminary of the Southwest, (SSW).  Formation as an Episcopal priest includes the earning of a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree, which entails a three year course of study (including summers).  Returning to academia after three decades was a bit daunting, but this leg of the journey proved to be quite exciting.

Complementing my academic formation, I was required to take a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), which included 300 hours of hospital chaplaincy plus 100 hours of supervision and instruction.  My clinical work was done as a Chaplain Intern at the Boulder Community Hospital for ten weeks during the summer of 2006, between my "Middler" and "Senior" years of seminary.

My seminary also required us to engage in cultural immersion during the first two (Junior and Middler) years of the M.Div. program.  I spent two weeks in Santa Fe, NM and Ciudad Juárez in January of my Junior year; the next year's January immersion took the form of relief work among victims of Hurricane Katrina on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  The scope of the disaster was so vast that I created a Hurricane Katrina web page to bring together photos of the devastation and to describe our part in the response to it.

An important piece of my formation is getting actual experience in a parish setting.  To that end, I was placed with St. Mark's Episcopal Church in San Marcos, thirty miles south of Austin.  As a "Middler," I was expected to spend five hours per week in this assignment (as if one could keep it to five); as a Senior, it was 10 hours/week.  My duties included occasional preaching, leading a Christian Formation class between the main services, planning & execution of the Great Vigil of Easter, and becoming fully integrated into the life of the parish.

St. Mark's was a wonderful placement.  The parish was then in transition from "Pastoral sized" (where the Rector is essentially the head of an extended family) to "Program sized" (where the Rector provides general oversight, but most authority is distributed among lay leaders).  St. Mark's has since built and occupied a new campus west of San Marcos.   This was an exceptional time in the life of the parish, especially in terms of the lessons I was able to take with me as I entered ordained ministry.  The St. Mark's family is also a wonderfully welcoming group, which provided a delightful diversity of opinions and backgrounds to challenge any assumptions that I had made.

Once I returned home to Colorado, I joined the Office of the Bishop as the Coördinator of the 120th Diocesan Convention in October, 2007.  This assignment was primarily project management (drawing upon my engineering background), with a dash of ecclesiastical politics and a generous dose of networking.  I was blessed to be surrounded by exceptional people, so things fell into place quite nicely and the Convention went very well.  I was also made Secretary of Convention in the process; that office has responsibilities that continue through the year.  Once I had become a known entity, my job description became heavy on "other duties as assigned" in the Office of the Bishop, even as I begin to serve congregations within the diocese as a supply priest.

During the six months separating my ordinations as a Transitional Deacon and as a Priest, I affiliated with two Denver parishes.  I grew up at the Church of the Ascension, and that parish "adopted" me as a Priest Associate; I presided at my first Holy Eucharist there on the day after my ordination as a priest.  I also became a regular part of the St. Clare's Kitchen ministry at the Parish of St. Peter & St. Mary, which I described earlier.  These two affiliations were nicely complementary and have been a gift to me.  My St. Clare's affiliation has continued as it evolved to become a separately incorporated Diocesan Institution (St. Clare's Ministries), of which I became the Secretary and have served multiple terms on the Board of Directors.

I served as Priest-in-Charge of the Parish Church of St. Charles the Martyr in Fort Morgan, CO for almost three years, starting in April, 2008.  It was much like an extended engagement, though it did not conclude in a "marriage."  Having discerned that my calling at that time was to be as a "bi-vocational" priest, I re-entered the technical professional ranks, allowing me to serve small congregations that were unable to hire full-time clergy.

I served St. Elizabeth's in Brighton for 4½ years as long-term Supply and half time Vicar.  As I faced mandatory retirement in February, 2020, I took short-term assignments to meet the needs of the congregations around me.

Home & Family

When I returned to my native Colorado in 1997 after a sixteen year sojourn in eastern Massachusetts, I first concentrated on "rebooting" my life. The change of venue allowed me to reconnect with long-time friends and family and to find peace and refreshment as I gaze upon and explore the Rocky Mountains.

Recent years have contained an abundance of  "interesting times" (in the sense of the Chinese curse), but another old saying is that "anything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  If that's the case, I suppose I’ve gotten stronger over time.

I also made a turn for the better in the health arena.  As an overweight middle-aged male with an infamous snoring problem, it came as no surprise to me when I was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea .  For me, the treatment that works is a Constant Positive Air Pressure (CPAP) machine to keep my airway open at night, even when I travel .  Follow the links for more information.

Cynthia & Bill (80lbs ago), 2014Along the way, I made a new life with the former Cynthia Obermeyer, who I had met on a Cursillo weekend (she was a Candidate; I was on the team) in 2006.  Cynthia had a combination of intelligence, spirituality, love, and passion for ministry that stole my heart.  We were married on January 2, 2010 (a palindrome:  01022010) in Denver and we lived (commutes and all) in Fort Morgan, halfway to Nebraska from Denver along I-76. We were at our best in service, ranging from St. Clare's Ministries, Denver to St. Elizabeth's, Brighton.

Alas, Cynthia passed away on May 10, 2019.  We had a wonderful celebration of her life at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, Aurora, from which I had taken her in 2010 and to which I returned her.  Her family and I had a second celebration at her parents' church in Nokesville, VA a few weeks later.  She is interred under All Souls' Walk at St. John's Cathedral, Denver, not far from my parents.






Bill & Bev Blessing, 2022 Life goes on, even when one fears it won’t.  I mentioned my return to Trinity Church in Greeley above.  While attending the funeral of another Priest Associate from that parish, I encountered a parishioner who had also been widowed in 2019.  We had vaguely known each other years before, but things “clicked” immediately.  Bev Hayse is a retired nurse, and we complement each other surprisingly well.  Bev and I married in February, 2022 and I downsized/moved from Fort Morgan to Greeley. 
(I am convinced that moving is the missing Outer Ring of Hell from Dante's Inferno.  I told Bev that my next move is in a box, and she says it needs to accomodate both of us.)


Since we’re both retired, we have the freedom to travel to see our respective children and grandchildren, which has taken us to Tulsa, Boston, San Francisco, and Milwaukee during 2022.  A Kindel reunion looms in Cincinnati in 2023, and a trip to the Holy Land & Rome in October.

When I sold my home in Fort Morgan, I was able to address the big item on my bucket list, which had been a Tesla Y (cross-over).  As I did my "due diligence" (it's a substantial purchase), I discovered that I could get all that I really cared about for considerably less money (especially with the 2022 tax incentives) by holding out for the "Limited" (fully-loaded) version of the Hyundai IONIQ 5, which I picked up in April.  With its 10 year/100K mile warranty, "Elektra" should be my final automobile.

We very successfully tested it (and the charging infrastructure) with a 2,300 mile road trip to Wisconsin in October, via Bev's home town (Sioux City, IA) and Middleton, WI, where her family settled when they immigrated from Germany in 1854.  It was a great trip, and the car has been perfection, though one must keep P6 (Prior Planning Prevents P!ss Poor Performance) in mind.

Outside Interests

As they say, "all work and no play ...".
It should come as no surprise that I'm still a computer geek, but that's not all.


  E-mail:           Kindel@Alum.MIT.edu
PGP fingerprint:  D0A4 8840 08A5 12B8 BDA8 29C2 ECA5 25B1 2FC7 6BFF