R. Clair Sauder, Lancaster, Pa., MEDA board, MicroVest board
Day job: Co-owner of Encore Enterprises, which operates six Thomasville furniture stores in the Philadelphia market area. From 1980 to 1996 he was with Good’s Furniture, where MEDA’s Lancaster office was located for several years.
Clair’s MEDA connection is long. He helped refine the ASSETS pilot model in 1993 and served on the ASSETS board. When MicroVest was launched “it caught my imagination” and he signed on as an early investor and now serves on its board.
Most fun: Serving on the MEDA board has been “one of my most rewarding board experiences,” Clair says. “The mission of MEDA is something I really identify with; I really appreciate MEDA’s approach to working with the poor. It’s exciting to work with staff who are always on the frontier, pushing new areas and not being afraid to take on new and exciting challenges to serve the poor.”
He also appreciates MEDA’s faith/work emphasis. To “live out” faith means to “act out” one’s concern about injustice and poverty, he says. MEDA provides a structure for that action, “one that I can identify with closely as a businessperson.”
Hobbies: “If I really want to have some fun I get on my Harley.” A motorcycle rider since his early 20s, Clair now rides an Ultra Classic Electra Glide, which he recently rode with buddies to Vermont and the Adirondack Mountains. He and his wife, Doris, and four other couples will soon bike to Tennessee and North Carolina.
