“Job” Class Notes

Thomas W. Taylor (Educ ’06, ’09 CM) was appointed superintendent of Stafford County Public Schools on Dec. 1, 2021, serving approximately 30,000 students and 4,000 employees.

Mayme Beth F. Donohue (Col ’07 CM) has been promoted to counsel at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP. A member of the firm’s corporate team, Donohue counsels clients on securities law matters, capital markets transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance issues. She regularly answers complex securities law questions for both public and private companies and advises clients on reporting requirements under U.S. securities laws and Nasdaq and NYSE rules. She is also a leader of Hunton Andrews Kurth’s metaverse and blockchain working groups, and is associate editor of the firm’s Blockchain Legal Resource blog.

Leigh Anne Kelley (Col ’89 CM) has been named director of communications for the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC. 

In her new role, Kelley will help shape and direct an integrated communication strategy for the institute, whose world-class research teams are working to better understand human health and develop innovative approaches to preventing, diagnosing, and treating disease.

Kelley brings 20 years of professional media experience to the institute’s communications team as a writer, editor, designer, and content manager for newspapers, magazines, newsletters, and digital media. She guided coverage of the commonwealth’s growing tech sector as managing editor of Virginia Business magazine and became a faculty member at Radford University in 2006.

Christine Hollins (Col ’91 CM) has been named chief development officer at the UVA Alumni Association. She serves as vice-chair of the Volunteer Board at The Fralin Museum of Art and lives in Charlottesville with her husband and daughter.

Andrew William Joyner (Col ’97 CM) was named associate director of development at the UVA McIntire School of Commerce. Joyner spent the three previous years as assistant director of development at the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development. Andrew and his wife, Elizabeth, live in Crozet with their three children. 

Fred Karnas (Arch ’71) recently completed a term as a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Treasury. He was asked to join the leadership team focused on addressing evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic based on his career work as a deputy assistant secretary at HUD in the Clinton Administration, senior advisor to the HUD Secretary in the Obama Administration, and housing cabinet member for Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. He has now returned to his leadership of the Mental Health Strategic Impact Initiative (S2i), a national entity focused on improving mental health policy and practice, and his work on behalf of the Richmond Memorial Health Foundation.

Eric Patashnik (Col ’87 CM) has been appointed chair of Brown University’s Political Science Department. 

David Scott Thompson (Com ’01 CM) has announced that he is joining forces with Doug Rohan, another workers’ compensation attorney in Atlanta, to provide more resources to better serve their clients. Thompson, who has been in Atlanta since enrolling at Emory University School in 2001, will also be helping with marketing.

Erik Larsen (Engr ’90 CM) started a new job as a proposal manager at Maxar Technologies – Assembly, Integration & Test Group. Previously, he was an engineering fellow at Bombardier Transportation/Alstom.

Jordan McElwain (Col ’14 CM) has taken on a new role as the first content marketing hire at Chapter, a Medicare Advisor with a simple commitment: it’s impossible to find a better Medicare recommendation or better support anywhere else. Chapter’s team and technology search every Medicare option nationwide at an unprecedented level of detail. 
The company aligns with McElwain’s life goal of helping underserved populations.

Kailey Leinz (Col ’17 CM), Dani Burger (Col ’14) and Kriti Gupta (Col ’18 CM) were part of a rare and fun moment, when the Bloomberg TV anchors appeared together on the show Bloomberg Surveillance: Early Edition. They played up the UVA connection throughout the program.

David Buie-Moltz (Col ’08 CM) started a new job as director of advancement communications at the UVA Darden School of Business Foundation in July 2022. Previously, he was director of strategic communications for UVA Health.

Patricia (Anyaso) Sasser (Col ’99 CM) recently moved with her family to Raleigh, North Carolina to start her new job as the Assistant Head of School at Saint Mary’s School. Saint Mary’s is an all-girls boarding and day Episcopal school serving grades 9-12 founded in1842.

Lt. Col. Michael Trimble (Col ’04 CM), USAF, on May 25 completed a two-year tour as Squadron Commander and C-130J Instructor Pilot, 19th Operations Support Squadron, Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas. The 19th Operations Support Squadron enables the combat airlift mission of the 19th Operations Group, operating the airfield and providing mission scheduling, aircrew training, combat tactics instruction and development, aircrew flight equipment, aviation resource management, weather forecasting, and joint airdrop inspection for two AMC flying squadrons of 32 C-130J aircraft and 327 aircrew members. 

Judith Hermis (Com ’09 CM) joined the faculty of Saint Mary’s College of California in January as an assistant professor of accounting in the School of Economics and Business Administration. She was previously on the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and her research examines how accounting information enhances decision-making at the intersection of the public and private sectors.

John Markowitz (Col ’05) was appointed Deputy Secretary of Finance for the Commonwealth of Virginia by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Suzannah Evans Comfort (Col ’03 CM) was promoted to associate professor in the Journalism unit of the Media School at Indiana University.

Kendall Jones (Col ’89 CM) has been named the General Counsel of California Pizza Kitchen, Inc., and all of its affiliated companies.

Dr. Dan Vick (Col ’84 CM) assumed the role of Chief Medical Officer of MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta, Maine, effective Mar. 28, 2022. MaineGeneral Medical Center is a 198-bed community hospital with 4,000 employees and over 600 medical staff members. Most recently, Dr. Vick was on the Graduate Teaching Faculty in the Master of Health Administration program at Central Michigan University.

R. Bradford Mills (Col ’83 CM) joined the Philadelphia-area food bank Caring for Friends in January 2022. Founded in 1974, the organization distributed 14 million pounds of prepared meals and fresh produce to homebound seniors and other needy people in 2021.

Katie Esteves (Col ’97) has been named Director/Owner of Truity Partners. Late last year, Katie and seven others participated in a management buy-out of Baker Tilly Search and Staffing. Truity Partners LLC is an award-winning staffing and recruiting agency with finance, accounting and human resources as their specialties. Their 60 professionals maintain extensive candidate networks in Chicagoland, the Twin Cities and Wisconsin. They offer temporary staffing and consulting as well as directing hire solutions in their local geography along with executive search on a nationwide basis. Visit https://truitypartners.com/ for more information.

Adam Ambrogi (Col ’98 CM) recently took the job as Senior Director for Voting and Elections with the League of Women Voters. Ambrogi joins the League’s growing team and will expand the organization’s impact on voting rights and election administration.

“I am thrilled to have Adam join the League at a pivotal moment in our country when voting rights are under attack,” said Virginia Kase Solomón, CEO of the League of Women Voters. “Adam brings to the League a wealth of experience in voting and elections advocacy as well as philanthropy and strategy. We’re excited to have him join us as we continue our fight to expand voting rights for all Americans.”

Prior to joining the League, Ambrogi served for several years as Director of the Elections and Voting Program at the Democracy Fund. In that role, he led efforts in grantmaking, strategy, research and advocacy to improve the quality of elections and voting. Ambrogi has previous experience at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and on Capitol Hill as Chief Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, addressing a wide range of issues related to rules of the Senate, election law and policy.

“I am excited to join the League of Women Voters in this new role as we expand our presence in the local, state and federal space,” said Ambrogi. “The potential to create impact with LWV’s ability to combine grassroots and organizing relationships of over 800 Leagues with national insight and strategy can be transformational to protect and promote the vote. I can’t wait to help build that vision, look for new areas of growth and expand our partnerships throughout the country.”

David Meredith (Com ’03) has been appointed chief executive officer and board director of Boomi, the intelligent connectivity and automation leader that instantly connects everyone to everything with its cloud-native, unified, open, and intelligent platform that serves more than 18,000 customers globally.

Leading technology investors Francisco Partners and TPG spun Boomi out of Dell for $4 billion – one of largest software growth-equity deals ever. Boomi pioneered the intelligent use of data and has been named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant for eight consecutive years.

Meredith has nearly 30 years of experience serving in senior executive leadership and board director roles across both multi-billion-dollar public companies as well as PE-backed technology-focused firms.

Meredith ranked Top 50 in the largest company category by Comparably for Best CEO (2020) and Best CEO for Diversity (2021) and earned a CEO rating of A+, measured across 60,000+ companies. He received a distinguished Globee® Award in the Visionary category as part of The 9th Annual 2021 CEO World Awards. In 2016, The Uptime Institute recognized David’s contributions to the industry by presenting him with their Change Leader Award. Georgia Trend Magazine named him a “Top 40 under 40 – Best and Brightest Leader” in 2008.

Allyson E. Gold (Col ’06 CM) joined the faculty of Wake Forest University School of Law as Associate Dean of Experiential Learning and director of the university’s new Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic. 

Laura Blasi (Educ ’02) joined the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in December as a Program Officer focused on evaluation in the National Research Council Executive Office in Washington, D.C.  More about the Academies is available online:   https://www.nationalacademies.org 

Justin Lollman (Law ’14) has been named a shareholder at GableGotwals, a full-service law firm with more than 100 attorneys and more than 60 professionals with offices in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla. Justin has a diverse civil litigation practice, focusing on appeals, complex commercial litigation, employment law, governmental liability, and civil rights defense. Justin regularly practices before state and federal courts across Oklahoma and throughout the country. Having clerked for federal judges at both the trial and appellate levels, Justin is well-versed in federal practice and procedure and draws on that experience to counsel clients at all phases of the litigation process, from the pleadings up through appeal.

Kyrsta Small Scully (COM ’90 CM) has been named controller of the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group in Yountville, California, which runs the French Laundry, Bouchon, Ad Hoc and other fine restaurants in multiple locations across the country. She supervises accounting and financial matters for all the restaurants and related companies. After a 25-year career in food and beverage at luxury hotels, she turned to the accounting side and earned her California CPA license in 2020 and her CMA in 2017.

Sean Scully (COL, ’89 CM) has been named Western National Editor for States Newsroom, a national nonprofit focusing on news coverage of state government. In this position, he coordinates coverage and assists editors in seven western states. Previously, he was editor and director of news content for the Napa Valley Register in California. He and his family will continue to live in the Napa Valley, where they have been for a decade.

Matthew Kelley (Col ’00 CM) has established a Hereford-Angus beef cattle operation on his farm in Madison, Virginia. The cows join his wife, three children, and career in fulfilling his lifelong goals in pursuit of happiness.

Simrat Jassal (COL ’21 CM) is the president and founder of Premed Peers, a nonprofit that is providing free and affordable MCAT tutoring to students across the nation. Premed Peers has reached over 2000 students across the nation and provided them with mentorship and support during the medical admissions process. The nonprofit also provides students with essay, resume, and private tutoring help. Simrat will continue the efforts for Premed Peers and is hoping to give back to the Charlottesville community. You can get involved with the program here: https://www.premedpeers.org/get-involved

Premed Peers is a national nonprofit that provides free and affordable tutoring to premedical students across the nation. We are a group of undergraduate and medical students across the country who have all struggled, yet succeeded, on the MCAT and want to give back to other fellow pre-meds. We offer a low-cost prep course called MCAT101. The courses are lecture-style that cover high (and low) yield topics on the MCAT and run for approximately 1 hour. We believe that medical educational barriers should not deter students from pursuing medicine. 

A.J. Frey (Col ’08 CM) has joined the Washington, DC, office of international law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher as a partner in the Investment Funds practice. A.J. joins Gibson from Greenspring Associates, a diversified venture capital platform with over $13B in Assets Under Management, where he served as General Counsel. His practice focuses on the formation and operation of private investment funds across a variety of fund strategies, including private equity, growth equity, venture capital and real asset funds. A.J. resides in Washington, DC with his wife, Brenna, and their two boys, Felix and Max.