“Award/Recognition” Class Notes
Jonathan Morgan (Col ’91 CM)
Jonathan Q. Morgan (Col ’91 CM) was recently promoted to full professor in the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has also been appointed to a two-year Albert and Gladys Coates Term Professorship in recognition of his accomplishments, contributions and service.
Marc Lefar (Com ’85 CM)
Marc Lefar (Com ’85 CM), McIntire Advisory Board member and CEO of RentPath, is the inaugural recipient of Atlanta-based non-profit Open Doors’ Threshold Award for his work fighting homelessness. Lefar envisioned an app that could match people who desperately need affordable homes with properties that are eager for new residents. Lefar recruited teams of volunteer software engineers and product experts to effectively build the digital marketplace, known as the Property Navigator App.
Emily Russell (Col ’08)
Emily Russell (Col ’08) was selected by Virginia Lawyers Weekly as an “Up and Coming Lawyer” for 2020, which recognizes the work and community engagement of attorneys in their first 10 years of practice. Emily is an assistant county attorney for Chesterfield County, Virginia, and a graduate of Tulane Law School.
L. Gracik (Com ’75 CM)
L. Michael Gracik (Com ’75 CM) was named the Virginia Society of CPAs’ outstanding member for 2020. Gracik is the second member of that class to receive the award. Harry D. Dickinson (Com ’75, Grad ’76) received the award in 2018.
Yvener Petit (Com ’09)
Yvener J. Petit (Com ’09) recently joined EY-Parthenon’s Los Angeles office and will become a director in the corporate and growth strategy practice in the fall. He joins the L.A. office after working as a strategy consultant with the company’s San Francisco office as a mainly focused upon clients in technology, media and telecom. He earned his MBA from University of California, Berkeley.
Matthew Reames (Educ ’15)
Matthew Reames (Educ ’15) was awarded the Stewart Bell Jr. Excellence in Teaching Award by the Handley Board of Trustees in September, 2020. He is currently a math teacher at Daniel Morgan Intermediate School in Winchester, Virginia, and an adjunct associate professor at Shenandoah University.
Myron Steele (Col ’67, Law ’70 CM)
Myron Steele (Col ’67, Law ’70 CM), a lawyer with Potter Anderson & Corroon, was recognized by the the Delaware State Bar Association with the organization’s First State Distinguished Service Award. He was also recognized in the summer 2020 edition of Senior Lawyer News, published by the Virginia State Bar, as a recipient of the organization’s Fifty Year Award. Steele is the former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Delaware. Previously, he served as a judge of the Superior Court and a vice chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery after 18 years in private litigation practice.
Deniz Ataman (Col ’09)
Deniz Z. Ataman (Col ’09) scored the music for the film, Bottled, written, directed and starred by Christine Sloan Stoddard. Now available on Amazon Prime, the film has received press coverage from Broad Street and Shades of Long Island and was selected by the 2020 NYLIFF, SHIFT:ibpcpa/Scotland, and CelebrateWomxn845.
Deniz and Christine also collaborated on the poetry film, Butterflies (2020) starring Disnie Sebastien, which was selected as a 2020 Visual Poetry Project. The film was scored by Deniz, directed and written by Christine and written by Teri Elam.
Bruce Russell (Col ’97 CM)
Bruce H. Russell II (Col ’97 CM) has been named a Leader in Law for 2020 by Virginia Lawyers Weekly magazine. He is the current (and eight-term) president of the Russell County Bar Association, as well as the Washington County Defense Bar. Russell practices throughout Southwest Virginia out of his firm’s offices in Abingdon, Lebanon, and Tazewell. He and his wife, Shannon, an elementary school special education teacher, live in Abingdon with their two sons, Clark, age 12, and Eamon, age 8, and their miniature dachshund Huckleberry and goldendoodle Luna.
Brett Herbert (Col ’10)
Brett Herbert (Col ’10), an attorney with the firm Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, was recognized by his peers in the inaugural edition of Best Lawyers©: Ones to Watch 2021 in the practice area of commercial litigation. He practices out of the firm’s Williamsburg, Virginia, office.
M. Cooke (Col ’76 CM)
M. Dawes Cooke Jr. (Col ’76 CM), a lawyer with Barnwell Whaley Patterson & Helms, was included in the 2021 edition of The Best Lawyers of America and was named one of the Best Lawyers of the Year in the area of mediation for the Charleston metro market. Best Lawyers has named Cooke as a Charleston Lawyer of the Year nine times since 2009 in the areas of arbitration, mediation, bet-the-company litigation, and personal injury litigation.
Jaime Vasquez (Com ’03)
Jaime Vasquez (Com ’03), a shareholder at Chamberlain Hrdlicka’s San Antonio firm, was recently named Lawyer of the Year in tax litigation and controversy for the 2021 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America. Vasquez concentrates his practice on federal, state, and international transactional and tax controversy matters. Vasquez is also Certified Public Accountant and has provided defense in criminal tax matters, successfully resolving cases before the IRS Criminal Investigation Division.
Frank Macgill (Com ’91)
Frank S. Macgill (Com ’91), an attorney for HunterMaclean, was selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2021. He was also recognized in this year’s publication as “Lawyer of the Year” in the practice area of tax law. Macgill has been selected for Best Lawyers since 2007 and recognized as “Lawyer of the Year” 7 times.
Nancy Parr (Col ’80 CM)
Nancy Grace Parr (Col ’80 CM) was elected president of the National District Attorneys Association. The first Virginian to serve as president of the association, she has served as the commonwealth attorney for the city of Chesapeake, Virginia, since 2005. In January 2020, she was appointed by U.S. Attorney General William Barr to serve as a commissioner on the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice.
John Pavlovsky (Engr ’69 CM)
Col. John D. Pavlovsky (Engr ’69 CM) (ret) has been recognized by the American Volkssport Association for completing 10km walking events in each of 50 state capitals and Washington, D.C.
Chanel Frazier (Law ’07)
Chanel Frazier (Law ’07) was named to the EMpower Top 100 Ethnic Minority Executives List for 2020. Named an executive role model, she was selected for her work in creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace. She also became the first BlackRock leader to receive this honor. Frazier also named head of business strategy for BlackRock’s portfolio management group was recently named the head of business strategy for BlackRock’s Portfolio Management Group, a new business unit with $3.6 trillion in assets under management. Frazier has been at BlackRock for almost 7 years and has previously served as chief of staff for multi-asset strategies and global fixed income and corporate tax counsel.
Ameena Gill (Engr ’05)
Ameena Gill (Engr ’04) was promoted to senior director of quality and process excellence at Lyft. Ameena was previously the General Manager at Lyft, responsible for growing market share and profitability for the entire California region. She lives in San Francisco with her 3-year-old son, Gavin.
Georgia Merten (Col ’81)
Georgia Newell Merten (Col ’81) is a Florida state licensed interior designer with more than 23 years of experience providing both residential and commercial interior design. She opened her own boutique design firm, Georgia Merten interior Design, in 2011, and recently won an ASID South Florida Award for Residential Renovation. She has been published in Florida Design Magazine, SE Florida Style & Design and The Palm Beach Post.
Jason Silverman (Col ’74 CM)
Jason H. Silverman (Col ’74), the Ellison Capers Palmer Jr. Professor of History Emeritus at Winthrop University, has published his 12th book, When America Welcomed Immigrants: The Short and Tortured History of Abraham Lincoln’s Act to Encourage Immigration. Additionally, the Governor of South Carolina awarded him the Order of the Silver Crescent, “the state’s highest civilian award for significant contributions, leadership, volunteerism, and lifelong influence within a region or community.” Silverman retired in December 2017 after almost 40 years as a university professor. He lives with his family in Pawleys Island, South Carolina.
Andrea Johnson (Col ’01)
Andrea Carson Johnson (Col ’01) is the 2020 Virginia Teacher of the Year. Johnson is a National Board Certified Teacher and English Department chair at Salem High School in Salem, Virginia. She lives with her family in Roanoke, Virginia.
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