Class Notes
Bhakti Patel (Col ’99)
Bhakti Patel (Col ’99) has been appointed as Managing Principal of the Austin, Texas office at CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, which is a top ten professional services firm offering assurance, tax, consulting and wealth advisory services.
Ann Cargile (Col ’82)
Ann Cargile (Col ’82, Law ’86 CM) has been elected president of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers. As president, Cargile will lead more than 1,000 prominent real estate leaders across the country.
Cargile has previously served as president elect, vice president and chairperson of various committees. She is currently a partner in the firm’s Nashville office and a member of Bradley’s Real Estate Practice Group where she represents parties in all aspects of commercial real estate, including leasing, finance and joint ventures.
Cargile is a frequent author and speaker on real estate topics and is known for her impact on Tennessee condominium law. She has been consistently listed in Chambers USA and The Best Lawyers in America® in the area of real estate since 2003.
Valorie Young (Col ’04)
Valorie Young (Col `04 CM) has launched two CBD brands: Uncle Yogi’s and Kadii (pronounced caddie). The products contain zero THC. Uncle Yogi’s is a health and wellness brand that focuses on all natural and organic skincare. It’s named after Valorie’s late brother, nicknamed Uncle Yogi, who struggled with an opiate addiction after a back injury. In his honor, the brand donates 5% of all sales to organizations around Charlottesville that aid in combating opiate and drug addiction.
The second brand, Kadii, is inspired by golf. The products are based on Valorie’s husband’s experience as a professional golf caddie. Through his work, he came to understand the problems golfers have with their physical and mental game. Kadii offers products to help with both.
Susan Schmidt (Grad ’73)
Susan Schmidt (Grad ’72, ’80) has published Drought Drought Torrential, a book of poetry that captures a naturalist’s view of the first year of the pandemic in Beaufort, N.C. A scientist, poet, sailboat captain, and Quaker naturalist, Schmidt celebrates neighbors in her small town —dolphins, clouds, egrets, terns, willets, black skimmers, oystercatchers, herons, gannets. She witnesses coastal diversity and resilience, threatened by sea level rise, King Tides, motorboat wakes, and tourist trash. As a developmental editor, Schmidt polishes science and history books, novels, and memoirs. She has been a professor of literature and environmental decision-making, government science-policy analyst, and just renewed her Coast Guard Captain’s license, which she’s had forty years.
Her poems appear in Literary Trails of Eastern North Carolina and won the Guy Owen, Gail O’Day, and Robert Golden poetry prizes; two poems were finalists for the James Applewhite Prize. She wrote Landfall Along the Chesapeake, In the Wake of Captain John Smith, an ecological history and boat adventure; Song of Moving Water, a novel about a young woman who organizes her community to oppose a dam; Salt Runs in My Blood, poems about fish, birds, playing in boats, walking long trails; Let Go or Hold Fast, Beaufort Poems about coastal critters, sea level rise, hurricanes, and tourist trash.
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.
Joseph Fry (Grad ’70, Grad ’74)
Joseph A. Fry (Grad ’70, ’74) has published Letters from the Southern Homefront: The American South Responds to the Vietnam War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2023). This edited collection of letters provides a voice to southerners from across the region expressing a broad range of political, economic, racial, and cultural views on the war and its domestic impact.
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.
Rose Hartwell (Col ’19)
Rosie Hartwell (Col ’19) was crowned the new Miss Arlington on Dec. 3, 2022. Miss Arlington is a preliminary competition to Miss Virginia and Miss America. Rosie won the title with a Broadway tap dance routine and a social impact initiative of financial literacy. She will represent Arlington at the Miss Virginia competition in June.
Matt Trogdon (Col ’04)
Matt Trogdon (Col ’04 CM) and Sarah Devine were married on June 18, 2022 in Washington, DC. Matt is a financial advisor at Craftwork Capital, LLC, an independent advisory firm in the DC area. Sara is a foreign service officer at the U.S. Department of State. The couple currently lives in Washington with their beloved rescue pup, Maisie.
james lewis (Col ’76)
James Lewis (Col ’76 CM) has been elected to a two-year term as Chief Judge of the Virginia Beach Circuit Court.
Alana Ritenour (Col ’02)
Alana Malick Ritenour (Col ’02 CM) and her husband, Rhodes Ritenour (Col ’00, Law ’05 CM) have published a children’s book called The Adventures of Rhodes and Alana: School Bus Secret. Eight-year-old Rhodes and Alana miss the school bus, leading to an exciting journey and an opportunity for Rhodes to tell Alana about living with type 1 diabetes. As a result, a new friendship is formed between these two spirited and confident kids. Proceeds benefit the American Diabetes Association, JDRF, and TheDiabetesSupportGroup.org. For more, visit www.RhodesandAlana.com.
David Massey (Col ’81, Law ’84 CM)
David Massey (Col ’81, Law ’84) released his sixth album of original music – Darkness At Dawn – in August 2022. The record peaked at number 4 on the Roots Music Report’s Country/Americana album chart and at number 15 on the RMR’s Country album chart. Darkness at Dawn and David’s five previous releases are available on the major streaming platforms; several videos are available on youtube, and reviews and other information are at www.davemasseymusic.com.
Mark Harris (Col ’96)
Mark H. Harris (Col ’96) has co-written his first book, The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar, to be published by Simon & Schuster/Saga Press in February 2023. The Black Guy Dies First explores the Black journey in modern horror cinema, from the fodder epitomized by Spider Baby to the Oscar-winning cinematic heights of Get Out and beyond.
Steven Schaikewitz (Col ’70)
Steven Schaikewitz (Col ’70 CM) recently coauthored “Variations on a Theme: Georgia’s Evolving Test for Interlocutory Injunctive Relief”. The article appeared in the August 2022 issue of the Georgia Bar Journal.
Jim Flinn (Col ’76)
Jim Flinn (Col ’76, Grad ’98) looks forward to catching up with classmates in 2026 at the 50th anniversary reunion of the class of 1976.
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.
Bruce Russell (Col ’97 CM)
Bruce H. Russell II (Col ’97 CM) has been selected as a fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation. The foundation supports projects throughout the Commonwealth that facilitate access to justice, promote an appreciation and understanding of the rule of law, and provide law-related education in support of these ideals. Fellows are recognized as leaders in the profession, not just in their practices but in their communities, and comprise a group of more than 600 of the best and brightest legal practitioners, committed to the highest ideals of the law and to the concept of the citizen lawyer. Nominees are put forth confidentially by their peers, and voted upon by a blue-ribbon panel of distinguished practitioners. Russell has practiced in his native Southwest Virginia for over twenty years, most of which he has spent in private practice in his offices in Abingdon, Lebanon, and Tazewell. Russell currently serves as president of the Russell County Bar and the 28th Circuit Criminal Defense Bar, and is immediate past president of the Virginia Mountain/Valley Lawyers’ Alliance. He is also on the board of the Southwest Virginia Legal Aid Society, sits on the Virginia Bar Association’s Boyd-Graves Conference, and represents the 28th Circuit on the Virginia State Bar Council. He lives in Abingdon, Virginia with his wife, Shannon, their sons, Clark and Eamon, and their four dogs.
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.
Deborah Hammond (Arch ’82 CM)
Deborah Sheetenhelm Hammond (Arch ’82 CM) has released her 26th novel, The Very Thought of You. It follows the cases of FBI Agent John McIver, who is pulled from his customary undercover work to oversee the stalking investigation of a famous actress, Charlotte Meadows. Chased across two continents, the stalker seeks to overturn Charlotte’s life and end John’s. This novel and Hammond’s other titles are available on Amazon.com in both Kindle and paperback versions and at local book signing events.
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