“Other” Class Notes

Teri Lovelace (Col ’82 CM) has been named vice president of community investments and impact at Virginia Community Capital, a social enterprise based in Richmond, Va., that focuses on access to capital for community and economic development projects in Virginia. In this role, Ms. Lovelace is responsible for developing and overseeing all mission-related investment and community-impact programs.

Ida Hill (Educ ’81 CM) has been elected to serve a three-year term on the board of the Altrusa International Foundation, where she will be responsible for assisting in the management of funds and projects. Ms. Hill is a retired educator who, until recently, was an adjunct faculty member in the Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University. She retired in 1997 from the Virginia Department of Education after 10 years of service as deputy superintendent and assistant superintendent. Prior to her tenure at the state level, she worked in a number of educational positions, including as director of technology for Henrico County Public Schools; vice president for programming at WCVE/WCVW-TV; a television utilization specialist; and a language arts specialist with Richmond Public Schools.

Hayden Saunier (Col ’79 CM) received the 2013 Gell Poetry Prize for her second book of poetry, Say Luck, published by Writers and Books/Big Pencil Press. In addition to Say Luck, she is the author of Tips for Domestic Travel and a chapbook, Field Trip to the Underworld. Ms. Saunier’s work appears widely in journals and periodicals and her poetry has been awarded the 2011 Pablo Neruda Prize, the 2011 Rattle Poetry Prize, the Keystone Award and the 2005 Robert Fraser Award.

John Whitfield (Col ’77, Law ’81) has been appointed co-chair of the Virginia Access to Justice Commission by Chief Justice Cynthia Kinser. The commission seeks to promote equal access to justice in Virginia, with particular emphasis on the civil legal needs of Virginia residents, and expand access to civil justice for low-income and disadvantaged persons. Whitfield is the executive director of Blue Ridge Legal Services, a nonprofit legal aid society that provides free civil legal assistance to low-income residents of the Shenandoah and Roanoke valleys of Virginia.

Jim Sencindiver (Col ’77 CM) retired from the federal government June 3, 2013, after 31 years of service. He began his career as a U.S. Navy submarine officer, graduating from the Naval Nuclear Power School (now the Nuclear Power Program) and Basic Enlisted Submarine School, where he qualified on submarines, earning the “gold dolphins” of the Submarine Warfare Insignia before reporting to the USS James Monroe. Mr. Sencindiver was later assigned to Commander, Submarine Force Atlantic staff as the ballistic missile submarine maintenance and new construction officer. At the end of his shore tour in 1983, he resigned from active duty and joined the Naval Reserve, where he rose to the rank of commander before retiring in 2000. He worked for five years with two defense contractors before beginning work as a civil service general engineer in 1989, supporting various offices in the Naval Sea Systems Command and NAVSEA-related program executive offices in Crystal City, Va., and later, the Washington Navy Yard. In 2008, Mr. Sencindiver transferred to the Marine Corps Systems Command at Quantico, Va., to work as a “system of systems” systems engineer. He currently resides with his wife, Sheila, in a 102-year-old house in Fredericksburg, Va., that will keep him busy in his retirement.  

James Hammersley (Com ’75 CM) retired after 36 years at the U.S. Small Business Administration. He spent his career working in financial assistance programs, specializing in loan making and loan securitization policy. He currently works as a consultant with the International Finance Corp., a subsidiary of the World Bank, where he helps with the bank’s efforts to increase the availability of capital for small businesses in the Middle East. He was invited to address the G-20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, in October 2013 on the subject of securitization of small business loan assets.

James Eyler (Col ’75 CM) is the 2014 chair of the American Hospital Association’s constituency section for psychiatric and substance abuse services. During his one-year term, Mr. Eyler and the governing council will work with the AHA to identify and focus AHA policy, advocacy and member resources to improve the quality, efficiency and delivery of psychiatric and substance abuse services. He is also CEO of Coliseum Center for Behavioral Health, a freestanding psychiatric hospital in Georgia. He resides in the Macon, Ga., area with his wife, Kel-Ann Sheldon Eyler (Com ’77 L/M); and family.

Christopher D’Angelo (Col ’75, Law ’78) served as president of session of the program “Collective and Other Forms of Multiple/Mass Actions: How Far Are We in the EU Member States and the EU and How Far Do We Want to Go? Alternative Ways to Deal with Multiple or Mass Claims?” presented at the International Association of Defense Counsel European meeting in Brussels in May 2013. A member of the International Association of Defense Counsel, Mr. D’Angelo is chairman of the products liability, mass claims and risk management section and chairman of the international practice group at Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads based out of Philadelphia and New York City. He is also a member of the American Law Institute and a contributing author to The Attorney-Client Privilege in Civil Litigation, fifth edition, published by the American Bar Association.

Charles Surber (Col ’74) and Mark Lawrence Troen were married Oct. 13, 2013, in Warwick, N.Y.

Samuel Crosby (Col ’73 CM) received the 2013 Howell T. Heflin Award from the Mobile and Baldwin County, Alabama, Bar Associations. The award is given annually in recognition of an Alabama judge or attorney who has brought honor and integrity to the legal profession during his or her years of service to the citizens of Mobile and Baldwin counties.

George Rooney (Engr ’71) has been recognized as a 2014 Ohio Super Lawyer by Ohio Super Lawyers Magazine. Mr. Rooney is a partner with Roetzel & Andress in Akron, Ohio, where he focuses his practice in the areas of business tort, contract litigation and arbitration, internal litigation, product liability litigation, intellectual property and technology law litigation.

Thomas Morris (Law ’71) received a community service plaque from the Grayslake, Ill., village board for 15 years of public service with the village’s planning commission and zoning board of appeals. During his time on the commission, he participated in rezoning 42 properties, granted 34 zoning ordinance variances, helped create 10 new Grayslake subdivisions and recommended 49 special-use permits for major projects. Mr. Morris is not retiring from village service, but was recently appointed by the mayor and approved by the village board to serve on the board of trustees of the police pension fund, which manages pension fund investments and approves all investment decisions. A retired U.S. Army colonel and former commissioner of the Grayslake Historical Preservation Commission, Mr. Morris has practiced law for more than 40 years.

Joseph Maiolo (Grad ’68) published a book of stories, An Arch of Birches and Other Stories, in December 2013. The book completes the four-volume set of Mr. Maiolo’s short fiction that includes Boy Youth Man: A Triptych of Novellas, Three Frays from Mallorca: And Four Stories and Saint Matthew in Appalachia: And Other Stories. Several of the tales in the new collection are set in northern Minnesota, where Maiolo has taught fiction writing and literature since 1976.

Richard Erickson (Grad ’71 CM) has been named 2013-14 commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 96 in Montgomery, Ala.

Steven Linas (Col ’70 CM) was appointed by then Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell to a four-year term beginning Dec. 6, 2013, as a doctor member of the Virginia State Board of Examiners in Optometry. Dr. Linas lives with his family in Richmond, Va., where he is a practicing partner with the Virginia Eye Institute.

Elizabeth McCrea (Educ ’69) has been named president of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, beginning her yearlong post on Jan. 1, 2014. Ms. McCrea has held multiple volunteer roles within ASHA and is an ASHA fellow. She is a clinical professor emerita of the department of speech and hearing services at Indiana University, where she was both a didactic and clinical educator and served as the director of the department’s R.L. Milisen Speech and Hearing Center for nearly a decade. She continues to work in the clinical education field in support of the externship program of Nova Southeastern University.

I have just published a fictional picture book for children who have lost someone important as a result of incomprehensible violence. Told from the point on view of a preschool child, it is based on the Twin Towers attacks on 9/11. The book has been praised by Helen Fitzgerald, author of “The Grieving Child,” and considered the foremost authority in the nation on childhood grief. The book is based on my work as a children’s grief counselor with Mrs. Fitzgerald for three age-specific groups. It is my hope to get the book into the hands of any child who may need it; there seem to be any number of uses for it when we see some mass shooting that affects child survivors in the news every few weeks in this nation. Please let me know if you would like a press release or review copy. A book trailer may be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljDLZmyN3XE. Thank you.