Class Notes

Charles Siu (Com ’92, ’95 CM) is director of tax and accounting at Dynamic Facility Designs, LLC in Alexandria, Virginia.

Tara Wheeler Prather (COM ’90 CM) has started a new position as the alumnae engagement manager for Alpha Gamma Delta Fraternity, Inc. Based in Indianapolis, Alpha Gamma Delta is an international women’s fraternity and is part of the National Panhellenic Conference.  Prather works from her home in Valrico, Florida where she lives with her husband and son.

Richard Strulson (Col ’90 CM) has retired from his position as general counsel, chief compliance officer and corporate secretary of Interior Logic Group, after negotiating and finalizing the sale of the company to Blackstone, one of the country’s largest private equity funds. In his position at Interior Logic Group, the nation’s largest interior finishing company, Richard was responsible for all legal and compliance matters, oversaw the company’s active mergers and acquisitions program, and managed the company’s human resources group.  Richard is currently an adjunct professor at USC Gould School of Law, teaching mergers and acquisitions, and also serves on various boards.

Rev. Jack Peterson (Col ’85) has written his first book, Jesus Himself Drew Near: A Spirituality for Shaping the Lives of Young People. He serves as the director of mission and development for Youth Apostles, a community of Catholic men based in McLean, Virginia who strive to bring young people closer to Christ. His book is based upon the premise that mentors must first know and love Jesus before they can authentically invite others to encounter Him.

Milton F. “Eric” Tyler IV (Col ’14 CM) and Samantha L. Tyler (Col ’14, Educ ’14 CM) celebrated the birth of their first child, Milton F. “Finn” Tyler V on July 31st, 2023.  They live in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Eric is completing his general surgery residency and Samantha works in financial literacy education for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. 

Wolfgang Dreschler (Grad ’86 CM) and co-authors Rainer Kattel and Erkki Karo have won the Academy of Management’s 2023 George R. Terry Award for their book How to Make an Entrepreneurial State: Why Innovation Needs Bureaucracy. The George R. Terry award is granted annually to the book judged to have made the most outstanding contribution to the global advancement of management knowledge during the last two years.

https://aom.org/membership/awards-and-recognition/george-r-terry-book-award/2023-george-r-terry-book-award

Gunes Hopson (Col ’97, Law ’01 CM) has started her own travel business, Luxe Travel by Gunes. She provides curated luxury travel planning services to her clients, taking care of all the details so that they can relax.

Mark Trank (Law ’90 CM) and his wife Andrea Trank (Col ’80, Educ ’97, ’04 CM) have moved back to Virginia after 15 years in southwest Florida. Mark, who has spent more three decades in legal practice and has a passion for aiport law, has joined the Norfolk Airport Authority as senior vice president and general Counsel.  Mark and Andrea live in Norfolk’s historic Ghent district and will be welcoming their three sons and their wives and significant others, and especially their 4-year old granddaughter to their new home. 

Mark Scharf (Grad ’84 CM) has published the play Final Respects (Brooklyn Publishing). His play Clean Up was published in the journal Literature Today in July 2023.

Luke Hopkins (Engr ’08) and Sara Hutter Hopkins (Com ’08, ’09 CM) lovingly welcomed a second son, Owen Hutter, on April 20, 2023. The family, including big brother Will, lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Jessica Botta (Col ’96 CM) graduated this May from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development with a master of arts degree in food studies.  Jessica lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Dr. Thomas F. Smith (Col ’71, Med ’74 CM) has published his first book, The Search For King: A Fable, written in verse, and is completing his second book, Strange Creatures & Odd Bedfellows: Selected Poems. He also has published haiku and limericks in literary journals. He retired from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis as professor of pediatrics in 1998 to enter private practice. His current academic affiliation is adjunct professor of internal medicine and pediatrics in the College of Medicine at Texas A&M Health Science Center. He and his wife, their three children and four grandchildren live in Austin, Texas. He can be reached through his web site authorthomasmith.com.

CJ Bowie (Com ’14) and Kathleen Bowie (Col ’13, Nurs ’20 CM) welcomed a daughter, Chloe Grace, on June 13, 2023. 

Lindsey Jensen (Col ’13) is getting married to Bryan Dale (Engr ’14 CM) at Moss Vineyards, north of Charlottesville, on Sept. 16, 2023.

Patti Hartigan (Col ’82 CM) has published August Wilson: A Life, the first authoritative and definitive biography of August Wilson, the most important and successful American playwright of the late 20th century. The biography, published by Simon and Schuster, debuts August 15.

The acclaimed Wilson wrote a series of plays celebrating African American life in the 20th century, one play for each decade. Through his brilliant use of vernacular speech, Wilson developed unforgettable characters who epitomized the trials and triumphs of the African American experience. He said that he didn’t research his plays but wrote from “the blood’s memory,” a sense of racial history that he believed African Americans shared. A former theater critic and arts reporter for the Boston Globe, Hartigan traced his ancestry back to slavery, illustrating how his plays echo with uncanny similarities to the history of his ancestors. She interviewed Wilson many times before his death and chronicles his life from his childhood in Pittsburgh (where nine of the plays take place) to Broadway. She also interviewed scores of friends, theater colleagues and family members, and conducted extensive research to tell the story of a writer who left an indelible imprint on American theater and opened the door for future playwrights of color.

Wade Morris (Col ’04) is publishing Report Cards: A Cultural History with Johns Hopkins University Press. The book traces the nearly two hundred year history of American education by examining how grades have reflected the shifting power dynamics between teachers, parents, and students.

Morris argues that report cards reflected broader shifts in the evolution of U.S. schools: the republican zealotry and religious fervor of the antebellum period, the failed promises of postwar Reconstruction for the formerly enslaved, the changing gender roles in newly urbanized cities, the overreach of the Progressive child-saving movement in the early twentieth century, and―by the 1930s―the increasing faith in an academic meritocracy. The use of report cards expanded with the growth of school bureaucracies, becoming a tool through which administrators could surveil both student activity and teachers. And by the late 20th century, even the most radical critics of numerical reporting of children have had to compromise their ideals.