By-Laws and Board Members

To read the Wisconsin Fathers for Children and Families By-Laws, please click here.

President - Peter Kerr (Ozaukee County) - Biography

Peter has been a member of WFCF for 8 years and has been an activist in the area of Family Law Reform. Peter's daughter who was born in Australia, as he was, received the standard cookie cutter treatment from the Wisconsin Courts of "Every second weekend and one night through the week". Considering there was only one reason Peter remained in (to him) a foreign country, was to be a Father to his child, he was flabbergasted to learn that Fathers were treated in such an unfair, disrespectful and unequal fashion, which simply astonded him, not to mention his experience of the type of damage that can be done to a child when one parent is given a superior parenting position over the other parent. (Australia has the Equal Shared Parental Responsibility Act) 

As a child - like so many other children - Peter was subjected to the "able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, faster than a speeding bullet...Truth, Justice and the American Way" belief, only to find out, when it comes to the Family Courts and Fatherhood in America - it was all a lie.

In 2006, with the support of Wisconsin Fathers for Children and Familes and the Milwaukee Fatherhood Collaborative, Peter walked 800 miles across Wisconsin taking the issue of Fatherlessness and Equal Parenting to the court of public opinion. His journey can be seen at Walk For Children. (Unknown to him at the time, in 2006 Peter was awarded the presigoius "Outstanding Father" award from the Mayor of Milwaukee sponsored Milwaukee Fatherhood Initiative).

Peter continually gives testimony to Wisconsin legislative hearings and visits many of our elected politicains in support of Family Law Reform.

He believes this year is the year of change and to quote him "Equal parenting will happen, the only variable is when!"

Treasurer - Mike Landwehr (Waukesha County) - Biography

I have three brothers and was raised on a veal farm in the DePere area. In 1983 I graduated from West DePere High School and in 1988 I graduated from UW-Milwaukee with a BS in Industrial & Systems Engineering.

At age 25 I was married to my first wife and we had our first child, Natalia three years later.  Our other daughter, Elise was born four years later.  During this period I worked in various engineering and managerial positions for Wisconsin Tissue, Medical Advances, Fotodyne, and Menasha Corporation.  In 1999 I petitioned for divorce. Because my job at the time took me out of town two to three overnights a week, I stipulated to a placement schedule which provided me with only 29% of the nights with my daughters. 

During the divorce proceedings, I notified my soon-to-be-ex that I would be leaving my job to start my own business in order give me more time flexibility and make myself more available for the kids.

In 2000 I founded our company along with two partners and an investor. My previous employer quickly became one of our largest customers.  However, the events of September 11^th and economic recession significantly affected our fledgling company.  As a result, my income was about half of what it had been when I was divorced. 

My current wife (and business partner) Brenda and I were married in 2002.  Later that year I filed a motion seeking equal placement and a reduction in child support, factored on the income my new company was able to pay me. After a year-long legal battle and several thousand in legal fees, my placement was increased to 31% and my child support was unchanged.

This order was despite the fact that the GAL recommended significantly more placement time with me, and the court found that I was not shirking in regards to my income.  Completely dissatisfied with this outcome, I sought help from others with similar circumstances and found WFCF.

I began working with the group on organizing the 2004 rally in Madison. In 2005, I joined the WFCF board as the Legislative Committee chairperson and have since spent much time focused on getting legislation passed which would ensure a level playing field between responsible fathers and mothers. 

I appealed the family court order, and after another 1-1/2 years and thousands more in legal fees, I lost again.  Even though I had an even greater amount of frustration, friends convinced that my case would be appropriate to heard by the Wisconsin Supreme Court and hopefully establish maximized placement case law for many fathers across the state with similar circumstances.

With the assistance from numerous WFCF members my case was prepared, accepted, heard, and finally decided.  Once again I (and fathers in general) lost.  The court had bought into the ridiculous argument that the statute’s directive of “maximized placement” really means maximized within the placement allocation that a parent is given. 

If any positive came out of the Supreme Court decision, it’s that it can be shown to legislators so that they better understand why ambiguity must be minimized and court discretion must be limited when crafting new family laws.  I strongly believe that failure to do so will only result in the status quo of denying fathers their right to be an equal parent to their children. 

In 2008 I was elected to the WFCF Treasurer’s role and also became an ALL-DADS helpline counselor.  Since then I successfully got my case moved from Milwaukee County to Waukesha County. There (a much more father-friendly environment) I subsequently got my placement time increased to 36%, my ex-wife’s income imputed to a reasonable level and my child support adjusted accordingly.

Executive Vice President and Secretary – Tom Pfeiffer (Dane County) Biography

Tom has been a member of WFCF since about 1997 and has served on the Board since about 1999. He first heard of WFCF when a counselor wondered whether he was associated with that “mad dads group”, which stirred his interest and led him to join WFCF. As a father of three young children at the time and having recently gone through a heart wrenching separation, he was shocked to see the extent of gender bias in the Dane County courts.

What a surprise to learn that in this bastion of “liberal thinking” fathers were considered to be second class citizens when it came to valuing them as parents. He was involved in their births, all medical visits, schools, activities and nearly all of his free time was spent with these kids, but this was not good enough for the “family court” apparatus to give him significant post separation parenting time.  He vowed to himself to right the many wrongs he saw in this flawed system that takes fathers from their children and drains the family assets to feed a system that has out-lived its usefulness.

Tom served on the Special Legislative Committee Studying the Roles of Guardians ad Litem as a WFCF representative. He also conducted a poll of all legislators and those running for office to gauge their support for issues of importance to divorced fathers. 

Tom now serves the Board of WFCF as it Secretary and Executive Vice President. He has testified many times before committees of the legislature, has served as a counselor to our “AllDads” help line for many years, contributes to our newsletter, coordinates the Madison area Fathers Night Out meetings, and keeps the minutes of all Board meetings.

Tom grew up “out east” in a large close knit family of seven children with two involved parents who set many good examples, just the way parents should.  It was always apparent to him that the influences of both parents are crucial to the proper development of children.  Why the state does not see this truism remains a puzzle and an obstacle we must overcome.

Tom has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s in education.  He worked twenty years in the University of Wisconsin System and now works as an independent financial advisor since the late 1990’s.  Tom is a strong believer in the WFCF motto that “The Best Parent is Both Parents!”

Vice-President for Membership – Robert W. Moore (Dane County) – Biography

Bob joined WFCF (then known as Wisconsin Fathers for Equal Justice) in 1991, and has served as Vice-President for Membership since January 1996. He maintains the primary WFCF database, prepares address files for all mailings, sends all membership renewal requests, and assists with other projects.

Together with Tom Pfeiffer, Bob hosts the monthly Madison area Fathers’ Night Out dinners.

Bob has three children, all now adults. His case is a textbook example of how the family court system is neither just nor functional, and of how it abuses dads and children alike. Bob looks forward to the day when the tragedies of separation and divorce are no longer exacerbated by government policies that act as though legal custody and physical placement time are commodities to be doled out in an arbitrary and capricious way by a single judge in an essentially unreviewable manner, and is instead replaced by a humane and just system whereby law abiding, fit parents are treated equally and with due process under the law.

He is confident that one day people will look back at the systematic exclusion of Dads from children’s lives with shock, horror, and revulsion comparable to what we feel when we contemplate human slavery.

Bob has a B.S. in Biochemistry from Penn State University, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Michigan State University, and postdoctoral training in Pathobiology and Environmental Toxicology from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Moore is a Senior Scientist at the University of Wisconsin, and a member of the Society of Toxicology and of The Endocrine Society. He has served on US government panels, and is known internationally for his research on endocrine disrupting chemicals, particularly how exposure to dioxin early in development affects prostate development. 

Volunteer Co-ordinator – Mike May (Dane County) – Biography

Mike May is thrilled to have been elected to the newest position of the board-Volunteer Coordinator. After his divorce in Illinois in 2005, he moved back to Wisconsin, became a member of WFCF and has continued his efforts for fair and equal treatment of fathers as parents. 

He currently resides in the heart of “The Valley”; Appleton, Wisconsin. Mike has called Wisconsin home for a long time. He graduated from U.W.-Stout, with a B. S. degree in Industrial Technology. He has also lived in Illinois and Iowa were he was employed over the past 20 years, with the following companies; Spiegel, Molex, Life Fitness and Sonoco. Currently, Mike is an employee of National HME (National Hospice Medical Equipment) where he provides end-of-life patients with hospice equipment, kindness and compassion.

Mike has been active in IoPP, Institute of Packaging Professionals. He enjoys traveling and has been to Jamaica, Mexico, Hungary, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Holland and other European countries. He enjoys bicycling and in 2010 completed the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI), traveling over 465 across Iowa! Mike is an active supporter of “The Annual Walk for Suicide Awareness” in Kaukauna, WI.