Class Notes

L. Michael Gracik (Com ’75 CM) was named the Virginia Society of CPAs’ outstanding member for 2020. Gracik is the second member of that class to receive the award. Harry D. Dickinson (Com ’75, Grad ’76) received the award in 2018.

Deborah E. Sheetenhelm Hammond (Arch ’82) published her 22nd novel, Wesbury. Quentin Killington returns from a prolonged stay in India, working for the East India Company in order to amass his fortune and marry childhood love, Rosemary Whitcomb. When he returns home, he is stunned to learn that his life will not be as he planned. He must now face the Regency England bon ton alone and on his own terms. This and all of Hammond’s novels are available on Amazon and at local book signings and events.

Matthew C. Meade published his first book, Wisdom on the Way to Wall Street: 22 Steps to Navigate Your Road to Success, after nearly 15 years of working on Wall Street.  

Matthew Reames (Educ ’15) was awarded the Stewart Bell Jr. Excellence in Teaching Award by the Handley Board of Trustees in September, 2020. He is currently a math teacher at Daniel Morgan Intermediate School in Winchester, Virginia, and an adjunct associate professor at Shenandoah University.

Myron Steele (Col ’67, Law ’70 CM), a lawyer with Potter Anderson & Corroon, was recognized by the the Delaware State Bar Association with the organization’s First State Distinguished Service Award. He was also recognized in the summer 2020 edition of Senior Lawyer News, published by the Virginia State Bar, as a recipient of the organization’s Fifty Year Award. Steele is the former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Delaware. Previously, he served as a judge of the Superior Court and a vice chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery after 18 years in private litigation practice. 

Dorothy Blum (Educ ’77) received the Lifetime Achievement Award for her distinguished leadership, work and service to the profession of employee assistance and to the Employee Assistance Professionals Association. Blum received the award at the association’s World Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Blum is currently the employee assistance program manager for the architect of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. From 1987 to 2010, she worked as contracted EAP director for the Nationwide Employee Assistance Program for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, formerly U.S. Customs Service.

Charlie Cameron (Engr ’11 CM) and Greta Slotness Cameron (Engr ’12 CM) welcomed their second child, Logan Charles, on June 16, 2020. Logan joins big sister Riley, 3. The family lives in Niceville, Florida, where both Mr. and Ms. Cameron are active duty Air Force officers and real estate investors.

Deniz Z. Ataman (Col ’09) scored the music for the film, Bottled, written, directed and starred by Christine Sloan Stoddard. Now available on Amazon Prime, the film has received press coverage from Broad Street and Shades of Long Island and was selected by the 2020 NYLIFF, SHIFT:ibpcpa/Scotland, and CelebrateWomxn845. 

Deniz and Christine also collaborated on the poetry film, Butterflies (2020) starring Disnie Sebastien, which was selected as a 2020 Visual Poetry Project. The film was scored by Deniz, directed and written by Christine and written by Teri Elam. 

Paul E. Stroble (Grad ’91) has published a poetry chapbook, “Backyard Darwin,” and a full-length poetry book, Walking Lorton Bluff, both with Finishing Line Press. He is adjunct faculty at Webster University and Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis. 

James Tyson Currie (Grad ’69, ’75 CM) has reached his final retirement after a nearly 50 years of working. He attended the last two years of U.S. Army ROTC as a graduate student at UVA, the only one in his ROTC cohort, receiving his commission as a second lieutenant in 1970. He spent a total of 30 years in the Army, active and reserve, reaching the rank of colonel. He taught history and political science at the college and university level for many years, including three years at Jackson State University and 18 years at the National Defense University, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, a Defense Department senior service college. He worked on Capitol Hill for almost eight years, serving as associate historian of the U.S. House of Representatives and as a staffer for U.S. Senators Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX), David Boren (D-OK), and John Glenn (D-OH). He was director of Federal Relations for the National Association of State Treasurers and Legislative Affairs Director for the National Marine Manufacturers Association. For the past six years, he was executive director of the Commissioned Officers Association of the U.S. Public Health Service, a nonprofit, nonpartisan entity that represents the uniformed officers of the U.S. Public Health Service. He is a 20-year member of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and has appeared as an extra in such series as House of Cards and Homeland. He is the author of three books and 30 peer-reviewed articles and has had two pieces published in the “Humor in Uniform” section of Readers Digest. He lives with his wife, Janis, in Alexandria, Virginia. Their son Matthew is a graduate student in clinical psychology at Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is currently working on his fourth book, which tells the story of Harry Truman and the World War II Truman Committee of the U.S. Senate.

Bruce H. Russell II (Col ’97 CM) has been named a Leader in Law for 2020 by Virginia Lawyers Weekly magazine. He is the current (and eight-term) president of the Russell County Bar Association, as well as the Washington County Defense Bar.  Russell practices throughout Southwest Virginia out of his firm’s offices in Abingdon, Lebanon, and Tazewell. He and his wife, Shannon, an elementary school special education teacher, live in Abingdon with their two sons, Clark, age 12, and Eamon, age 8, and their miniature dachshund Huckleberry and goldendoodle Luna.

Nelson D. Neal (Educ ’85) published a biography about Hemsley Winfield, the first African American modern dancer. Winfield was a contemporary of the pioneers of modern dance, he founded, directed, choreographed, and danced with his company The New Negro Art Theatre Dance Group from 1931 through 1933. He was the first African American to be contracted by the Metropolitan Opera when he danced the role of the Congo Witch Doctor in The Emperor Jones in 1933. The book describes Winfield’s life and career as an actor, director, dancer, choreographer, and teacher until his untimely death at the age of 26 in 1934. Dr. Neal is the authority on Hemsley Winfield and this is book is the culmination of his 28 years of research. His previous publication, in 2018, was an annotated bibliography about Hemsley Winfield with 511 annotated sources.

Shannon Baxter (Col ’92 CM) joined Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton as a partner. She will be a member of the Atlanta firm’s corporate department and its expanding leveraged finance and private equity teams. She was previously with Dentons US. Baxter has nearly 25 years of experience representing creditors and borrowers in financing transactions. Her clients include large U.S. and non-U.S. banks, finance companies, private equity and hedge funds, and public and private companies. 

Robert M. Tata (Law ’89 CM), managing partner for Hunton Andrews Kurth Norfolk, was recognized by Virginia Business Magazine on its inaugural 2020 “Power List” as one of the Commonwealth’s top 500 business leaders, and as Best Lawyers 2020 “Lawyer of the Year (Norfolk) for Intellectual Property” and 2021 “Lawyer of the Year (Norfolk) for Trade Secrets Law.”

Brett Herbert (Col ’10), an attorney with the firm Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, was recognized by his peers in the inaugural edition of Best Lawyers©: Ones to Watch 2021 in the practice area of commercial litigation. He practices out of the firm’s Williamsburg, Virginia, office.

Angela Cleveland (Col ’87 CM) and her family have moved from Europe back to the USA and are now based in Houston, where Angela works in mergers and acquisitions/new business development for Shell Exploration and Production covering upstream, integrated gas and new energies.

Grace Gillen (Col ’18 CM) has completed her first year at VCU School of Dentistry in Richmond, Virginia. She expects to graduate as a doctor of dental surgery with the class of 2023.

Duncan Clarke (Grad ’70) published a novel, A Little Rebellion Is a Good Thing: Troubles at Traymore College. It is a fictionalized account of his year (1969-1970) as an associate professor of political science at Radford College, then a public women’s college. Among other things, that time saw successful lawsuits against the college and its repressive president which eventually led to the removal of the longest-serving college president in the Old Dominion, coeducation and the founding of Radford University, and restoration of long-denied academic freedoms and civil liberties for faculty and students.

Mark Andrew Bradley (Law ’83) will publish his second book, Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America, in October 2020. Publishers Weekly calls it “a page-turning study of the 1969 triple murder of union leader Joseph Yablonski and his wife and daughter, and the crime’s impact on the United MIne Workers of America and organized labor in general… The result is both a juicy true crime story and a tribute to the power of effective labor movements.” 

Charles Pesant (Col ’99) joined global law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison as a partner in the corporate department and the securitization practice group. Pesant focuses his practice on highly complex domestic and cross-border structured finance deals. Over the course of his career, Charles has represented many of the world’s leading financial institutions, private equity firms and their portfolio companies, and a variety of public and private corporate clients. 

Casey Chalk (Col ’07, Educ ’07) and his wife, Claire, welcomed a son, Lawrence Casimir, on Aug. 18, 2020. He joins siblings Annemarie, 7; Thomas, 5; and Elizabeth,3. Chalk lives in Fairfax, Virginia, and received a master’s in theology from Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, in August 2020. He is a columnist for New Oxford Review and Crisis Magazine.

Virgil Atwell Motley Jr. (Med ’55 CM) married Jeanne Austin Preston on Aug. 8, 2020 at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Abingdon, Virginia.

Jeannette Lichner (Com ’79, Coll ’80 CM) joined the board of the UK Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates the financial services industry, as a non-executive director. This role is in addition to her non-executive director roles at Miller Insurance Services, the Local Trust which supports 150 of the most left behind UK communities, the International Women’s Forum UK, and Elucidate GmBH a start up regulatory technology company.  She is also an executive coach and has published numerous articles on leadership, governance, and personal finance. Lichner is a member of the McIntire Global Advisory Board. She and her husband live in London, England, where she has lived since 1984.

Rachel Vanderhill (Grad ’09), chair of Wofford College’s Department of Government & International Affairs, has published the book Autocracy and Resistance in the Internet Age. The book examines how social media is both aiding and undermining autocratic regimes in the Middle East, North Africa, and the former Soviet republics. Her previous books include Promoting Authoritarianism Abroad and The International Dimensions of Authoritarian Persistence: Lessons from Post-Soviet States (co-edited with Michael Aleprete Jr.). 

Lee Fanning (Med ’70) recently published Rescues from the Sky under the pseudonym Lee F. Walters. The book tells the harrowing real-life stories from his time with the U.S. Coast Guardas a newly trained flight surgeon.

Judith Baroody (Grad ’85 CM) published Casablanca Blue: Tales of Revenge, Romance and Riches on Amazon. The 10 short stories are set in locations around the world, including the University of Virginia, the Farmington Country Club, Paris, Casablanca, Santiago, and Hollywood. Baroody previously published a textbook, Media Access and the Military, now in its fifth edition, and contributed a chapter to Quills to Tweets: How America Communicates about War and Revolution. She retired from the Foreign Service after 33 years and lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, Dr. Richard Krueger.  

Nakita Reed (Arch ’06), an associate with Quinn Evans, has been selected as a member of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Cultural Heritage Stewardship Initiative Advisory Committee. The new program, led by a partnership of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the JPB Foundation, and The Executive Leadership Council, will provide technical assistance and fund preservation-based stewardship plans at up to eight HBCU campuses across the country.

Laura Paskus (Col ’96) will publish her new book, At the Precipice: New Mexico’s Changing Climate in September 2020. A longtime journalist, Paskus works for NM PBS, hosting and producing a monthly program, “Our Land: New Mexico’s Environmental Past, Present and Future,” and working on a year-long investigation into the U.S. military’s contamination of groundwater in the state. 

Kenneth Monroe Jr. (Col ’60 CM) writes “Just living the good life while splitting my time between Virginia and Florida. Have two sons and two grandchildren living in Midlothian. Occasionally get to a UVA football game.”

Ben Tisdell (Com ’97 CM) and Alexis Siggers (Col ’99 CM) relocated to the Washington, D.C. area with their three children after seven years living in Asia. Ben oversees international loan workouts and other special situations for the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group. Alexis is a high school special education teacher.

Tom Pettigrew (Col ’52) published his fifth book, Contextual Social Psychology: Reanalyzing Prejudice, Voting and Intergroup Contact. The book reviews Pettigrew’s life’s work in social psychology and analyzes the 2016 vote for Donald Trump. Pettigrew is 89 years old and has been retired from the University of California, Santa Cruz for 26 years.

Nancy Grace Parr (Col ’80 CM) was elected president of the National District Attorneys Association. The first Virginian to serve as president of the association, she has served as the commonwealth attorney for the city of Chesapeake, Virginia, since 2005. In January 2020, she was appointed by U.S. Attorney General William Barr to serve as a commissioner on the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice.

Blake R. Silver (Grad ’16, ’17) published The Cost of Inclusion: How Student Conformity Leads to Inequality on College Campuses. Young people are told that college is a place where they will “find themselves” by engaging with diversity and making friendships that will last a lifetime. This vision of an inclusive, diverse social experience is a fundamental part of the image colleges sell potential students. But what really happens when students arrive on campus and enter this new social world? The Cost of Inclusion delves into this rich moment to explore the ways students seek out a sense of belonging and the sacrifices they make to fit in.

Kyle Mallinak (Law ’13) married Stella Kamm on July 25, 2020. Mr. and Mrs. Mallinak are both practicing attorneys in Nashville, Tennessee.

Mary Caufield Baldridge (Educ ’10) was selected by the U.S. Department of State for a one-month English language specialist project focusing on production of an English writing textbook in Georgia at Tbilisi State University. Baldridge is part of a select group, as her project is one of 130 that the English Language Specialist Program supports each year. Baldridge was an English Language Fellow in Tbilisi, Georgia, during the 2019-20 academic year. During her fellowship, she conducted workshops for English instructors and K-12 teachers at Tbilisi State University, Kutaisi University, and Gori University for the English Teachers’ Association of Georgia. Dr. Baldridge recently retired from Fairfax County Public Schools where she taught secondary English, ESOL, and AP Psychology. She earned a doctorate in education from UVA and received her master’s degree in education from Harvard University.

Michael Coulter (Col ’76 CM) is retiring from a career in software engineering after more than 27 years at Hewlett Packard and 14-plus years at Oracle. He will be staying in San Carlos, California. He is considering the possibility of teaching computer science at the local community college.

Albert Wei Hsu (Engr ’00 CM) and his wife, Jeanie Lin, welcomed their first child, JuanFer “Junior” Hsu, on July 2, 2020. The family lives in Taipei, Taiwan, where Albert is employed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Eliza Valentine Holzbach (Col ’12) married Grant Willis Holzbach on March 21, 2020, in Richmond, Virginia. The bride had originally planned to celebrate with many alums but due to Covid-19 had a family ceremony in her parents backyard. Several UVA alumni were present, including the father and mother of the bride, Thomas Valentine (Col ’80) and Deborah Huger Valentine (Col ’80); and the bride’s brother and sister-in-law, Tee Valentine (Darden ’16) and Elizabeth Eldred Valentine (Col ’09). The bride and groom were virtually surrounded by bridesmaids: Jessie Sauer (Col ’12), Ann Johnson Mitchell (Col ’12), Margaret Szumski Grymes (Col ’12), Renee Brown (Col ’12) and groomsman, Greg O’Brien (Col ’08). The couple lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Victor Deupi (Arch ’86 CM), published a new book, Emilio Sanchez in New York and Latin America. The book focuses on the life and artistic activities of Emilio Sanchez (1921–1999) in New York, and Latin America in the 1940s and 1950s. More specifically, the book examines Sanchez within the wider context of mid-century Cuban artists, and cross-cultural exchange between New York, Cuba, and the Caribbean. The book reflects on why Sanchez chose to be a mobile observer of the American and Caribbean vernacular at a time when such an approach seemed at odds with the mainstream avant-garde. This book will be of interest to scholars in modern art, Caribbean studies, architectural history, and Latin American and Hispanic studies.