“Award/Recognition” Class Notes

James “Jim” Strawbridge (Law ’87) was inducted into Virginia Tech’s Academy of Engineering Excellence, a group of alumni who are recognized for achieving exceptional career success. Mr. Strawbridge works as an independent consultant and serves as an advisor to a number of technology companies. He began his career practicing law with the firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he became a partner, and has held executive positions in several companies, including the biotechnology company Stemcentrx.

In May at the annual Harvard Commencement festivities, Thomas F. Pettigrew (Col ’52) received the Centennial Medal of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.  The award is given in recognition of a “significant contribution to society as a result of [his] graduate education at Harvard.”  Pettigrew received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Harvard in 1956, and taught at Harvard from 1957-1980. The Graduate School Dean Meng described Pettigrew as having “…devoted his life to confronting …racism, discrimination, and prejudice and laid the groundwork for ideas that are now fundamental to the way we think about prejudice in the United States and around the world.”

Mike Lynn (Col ’72) of commercial boutique Texas litigation firm Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst has been named to “Best Lawyers in America” for six consecutive years. Mr. Lynn has also been recognized as a “Litigation Star” for five consecutive years and one of the “Top 100 Trial Lawyers in America” from 2015-2017 by Benchmark Litigation. Mr. Lynn has been named one of the “Top 500 Lawyers in the US” by Lawdragon in 2015 and consistently ranked in Chambers and Partners.

Mr. Lynn recently obtained a $146 million jury verdict for Mesa Petroleum (an entity controlled by T. Boone Pickens), making it the third consecutive year the firm has obtained one of the largest jury verdicts in the United States. In 2014, Mr. Lynn lead a team that recovered a jury verdict of over 900 million dollars. Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst was recently named as one of the Top 10 Litigation Boutiques in America by Benchmark Litigation, as one of the 2017 Best Law Firms by Best Lawyers, and one of the Top 10 Commercial Litigation Firms by Chambers and Partners.

Vincent C. Ning (Col ’15 L/M) and Michael L. Paris (Engr ’15 L/M) have been accepted into the start-up incubator Y Combinator. They are the founders of Scaphold.io, an app development platform based on Facebook’s GraphQL technology.

Paul Verkuil (Law ’67) received an honorary degree from the College of William & Mary at the college’s 2017 commencement ceremony. Mr. Verkuil has practiced law in New York City and served in a number of administrative and faculty roles at the College of William & Mary, Tulane University Law School and the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University. He also served a five-year term as chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent advisory group that makes recommendations to Congress and federal agencies about the regulatory process.

Norman D. Askins (Arch ’68 L/M) has received the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art’s 2017 Board of Directors Award, one of the institute’s Arthur Ross Awards for Excellence in the Classical Tradition. Mr. Askins established his architecture practice in Atlanta in 1977. He has specialized in historic preservation, period residences, vacation cottages and plantations, as well as additions to existing homes. In 2014, he published a book about his work, Inspired by Tradition: The Architecture of Norman Davenport Askins (The Monacelli Press).

Megan Durkee (Col ’10, Law ’15) has been awarded the University of Virginia School of Law’s Powell Fellowship in Legal Services. The fellowship will support her work with the Legal Aid Justice Center’s JustChildren program in Richmond, Virginia.

David Michael Brienza (Engr ’91) won the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel’s 2017 Kosiak Award. The award honors contributions to the prevention or management of of pressure injuries through research, education or patient care.

Teresa Bryce Bazemore (Col ’81 L/M) received the 2017 Paradigm Award from The Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia.  The award is the most prestigious award given to one professional woman each year in the Greater Philadelphia area. 

Rebecca “Becky” Kinlein Lindahl (Col ’03 L/M, at right in photo) has been awarded the 2016 Young Professional Leadership Award by ATHENA International in Charlotte, North Carolina. The award honors emerging women leaders for exhibiting professional excellence, providing service to others and serving as role models for young women. Ms. Lindahl, the youngest female partner in the large international law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman, leads by example as a litigator, mentor and women’s advocate.

Jennifer Steen Booher (Arch ’97) has received a 2017 Kindling Fund grant for her project, “The Coast Walk.” The Kindling Fund, administered by SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine, is one of ten nationwide re-granting programs established by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Coast Walk is a methodical, long-term exploration of Mount Desert Island’s shoreline, combining oral history, physical exploration, photography and cultural history, presented as a series of photo-essays on the project blog, Jenniferbooher.com.

Valerie B. “Val” Ackerman (Col ’81 L/M) has been presented with the Billie Jean King Contribution Award by the Women’s Sports Foundation at its annual awards gala in New York City. This annual award is earned by the demonstration of a lasting commitment and dedication to the growth of sports, fitness and physical activity for women and girls. Ms. Ackerman, the first president of the WNBA and current commissioner of the Big East Conference, previously was president of USA Basketball and U.S. representative to the International Basketball Federation. At the University, she was one of the school’s first women to receive an athletic scholarship, and was a starter for the Cavaliers’ basketball team for four years, captain for three, and was twice named Academic All-American. She was also the school’s first female basketball player to score 1,000 points.

J. Bryan Lyles (Col ’72) has been recognized as a Fellow of two professional societies: the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Robert A. Buerlein (Com ’68 L/M) has been elected president of the U.S. Marine Raider Foundation, which keeps alive the history of the U.S.’s first elite-force unit, formed in 1942 along the lines of the British Commandos. Swift, hard-hitting surprise raids were their forte, and the 1943 movie, Gung Ho!, told part of their colorful story. In 2014, the Marine Corps revived this unit name and mission objective for their new, Marine Raider Regiment, which is part of the U.S. Special Operations Command; the Raiders are to the Marine Corps what the S.E.A.L.’s are to the Navy. Very little is ever known by the public of their successes, which include sensitive reconnaissance and direct-action missions against high-value targets, far within enemy-controlled territory. Bob and Judy live in Richmond; their youngest son is an MD at the University of Virginia Hospital.