“Other” Class Notes

Monty Harris (Col ’96 CM) and his wife, Bryce, welcomed a son, Steele Montgomery, on March 15, 2013. Steele joins big siblings Bode, 9; Kaki, 8; and Leila, 4. The family resides in Free Union, Va. Mr. Harris is a corporate managing director in the Northern Virginia office of Studley, a commercial real estate firm.

Gerald Funk (Col ’95, Engr ’98 CM) has joined Dewberry, a privately held professional services firm, as a senior project manager in the firm’s Virginia Beach office. His responsibilities will include managing and designing water/wastewater projects and expanding Dewberry’s water/wastewater services into the Hampton Roads market. Mr. Funk has 15 years of engineering experience, primarily involving the inspection, evaluation, design and rehabilitation of water/wastewater collection system infrastructure. Previously, he served as a task order and project manager for the Hampton Roads Sanitation District’s utility relocation program.

Eric Hairston (Grad ’04) published The Ebony Column with the University of Tennessee Press. The book explores how the myths, cultures and ideals of antiquity influenced intellectual figures such as Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois and helped African Americans reconceptualize their role in a Euro-American world. The Ebony Column is the first book in a series about classicism in American culture. Mr. Hairston is an associate professor of English, law and humanities at Elon University.

Scott Cooney (Com ’94) has published Extinct for a Reason, a quirky humor book of fictitious animals that failed to survive the evolutionary cut, with Simon & Schuster and Gallery Books. Adam Adler illustrated the book. Mr. Cooney, who has worked as writer and creative director in advertising, is a copywriter at DDB on Madison Avenue in New York.

Brian Eley (Col ’93) has been promoted to vice president of communications for Animal Planet. A 10-year veteran of Discovery Communications, he has been with the Animal Planet brand for more than seven years and with TLC for three. Mr. Eley resides in New York City.

Heather Mitchell (Arch ’92 CM) is a principal and owner of The Boudreaux Group, an architecture firm that specializes in religious, municipal, corporate, civic and education projects. She is one of only a few women to be a principal and owner of a major architecture firm in South Carolina. Ms. Mitchell joined The Boudreaux Group as an intern, was promoted to corporate associate in 1998 and to principal in 2004. She has served as president of the firm since 2006.

John Bielski (Grad ’92) was recognized as a 2013 Super Lawyer by Philadelphia Magazine. He is an attorney in the Philadelphia office of Willig, Williams & Davidson, where his practice focuses on labor and employment law.

David Osgood (Grad ’91, Grad ’96) has been promoted to associate professor of biology at Albright College in Reading, Pa., where he teaches courses in environmental issues, ecology, watershed hydrology and conservation biology. Mr. Osgood’s academic research focuses on wetland restoration, watershed hydrology and ecology, invasive plants, tropical ecology and Latin American studies.

Laura Marshall (Col ’91 CM) has joined the Richmond office of Hunton & Williams as a partner. Prior to joining the firm, she was an assistant United States attorney for the United States Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Virginia, where she prosecuted cases involving investment fraud, health care fraud and organized crime, and led task forces targeting identity theft and money laundering. Her practice at Hunton & Williams will focus on internal investigations, regulatory and civil enforcement, and white-collar criminal defense.

Bonnie Hoffman (Col ’91 CM) received the 2013 Heeney Award from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL). Given annually, the award recognizes the member who best exemplifies the goals and values of the association and the legal profession. Ms. Hoffman is a deputy public defender for the 20th Judicial Circuit in Leesburg, Va., where she is certified in misdemeanor, felony, juvenile and death penalty representation by the Virginia State Bar. She serves on the NACDL’s board of directors and on the Juvenile Justice Collaborative in the Leesburg area.

John Lowery (Col ’90 CM) has been promoted to the rank of full professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Lowery is chair and graduate coordinator of the department of student affairs in higher education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught since 2008.

Ted Craig (Col ’89 CM) has been included in the 2013 edition of Florida Super Lawyers. He is an attorney in the commercial litigation group of Gray Robinson in Miami, where his practice focuses on defending national class action lawsuits in state and federal courts at both the trial and appellate levels.

John Armstrong (Med ’88 CM) has been reappointed as Florida’s state surgeon general after serving in the position for one year. He took the oath of office for the second time on June 5, 2013. In his first year as state surgeon general, Dr. Armstrong launched the statewide Healthiest Weight Initiative, strengthened the state’s trauma system and reorganized the Florida Department of Health to enhance integration between the state health office and 67 county health departments.

Donna Schminkey (Col ’85, Nurs ’88 CM) has received a nursing scholarship from the March of Dimes for graduate and doctoral studies in the field of maternal-child nursing. Ms. Schminkey, a candidate for a 2018 Ph.D. from U.Va.’s School of Nursing, is specializing in multidisciplinary research on how social, emotional and psychological factors influence the biological processes of birth and child neurodevelopment. She has more than 26 years of experience in nursing and midwifery.

Deidre Connelly (Educ ’84, Educ ’86) has been designated a certified consultant by the Association for Applied Sport Psychology. Ms. Connelly is a sport psychology consultant and life skills coordinator in the department of intercollegiate athletics at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., as well as a member of the college’s counseling center, where she provides consultation and support to athletes and coaches in mental training skills and resilience building. She teaches sport psychology courses and regularly presents on stress and energy management and life balance.

W. Scott (Com ’83 CM) was named a top attorney in Pennsylvania by the 2013 edition of Super Lawyers. He has been named to the list annually since 2007. He is the chair of the real estate and lending group for the Pittsburgh law firm of Meyer Unkovic & Scott, where his practice focuses on counseling clients on the structuring, negotiation and documentation of sophisticated real estate transactions. Mr. Scott resides in Sewickley, Pa.

Lance Olsen (Grad ’82, Grad ’85) received both a Guggenheim Fellowship for his fiction and the 2013 Berlin Prize in Fiction from the American Academy in Berlin. Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, has invited him as a Mellon Visiting Scholar for the month of October 2013, during which time he will help set up an innovative creative writing program. The university will use Mr. Olsen’s anti-textbook, Architectures of Possibility: After Innovative Writing, as a foundation for the program. Mr. Olsen, who has written numerous novels, critical studies and short story collections, is a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.