“Other” Class Notes

Thomas F. Pettigrew (Col ’52) received the Career Achievement Award of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Mr. Pettigrew is a research professor of social psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Lauren Foley (Engr ’09, ’14 L/M) and Brad Costella (Engr ’09) were married on Oct. 29, 2011, at King Family Vineyards. The couple resides in Charlottesville.

Melissa Thomason (Engr ’06 L/M) and Phil Chambless Jr. (Engr ’05 L/M) were married on Oct. 22, 2011, at the Clifton Inn in Charlottesville.

Eben Hansel (Law ’06) serves on the board of directors of Live Baltimore. Mr. Hansel is an associate in Ballard Spahr’s Baltimore office.

Jamie Ritter (Col ’04) is an associate in the Richmond law firm of Christian & Barton. As a member of the energy and sustainability practice groups, he works with clients to address electricity, natural gas, water and other public utility regulatory matters.

Michele Shea (Col ’03) and Daniel Mulloy (Med ’07) were married Sept. 1, 2011, in Charlottesville. Ms. Mulloy is a history and English teacher at the Miller School of Albemarle. Dr. Mulloy is a surgery resident at the University of Washington in a research fellowship position at the University of Virginia. The couple resides in Charlottesville.

Courtney Lodge McCreesh (Col ’03 L/M) and Patrick McCreesh (Col ’02 L/M) welcomed a daughter, Rose Mary McCreesh, on Nov. 18, 2011. Rose joins a sister, Lizzie, 2. The family resides in Alexandria, Va., where Mr. McCreesh is with Booz Allen Hamilton and Ms. McCreesh works part time for the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Whitney Cole (Col ’02) married Byron Paidoussi at the Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles on July 30, 2011. After an active honeymoon surfing, snorkeling and hiking the island of Kauai, they fused personal training businesses into Fitness and Fuel, their business based in West Hollywood.

Thomas J. McKee Jr. (Col ’01 L/M) and Alison Cunnane McKee (Col ’02 L/M) welcomed a daughter, Charlotte Grace, on Nov. 21, 2011. Charlotte joins a brother, Tommy, 3. The McKee family resides in Fairfax, Va.

Emily Kane (Col ’00, Grad ’04) graduated from the University of Georgia with a doctorate in English on Aug. 6, 2011. She currently serves as a Robert E. Park Fellow at U.Ga. and resides in Athens, Ga.

Jennifer Pedtke Christiaansen (Arch ’97 L/M) and her husband, Jason, welcomed their first child, Henry Oliver, on April 8, 2011. The family resides in Minneapolis, where both Mr. and Ms. Christiaansen practice architecture.

Ron Skufca (Com ’92) has been certified a member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum as principal counsel in obtaining a verdict, award or settlement for his clients in the amount of a million dollars or more.

Bob Latham (Law ’83 L/M) serves on the International Rugby Board’s executive committee. He is the past chairman and current vice chairman of the United States of America Rugby Football Union and is president of the North America Caribbean Rugby Association.

James T.R. Jones (Col ’75) is a professor of law at the University of Louisville, where he has been a faculty member in the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law since 1986. Mr. Jones published a memoir, A Hidden Madness, about his experiences with bipolar disorder.

David T. Beers (Col ’75 L/M) is special adviser to the governor of the Bank of Canada. Previously, Mr. Beers worked for 21 years at Standard & Poor’s, based in New York and, since 1997, in London. His most recent position at S&P was as global head of sovereign and international public ratings.

Richard B. “Dick” Smith (Col ’71 L/M) retired from the Office of the Attorney General in Virginia. Among other duties during his 35 years in the criminal litigation section, he briefed and presented oral arguments in more than 400 cases in the Virginia and federal appellate courts, including the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Supreme Court of the United States. He and his wife, Jane Atkinson Smith (Educ ’76), continue to reside near Richmond, Va.

Don Slesnick (Col ’65 L/M) was named Citizen of the Year by the Kiwanis Clubs of Dade and Monroe in Florida. Mr. Slesnick serves in the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates. He is also a member of the Orange Bowl Committee, a board member of the Coral Gables Art Cinema and a founding member of the Coral Gables Museum.

Carl McDaniels (Educ ’57, ’64) received the Andrus Award for Community Service from the Blacksburg, Va., chapter of AARP. Mr. McDaniels is past president of the chapter and currently serves as the group’s program chair.

Abigail “Abby” Coulter (Educ ’10) received the 2011 Staff Recognition Award from the Virginia Association of Community Rehabilitation Programs. The award recognizes Ms. Coulter’s service to Virginians with disabilities. Ms. Coulter has been a community specialist with the WorkSource Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program since August of 2010.

Brenan Richards (Col ’08, Batten School ’09) was accepted into the two-year Presidential Management Fellowship program. She had the opportunity to work as a policy adviser for the Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard and multiple Department of Defense agencies. Ms. Richards recently completed the PMF program and accepted a position as a foreign affairs specialist in the Department of Defense. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Corley Hopkins (Col ’08 L/M) is director of development and alumni relations at George Washington Law School in Washington, D.C. Ms. Hopkins has been working for the law school since earning a master’s degree in higher education administration in May 2010.

Heather Burdette (Educ ’08) married Joshua Quinn on July 9, 2011. The couple lives in Rocky Mount, Va. Ms. Quinn teaches eighth-grade English at Benjamin Franklin Middle School, and Mr. Quinn is employed by the Uttermost Co.

Amelia Wehunt (Engr ’07 L/M) passed the professional engineering examination and is now registered in Virginia. She works as a civil engineer at Timmons Group in Richmond, Va.

Cyrus S. Kump (Engr ’06) and Amy Goodloe Kump (SCPS ’11 L/M) welcomed their first child, Camille “Milly” Benton, on Aug. 12, 2011, in Winchester, Va.

Jennifer C.W. Gillyard (Col ’05) had a book, From Dreams through Wrestlings to Fulfillment: Poems of Growth, published by Author House.

Heather McKay Byrne (Educ ’05) and Jonathan Byrne (Col ’05) welcomed a son, Jackson Thomas, on Oct. 22, 2011. The family resides in Norfolk, Va.

Jason Romesburg (Col ’02 L/M) and Kristin Maksimowicz Romesburg (Col ’02 L/M) welcomed a daughter, Anne Katherine, on Sept. 4, 2011. The family resides in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Jennifer Person Goetz (Col ’02 L/M) and her husband, Todd, welcomed a son, Dillen Andreas, on Nov. 2, 2011. Dillen joins a brother, Dominic, 7. The family resides in O’Fallon, Ill.

W. Ronnie Shaw (Engr ’98) and his wife, Beth, welcomed twin sons, Aaron Thomas and Elliot Andrew, on Feb. 21, 2011. They join a sister, Fiona, 3. Mr. Shaw is a software engineering manager at Noblis. The family resides in Reston, Va.

Lesli Harris (Col ’97 L/M) joined Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann in its litigation section. She concentrates her practice in intellectual property law, representing a national sports league, sports teams and various clients in copyright and trademark matters.

Tamer A. Soliman (Col ’96, Law ’00) is a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld at the firm’s Abu Dhabi office. Mr. Soliman is a member of the firm’s international trade practice, advising corporate and government clients on international trade and trade policy issues, including in the areas of defense trade/export controls, anticorruption laws, economic sanctions and customs/security-related issues.

Sean Dell’Orto (Com ’96 L/M) and Jennifer Burns Dell’Orto (Engr ’96 L/M) welcomed a daughter, Peyton Michelle, on April 2, 2011. Peyton joins a sister, Sydney Katherine, 2. The family resides in Reston, Va.

Jeffrey Phillips (Engr ’86 L/M) had a book, Relentless Innovation, published by McGraw-Hill.

Christopher Funkhouser (Col ’86, Grad ’88 L/M) and his wife, Amy Hufnagel, had a multimedia poem, “Sunflowers on Quaker Church Road,” published in the fall 2011 issue of The New River, Virginia Tech’s journal of digital writing and art.

Jonathan Becher (Engr ’86 L/M) is chief marketing officer of SAP, an enterprise software company. He previously managed small companies in Silicon Valley.

Gwendolyn Denise Perkins (Col ’85 L/M) received her doctorate in educational leadership from Virginia Commonwealth University in December 2011. She is a school administrator in Richmond, Va.

Wilson B. Rumble Jr. (Engr ’83 L/M) is a regional manager with Oracle Corp. After successfully generating more than $6 million as a federal account manager for the past four years, he will manage a team covering half of the federal civilian government for Oracle’s public sector team. Mr. Wilson was also president of Oracle’s Toastmasters organization and served recently as a Toastmasters area governor.

Donald C. Simon (Engr ’81 L/M) received the Elmer Sperry Innovation Award from the Northrop Grumman Naval and Maritime Systems Division, Charlottesville, on Dec. 22. 2011. The award honors Mr. Simon’s work in developing the scalable shipboard machinery control system ONCE product line.

Steven L. Charlip (Col ’81, Law ’87 L/M) opened a private real estate law boutique. He worked for the past 25 years as a real estate partner at Choate Hall & Stewart and Burns & Levinson in Boston. Mr. Charlip was voted a Massachusetts Real Estate Super Lawyer in 2011. He and his wife, Stephanie, live in Weston, Mass.

Suzanne Tovar (Educ ’78) attended the sixth annual Barron’s Winner’s Circle Top Women Advisors Summit, hosted by Barron’s magazine. She is an investment officer in the Birmingham, Ala., office of Wells Fargo Advisors.

Mark Plant (Col ’77 L/M) is director of the human resources department at the International Monetary Foundation. He previously served as a senior personnel manager.

David McCullough (Engr ’72) published an article in Independent Teacher about a writing/performance project he developed with his third-grade students over the past several years. Mr. McCullough has been a lower school teacher at Springside School for 19 years.

Robert Balmer (Engr ’68) had a book, Modern Engineering Thermodynamics, published by Elsevier. He is dean emeritus of engineering and computer science at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., and professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Pete Dunn (Engr ’67) is a senior systems engineer with Information Technology Engineering Corp., where he supports Raytheon’s global positioning system initiatives. As a retired captain in the U.S. Navy Reserve, Mr. Dunn supports the NROTC candidate screening process in Denver. As associate staff of the Navigators military ministry, he leads Bible studies at Buckley AFB. He also facilitates the Preparedness-for-Life Workshop, helping people prepare for tumultuous times ahead.

Stephen Clarkson (Law ’62) had a book, A Different Time, A Different Man, published by Peter E. Randall Publisher. It is the first biography of presidential cabinet member John L. Sullivan.

Benjamin Fagan (Grad ’11) is among seven individuals who have received fellowships as part of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Visiting Scholars Program. During his yearlong residency in Cambridge, Mr. Fagan will work on a project titled “The Black Newspaper and the American Nation.”

Gabrielle Laskey (Educ ’10) won “Best New Playwright in Southwest Florida” from the Naples Players for her one-act play, The Unseen Character. At the University, Ms. Laskey was a member of the Leonard D. Grissom Playwriting Society.

Zohra Saleh (Col ’09) is in her first year at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry.

Rebekah Edwards O’Dell (Col ’05, Educ ’05) and her husband, Evan, welcomed their first child, Georgia Isabelle, on Sept. 23, 2011. The family resides in Richmond, Va.

Justin Nixon (Com ’03 L/M) and Hadley Drake Nixon (Col ’04 L/M) welcomed their first child, Emerson Virginia, on Aug. 30, 2011. The family resides in Chapel Hill, N.C.