“Award/Recognition” Class Notes
Robert Cottrell (Educ ’16 CM)
Dr. Jason Cottrell (Educ ’16 CM) was awarded the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) – College Student Educators International Presidential Citation.
The Presidential Citation is awarded by the discretion of the ACPA President based on their observation and/or direct work with the individual. This honor is bestowed upon members of the Association for lifelong service and extraordinary contributions to the profession of student affairs and most particularly to ACPA. It is one of the Association’s highest honors.
ACPA – College Student Educators International is a values-centered leadership association that has worked to boldly transform higher education since 1924. Student affairs and higher education professionals, faculty and students trust ACPA to deliver high-quality educational programs, provide access to modern research and scholarship, and promote leaders at all levels through a racial justice and decolonization lens.
ACPA President Dr. Danielle Morgan Acosta described Cottrell as “a passionate public servant” and “a dedicated member of ACPA for 13 years who has held numerous leadership positions in the Association at the chapter, coalition, and convention spaces,” stating that she is “honored to present one of two Presidential Citations to Dr. Jason Cottrell.”
A second Presidential Citation was awarded to the Association for the Study of Higher Education.
Tonya N. Jefferson (Col ’93)
Tonya N. Jefferson (Col ’93 CM) co-founded the non-profit Virginia Africa Partnership during late summer of 2021, and is currently the Vice President, Government Liaison and Resource Mobilization. The Virginia Africa Partnership (VAP) strives to boost trade and investment opportunities between Virginia and Africa by providing market research; helping companies identify new markets via trade mission; connecting them to potential business partners, customers, or distributers; fostering minority and women-owned small business; and facilitating the transfer of technology for the transformation of natural resources designed to increase trade and spur growth. The collaboration of higher educational institutions and the promotion of siter-cities initiatives will cement that long-term partnership.
Jefferson applied to the Clinton Global Initiative University as a George Washington University doctoral student on the due date, Jan. 26, 2022, which was exactly two days after she learned of the opportunity, and was accepted into the 2022 cohort as a result of her thoughtful, thorough and compelling application. Her Commitment to Action plan included all four of VAP’s current projects: Leadership and STEM Awards Ceremony to be held on June 11, 2022; Youth Leadership and Entrepreneurship Exchange to be held from July 10 through Aug. 10, 2022; Higher Education Leadership Conference to be held from Oct. 5 through Oct. 7, 2022; and Entrepreneurship Academy, in addition to a few new projects and partnerships.
Marvin Heinze (Arch ’79)
Marvin Heinze (Arch ’79 CM) was honored as a National Eagle Scout Association Outstanding Eagle Scout by the San Diego-Imperial Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Currently a City Councilmember in Coronado, California, Heinze was recognized as a notable Eagle Scout who, through service to his country and community, has inspired others.
A career Navy Special Operations Officer who led Explosive Ordnance Disposal forces, a senior government official in port and harbor security and a dedicated community volunteer, Heinze has consistently lived the Scout Oath. His volunteer efforts with national non-profit organizations, local organizations and as a commission and City Council member have consistently made his nation and community a better place to live. Over 50 years after earning his Eagle award in Troop 1033 in Beltsville, Maryland, Heinze is still making a positive impact serving his community.
The NESA Outstanding Eagle Scout Award was established in 2010 to recognize notable Eagle Scouts who have performed distinguished service at the local, state or regional level. Worthy candidates for the award have inspired others through their actions and have devoted a lifetime to their profession, avocation, community and beliefs at great sacrifice to themselves and their families.
Raymond Abramson (Col ’73 CM)
Raymond R. Abramson (Col ’73 CM), a judge on the Arkansas Court of Appeals, received the Judicial Leadership Award from Access to Justice for his work in founding and implementing Monroe County Children in Trust, a program designed to lift children out of multigenerational poverty in the Arkansas Delta.
Frank Macgill (Com ’91)
Frank Macgill (Com ’91), an attorney with HunterMaclean in Savannah, Georgia, was recently honored as a 2022 Georgia Super Lawyer.
Attorneys are selected based upon peer review, professional achievements and independent research. The process identifies attorneys from more than 70 practice areas who have achieved distinction in their respective practices of law.
Super Lawyers Magazine features the list and profiles of the selected attorneys and is distributed to attorneys in the region and in ABA-accredited law school libraries. In addition, the list is published as a special section in leading city and regional magazines across the country.
Erin Mattingly (Educ ’03)
Erin Mattingly (Educ ’03 CM) was awarded the Department of the Army’s Public Service Commendation Medal for her leadership of medical operations at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. Camp Atterbury was one of eight Operation Allies Welcome sites supporting Afghan evacuees following the Taliban assuming control of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021 and became the interim home for 7,201 guests.
Alfred Carry (Col ’05)
Alfred D. Carry (Col ’05) is included in the 2021 edition of Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers® list. Alfred is Of Counsel in the Commercial Litigation group of McGlinchey Stafford PLLC, in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. He is recognized for his work in business litigation.
Super Lawyers has listed outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement since the publication’s founding in 1991. To be included, lawyers are subject to nomination, a peer-review survey by practice area, and independent research on candidates. The top five percent of attorneys in each location, as nominated by their peers, are then reviewed by an independent research team that focuses on professional accomplishments, peer recognition, and community involvement.
Alfred has earned the distinction of a Super Lawyers Rising Star. He has defended financial institutions, credit card issuers, lenders, and servicers against a variety of consumer finance-based claims. His clients have included owners and general contractors in construction defect cases and white collar/government investigations clients in cases brought by federal enforcement agencies.
The Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers Rising Stars list for 2021 recognizes the top lawyers in the area who are 40 years old or younger or have been in practice 10 years or less.
Frances Stephens (Col ’74)
The Jung Center of Houston has selected Frances Carter Stephens (Col ’74 CM) as one of the artists on their 2022 exhibition schedule. Titled Beautiful the Wild, the exhibition will present more than a dozen of her recent abstract oil paintings and one conceptual three dimensional work. The works express untamed nature–vivid and sometimes unpredictable–as experienced along Texas’s Gulf Coast. They explore elements of earth, sky, and weather as aspects of the abstract landscape and their dynamic impact on our world. References to gardens and the changing seasons evoke the life cycle–birth, growth, decline, and death, and all of its fierce emotions. Beautiful the Wild will be on view at The Jung Center of Houston, 5200 Montrose Boulevard, from February 16 through March 31, 2022. The exhibition is free and open to the public during the Jung Center’s normal business hours. A public reception with the artist is scheduled for Saturday, March 19 from 5 to 7 pm.
Patricia Leonard (Col ’88 CM)
Patricia A. Steenberg Leonard (Col ’88 CM) has been elected to the board of directors of the Armory Art Center, a non-profit arts organization in West Palm Beach, Florida. Patti is a trial lawyer and partner at the Shutts & Bowen law firm in West Palm Beach, Florida, where she practices business, securities, and intellectual property litigation.
Roger Millar (Engr ’82 CM)
Roger Millar (Engr ’82 CM) was elected chair of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America Board of Directors at ITS America’s November 2021 annual meeting in Charlotte. He has served as Secretary of Transportation at the Washington State Department of Transportation since his appointment by Governor Jay Inslee in 2016.
Michael Bentley (Educ ’85)
Michael Lee “Mike” Bentley (Educ ’85) received the award for Outstanding Science Teaching and Contributions to Science Education by the Virginia Association of Science Teachers at their annual meeting in November 2021. At that meeting, he delivered a paper for the first time via YouTube video because the conference went virtual due to the pandemic. In 2021, he presented programs on the climate crisis to community groups and to his city council and continued volunteer work on Plowshare Peace and Justice Center’s board, as secretary of the regional Sierra Club, Citizen’s Climate Lobby, and Virginia’s Interfaith Power and Light. At 75, he is well and doing what good he can.
John Lowery (Col ’90)
John Wesley Lowery (Col ’90 CM) was recognized by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education as the 2022 George D. Kuh Outstanding Contribution to Literature and/or Research Award recipient. This award honors an individual who has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to research and scholarship related to higher education. The honoree’s work must address important and substantial issues and have had a significant or transformative effect on higher education and student affairs practice in a national or international context. This award is the highest honor NASPA bestows on a higher education researcher.
Tamara Bedic (Law ’98)
Tamara Bedic (Law ’98 CM) is president of the New York City Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. A feminist, activist, immigrant and animal advocate, Tamara began volunteering for the country’s most progressive lawyers’ association in 2009 as a legal observer. Since then, Tamara has assisted members of Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion; defended the right to protest; resuscitated the Guild’s Animal Rights Committee and served as vice president. Tamara has been interviewed by Law and Disorder and organizes webinars on local, national and international animal rights issues.
Herbert Slatery (Col ’74)
Herbert H. Slatery III (Col ’74 CM), the current attorney general for the State of Tennessee, was presented with the Kelley-Wyman Award at the recent National Association of Attorneys General Capital Forum in Washington, D.C. The Kelley-Wyman Award is an annual award given to the attorney general who has done the most to advance the objectives of the Association, and the honoree is selected by fellow attorneys general. General Slatery was completely surprised and was quick to give credit to the cooperation among the many attorneys general and to his own dedicated, hardworking staff in Tennessee.
Helm Dobbins (Col ’16)
H. MacNeil “Mac” Dobbins (Col ’16 CM) has joined the Bridge Investment Group as Vice President of its Industrial Net Lease Group. He is responsible for acquisitions and asset management for the division’s Private Equity Funds. He previously served as Principal, and earlier as Senior Associate at Gladstone Commercial Corporation, a publicly traded real estate investment trust. He began his financial career and served as a Senior Credit Analyst at United Bank after graduating from UVA in 2016. His office is in Arlington, Virginia.
Frank Macgill (Com ’91)
Frank S. Macgill (Com ’91) was recently recognized as 2021 Legal Elite by Georgia Trend.
Georgia Trend, a statewide business publication, recently published its annual issue honoring Georgia’s leading attorneys for their achievements in various practice areas. Legal Elite is compiled by attorneys submitting their nominations through the publication’s website, and the listing is determined solely by attorneys’ votes.
Georgia Trend’s Legal Elite issue can be found at www.georgiatrend.com.
Michael Smith (Arch ’05)
Mike Smith (Arch ’05) was honored in Mass Transit magazine as a member of the 2021 class of the publication’s “40 Under 40.” The annual feature recognizes 40 up-and-comers in the public transportation industry for their contributions, innovation, leadership, and community impact. Currently serving as Chief of Safety for the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority, Mike was selected out of over 150 nominations representing a cross-section of disciplines from across the U.S. in both the public and private sectors. He is proud of his humble beginnings as a student driver at UVA’s University Transit Service, a position he held both through all four years of study as an urban and environmental planning major in the School of Architecture, and also after graduating, on a part-time basis limited to late nights and weekends. He has worked in a variety of roles in a 20-year career, in operations, safety, regulatory compliance, and project management.
Eve Lindemuth Bodeux (Grad ’89)
Eve Lindemuth Bodeux (Grad ’89) was elected for a second three-year term to the Board of Directors of the American Translators Association (www.atanet.org), and will serve through 2024. ATA is the nation’s largest professional organization for translators and interpreters with over 9,000 members in over 100 countries. Eve has been active in the translation industry for over twenty-five years. She is an ATA-certified French-to-English translator and also works as an independent project manager for a diverse global client base. She is also the author of the book Maintaining Your Second Language and was co-host of the Speaking of Translation podcast from 2008 to 2021. She has a graduate degree from the Université de Lorraine (France), an MA from the University of Virginia, and a BA from Lebanon Valley College.
Steven Nesbit (Engr ’80 CM)
Steve Nesbit (Engr ’80, ’82 CM) is serving as the 67th President of the American Nuclear Society, the organization for nuclear science and technology professionals. ANS works to advance, foster, and spur the development and application of nuclear science, engineering, and technology to benefit society. Elected by the society in 2020, his term of office runs through June 2022.
Kevin Martingayle (Law ’91)
Kevin Martingayle (Law ’91), a past president of the Virginia State Bar, was recently elected to the governing council of the National Conference of Bar Presidents. He has also held a number of other legal organization leadership positions, including his current service as a member of the executive committee of the Board of Directors of the Virginia Judges & Lawyers Assistance Program, which supports judges, lawyers, law students and legal staff in handling mental health and substance abuse challenges. Kevin resides in Virginia Beach with his wife, Lizzie, and has a trial and appellate law practice.
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