“Job” Class Notes
Marlene Hall (Col ’96 CM)
Marlene W. Hall (Col ’96 CM) has joined Real Brokerage LLC in McLean, Virginia. Licensed in Virginia and Washington, D.C., Hall is an Air Force veteran raised in Northern Virginia with eight years of experience as a real estate agent.
John Via (Engr ’84 CM)
John W. Via III (Engr `84 CM) has joined Rice University as a Professor of Practice and Associate Director of the Master of Engineering Management and Leadership (MEML) program, based out of the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership (RCEL). The in-person version of the MEML was launched in 2021 and the online program was launched in 2022. The program honored its first graduates in December 2022.
Via also continues to serve as a Trustee for UVA’s School of Engineering.
M. Blake Cleary (Col ’89)
M. Blake Cleary (Col ’89 CM) has joined Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP as a partner and will serve as co-head of the firm’s bankruptcy practice. Cleary has more than 20 years experience as a bankruptcy attorney and represents clients, including debtors, creditors and purchasers, in all aspects of corporate restructuring in the Chapter 11 reorganization process. He was recently featured in Chambers USA among listed Delaware bankruptcy practitioners. Cleary has also been ranked as a Top Bankruptcy Lawyer by The Deal for 13 years running and has been included in The Best Lawyers in America for bankruptcy and creditor-debtor rights in Wilmington, Del., for the last nine years.
Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP is one of the largest and most highly regarded Delaware law firms, providing specialized legal services to regional, national and international clients. . For more information, visit https://www.potteranderson.com.
Peter Garvey (Darden ’02)
Peter Garvey (Darden ’02) has been appointed mid-Atlantic growth officer at Dewberry, a privately held professional services firm headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia. Garvey has spent more than 16 years with the firm in various roles, including technical leader for water and wastewater, lead for northeast water business growth initiative, and business unit manager for the firm’s Boston office and New England operations. He has also developed and led the firm’s client management and business development training initiatives for senior managers. As mid-Atlantic growth officer, Garvey will help Dewberry continue its expansion in the region, focusing on maintaining and developing relationships and opportunities with state/local, commercial, and federal clients.
Micah Schwartz (Col ’03 CM)
Micah B. Schwartz (Col ’03, Law ’08 CM) has joined Williams Mullen as a partner in the Labor, Employment & Immigration Section in the firm’s Charlottesville office.
Williams Mullen is a regional full-service law firm with approximately 240 attorneys in offices across North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
Matt Coleman (Col ’03, Darden ’11 CM)
Matt Coleman (Col ’03, Darden ’11 CM) has joined The Demex Group as chief risk officer. Demex enhances the climate resilience and economic value of companies and people by designing, underwriting, and executing weather risk transfer products. In addition, Coleman was honored as a 125th Anniversary Fellow by Penn State University’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. Matt was nominated by the Department of Meteorology for his pioneering leadership in financial weather risk, insurance-linked securities investing, and diversity and mentorship.
Kate Barrington McGregor (Law ’09)
Kate Barrington McGregor (Col ’09, Law ’14 CM) has been promoted from associate to partner in Bracewell LLP’s corporate and securities practice in Houston. McGregor represents clients on mergers and acquisitions and joint venture transactions in the energy and infrastructure sectors, including acquisitions and divestitures of oil and gas pipelines and storage terminal facilities, as well as the negotiation and drafting of build transfer agreements, engineering, procurement and construction contracts, operation and maintenance agreements and construction management agreements, with a focus on power, renewable energy and energy storage. McGregor has been named “One to Watch” in corporate law by The Best Lawyers in America. While at UVA Law School, she was the senior executive editor of Virginia Law and Business Review.
Roger Millar (Engr ’82 CM)
Roger Millar (Engr ’82 CM) was elected 2022–2023 president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials at its annual meeting in October. Millar was appointed secretary of transportation by Washington Governor Jay Inslee in August of 2016 and confirmed unanimously by the state senate in the 2017 legislative session.
Donald Delson (Law ’80 CM)
Donald Delson (Law ’80 CM) serves as president of the board of trustees of Chester Charter Scholars Academy, a 700-student K-12 charter school in Chester, Pennsylvania entering its second decade. Delson is also a developer of 110 Park Avenue, a 30-unit upscale condominium project in downtown Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Cordelia, will be married 50 years in June 2023.
David Susman (Col ’81 CM)
David Susman (Col ’81 CM) has been named executive advisor for clinical services in the Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities, Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Susman, a licensed clinical psychologist, is a former president of the Kentucky Psychological Association and a current member of the American Psychological Association (APA) Board of Directors and 2023 chair of the APA Council of Representatives Leadership Team.
Carin Beaubien (Col ’89 CM)
Carin M. Smilk (Col ’89 CM) became editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times in September 2022. She has worked as a journalist for nearly 30 years, most recently for the Jerusalem-based online news site JNS.org. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and four sons.
Lynlee Palmer (Col ’98)
Lynlee W. Palmer (Col ’98 CM) has joined Jackson Lewis P.C., where she will serve in the litigation group for the Birmingham, Alabama office. The firm specializes in national labor and employment law.
Lynlee brings a depth of experience representing both public and private employers. She has represented clients before the Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board and more.
Robert Graboyes (Col ’76 CM)
Robert F. Graboyes (Col ’76 CM) is now owner and president of RFG Counterpoint, LLC in Alexandria, Virginia. Through his firm, he does economic consulting, journalism, and music production. He publishes BASTIAT’S WINDOW, a Substack journal devoted to economics, ethics, health, technology, and culture. He is also a FAIR in Medicine Fellow (where FAIR = Foundation Against Racism and Intolerance). His musical performances and compositions are on his YouTube channel.
Darleen Opfer (Educ ’97)
V. Darleen Opfer (Educ ’90, ’97 CM), vice president and director of RAND Education and Labor, was appointed to the board of directors for the Council for Aid to Education, Inc. (CAE). CAE is a nonprofit developer of assessments that measure students’ essential academic and career skills. Opfer leads a staff of more than 200 research experts who are focused on using evidence to improve schools for low-income and minority students. In addition to her role with RAND Education and Labor, Opfer holds the Distinguished Chair in Education Policy at RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that helps improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.
Howard Turner (Engr ’97)
Howard Turner (Engr ’97) was named North American Director of Energy Preconstruction Services for Trane Technologies. Turner and his team are responsible for conceiving, designing and ensuring the constructability of projects that enable clients to achieve their decarbonization and sustainability goals.
Paul Davis (Col ’97)
Paul Davis (Col ’97 CM) has created The Bank Slate, a website dedicated to news and perspectives for the financial services industry. The Bank Slate also has a weekly newsletter and contributes content to the American Bankers Association. Davis is also the Director of Market Intelligence at Strategic Resource Management, a consulting and advisory firm in Memphis, Tennessee.
Madeleine Fontana (Col ’17)
Madeleine McDonald (Col ’17 CM) was married to Anthony Fontana in 2021 and graduated from Mercer University’s Physician Assistant Program in 2022, receiving the faculty’s distinguished student award among other academic honors. Madeleine and Anthony live in Atlanta, Georgia, where she is employed as a physician assistant in an internal medicine practice.
Jonathan Havens (Col ’05)
Jonathan Havens (Col ’05 CM) was appointed managing partner of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP’s office in Baltimore, Maryland. As managing partner, Mr. Havens functions as the office’s chief executive. In his practice, Mr. Havens counsels clients on regulatory, compliance, enforcement and transactional matters related to products regulated by numerous federal and state agencies. Since 2019, he has been listed in Chambers USA for his nationwide cannabis law practice, and in 2021 he was named a Rising Star by Law360. In 2020, Mr. Havens was selected to serve on Law360’s inaugural Cannabis Editorial Advisory Board, and in 2018 he was named to the National Law Journal’s inaugural Cannabis Law Trailblazers list.
Brian Ball (Col ’73, Law ’76 CM)
Brian Ball (Col ’73, Law ’76 CM), former Secretary of Commerce and Trade of Virginia, has been named “of counsel” to Williams Mullen. Before serving as secretary, Ball was with the firm for almost 30 years, where he was a partner, served as general counsel and was a member of the firm’s board of directors. He will rejoin the Corporate Section to support and serve the firm’s Economic Development Team, where he will assist clients and their consultants with business expansion and related needs.
Thomas Taylor (Educ ’09)
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