John C. Anstey ’93
Appointed By: Governor Glenn Youngkin
Term: 2023 – 2027
John Anstey is president and CEO of Anstey Hodge Advertising Group. His work has won numerous awards, including the American Advertising Federation’s highest honor, the Silver Medal Award for lifetime achievement. Anstey began his career in communications at the Reliance Insurance Company in Philadelphia and served as director of client services for The O’Connor Group regional ad firm. He founded the Anstey Hodge agency in 2003 and was named the following year to the Blue Ridge Business Journal’s “Top 20 Under 40 List” of up-and-coming business leaders. He’s held leadership roles with the United Way of Roanoke Valley, the Roanoke Valley SPCA, Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Philadelphia Corporate Volunteer Council and the Public Relations Society of America. He is a graduate of the Roanoke College Management Institute and the Roanoke Regional Chamber’s Leadership Roanoke Valley program. Anstey is a 1993 Who’s Who graduate of Mary Washington, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English. He served as founding chair of UMW’s College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Board and received the 2017 Distinguished Alumnus Award. He also earned a master’s degree in English from Longwood University and an MBA from Wake Forest University. He and wife Dr. Kara Lee Matala ’94, also a Mary Washington graduate, have two daughters.
Devon Williams Cushman ’93
Appointed By: Governor Terence R. McAuliffe
First Term: 2017-2021
Appointed By: Governor Ralph S. Northam
Second Term: 2021-2025
Devon Williams Cushman (Rector of the Board of Visitors) is in-house counsel at educational tech company EAB Global, Inc., where she leverages her deep commercial expertise and passion for innovation to lead complex strategic deals. A resident of Richmond, Cushman has worn many hats during her career: business counsel, litigation attorney, law professor, and entrepreneur. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in political science from Mary Washington and earning her Juris Doctorate from the University of Richmond School of Law, she worked as a litigator at Morris & Morris (now McCandlish Holton) and Hirschler, where she was recognized by Virginia Business as “Legal Elite” and by Virginia Super Lawyers as a “Rising Star.” Cushman also has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law and as assistant general counsel at Capital One. She’s also the founder of Dutch Door, an interior styling company. A Boston native who grew up on Long Island, Devon is a member of her law school’s alumni association board and supports the greater Richmond community as a pro bono attorney. She serves as rector of the UMW Board of Visitors.
Andrew T. Lamar ’07
Appointed By: Governor Glenn Youngkin
Term: 2022-2026
Andrew Lamar is the principal of Lamar Consulting, the Richmond-based government affairs and public relations consulting firm he founded in 2012. He also has served as a policy advisor and deputy director of legislative affairs for former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and as a government affairs associate for RhumbLine. Lamar, who holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Mary Washington, is also a Linwood Holton Fellow graduate of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia. He lives in Midlothian with his wife Marit, daughter Betsy Ann and son Brooks.
Patricia G. McGinnis ’69
Appointed By: Governor Terence R. McAuliffe
First Term: 2017-2021
Appointed By: Governor Ralph S. Northam
Second Term: 2021-2025
Patricia “Pat” Gwaltney McGinnis is a public policy consultant and part-time artist in Washington, D.C. She has held positions in government, business, the nonprofit sector, and academia. In government, she served as an advisor to the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs in the Obama Administration. She has also been on the Senate Budget Committee staff, the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Health and Human Services, and the Office of Management and Budget, where she led the effort to create the U.S. Department of Education during the Carter Administration. McGinnis was President and CEO of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government, an organization of business leaders who previously served in government, Founder and principal of public strategy firm FMR Group, McGinnis was a senior associate at international management consulting firm Cresap, McCormick and Paget. McGinnis has also served as a part-time faculty in the Schools of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Georgetown University, and most recently George Washington University where she was Distinguished Professor of Practice at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. She is a member of UMW’s College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Advisory Board, an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a trustee of the Congressional Management Foundation, and director of Caleres Inc. and LMI. McGinnis earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and government from Mary Washington and a master’s degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Princess R. Moss ’83
Appointed By: Governor Timothy M. Kaine
First Term: 2007-2011
Appointed By: Governor Ralph S. Northam
Second Term: 2021-2024
Princess Moss, an education executive and 1983 Mary Washington graduate, has been reappointed to the University of Mary Washington’s Board of Visitors. She takes over a four-year term, succeeding Sharon Bulova of Fairfax. Moss who previously served on the Board of Visitors from 2007 to 2011, is vice president of the National Education Association (NEA). An advocate for the arts in schools, Moss taught in the classroom for 21 years as an elementary school music teacher, while simultaneously championing children and public education at the local, state, and national levels. For nearly four decades, she has supported the NEA’s mission to ensure that students receive well-rounded educations. As secretary-treasurer, a role to which she was appointed in 2014, Moss oversaw the organization’s multimillion-dollar budget and ensured its fiscal integrity. After being elected NEA’s vice president last August, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Moss said her goal is to provide safe learning spaces for all students and to address inequities in public schools that have been laid bare by the crisis. Last summer, she joined UMW College of Education (COE) Dean Pete Kelly and Spotsylvania County Schools Director of Human Resources Melanie Kay-Wyatt ’92 to teach “The Pandemic’s Impact on K-12 Education,” the final installment of UMW’s free eight-week online “COVID-19 in Context” course. Moss also served two terms as president of the NEA-affiliated Virginia Education Association, advocating on behalf of the organization’s 62,000 members for greater investment in public schools; she also spent over a decade on the boards of directors for NEA and VEA. Virginia Governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine both tapped her to serve on the Commonwealth’s P-16 Education Council, which coordinates education reform from preschool to higher learning. Hailing from Louisa County, Virginia, Moss earned her bachelor’s degree in music education from Mary Washington as well as a master’s degree in administration and supervision from the University of Virginia. She was the recipient of UMW’s Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2006 and currently serves as a member of UMW’s COE Advisory Board.
William Lee Murray ’04
Appointed By: Governor Glenn Youngkin
Term: 2022-2026
Lee Murray, a longtime financial advisor, is managing director and partner of wealth management firm Cary Street Partners. He worked previously for financial services giant Edward Jones. A member of the board of directors for the Fredericksburg Economic Development Authority and the board of trustees for Fredericksburg Academy, he also has served on the boards of directors for the Rappahannock Area and Massad Family YMCAs, and for Friends of the Rappahannock. Murray earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration at Mary Washington, where he was a member of the men’s soccer team. He and his wife Karli Schneider Murray ’05 live in downtown Fredericksburg with their two children.
Nicole K. Neily
Appointed By: Governor Glenn Youngkin
Term: 2023 – 2027
Nicole Neily is president and founder of Parents Defending Education (PDE), a national membership organization that helps parents advocate for their children’s education. Prior to launching PDE, she created Speech First, a campus free speech organization. She also has served as president of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, a state-level investigative journalism organization, and as executive director of the Independent Women’s Forum. In the private sector, she has held roles as senior vice president at the crisis communications firm Dezenhall Resources and as director of research analysis for polling firm The Winston Group.Neily earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a master’s degree in economic policy and foreign policy from Pepperdine University School of Public Policy in Malibu, California. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, Clark, and two children.
Dean B. Nelson
Appointed By: Governor Glenn Youngkin
Term: 2023-2027
Rev. Dean Nelson is vice president of government relations for the national nonprofit Human Coalition, serving women and families in metropolitan areas. He chairs the Douglass Leadership Institute, which empowers minority leaders to bring positive change to their communities, and recently was appointed by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan to serve on the Congressional Frederick Douglass Bicentennial Commission whose mission is to honor the life and legacy of Frederick Douglass. Nelson served previously as executive director for various nonprofits and has spoken for and worked with a diverse array of groups, including the United Way, NAACP, Prison Fellowship, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Black Home Educators and TeenPact Leadership Schools. He has appeared on and been published in a variety of media outlets, including MSNBC, ABC and USA Today. Nelson earned a bachelor’s degree in rhetoric and communication studies from the University of Virginia. He and wife Julia have three children.
Charles S. Reed, Jr. ’11
Appointed By: Governor Ralph S. Northam
Term: 2020-2024
Since 2014, Charles S. Reed, Jr. of Sterling, Virginia, has worked for KPMG International, a global network of professional firms providing audit, tax, and advisory services. As a manager in the organization’s federal advisory practice, Charles develops business and financial strategies to support federal clients. A member of UMW’s James Farmer Legacy Council, Charles first became familiar with the late civil rights leader and former Mary Washington history professor when he took a first-year seminar on Dr. Farmer’s life and legacy. The class propelled Reed to numerous leadership positions at Mary Washington, including president of the Black Student Association, vice president of Brothers of a New Direction and treasurer of the campus finance committee, as well as a role on UMW’s Advisory Council on Diversity and Community Values. As a student, he received the Citizenship Award for Diversity Leadership, the James Harvey Dodd Scholarship in Business Administration, and the Emerging Leaders Diversity Scholarship. In May 2011, Reed represented the Commonwealth of Virginia as part of PBS’s 50th-anniversary commemoration of the 1962 Freedom Rides. Selected from nearly 1,000 applicants, Reed was one of 40 college students nationwide to earn a seat on the bus, joining several of the original Freedom Riders to travel the same route they took half a century earlier. Though he missed his own commencement ceremony for the trip, Reed called the 10-day experience “life-changing.” After earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration at Mary Washington, Reed spent three years as a client financial management analyst for Accenture. In 2017, Reed received the Young Business Alumni Award, which recognizes UMW’s College of Business graduates who have distinguished themselves in their professional achievements, outstanding service, and exceptional contributions to their field.
Davis C. Rennolds ’06
Appointed By: Governor Terence R. McAuliffe
First Term: 2015-2019
Appointed By: Governor Glenn Youngkin
Second Term: 2022-2026
Davis C. Rennolds served previously on UMW’s Board of Visitors from 2015 to 2019. He is a senior vice president in the Virginia government relations group of McGuireWoods Consulting in Richmond, where he represents clients before the Virginia General Assembly. Among other political posts, Rennolds served during the McDonnell administration as an Inaugural Committee member and as a Department of Transportation special policy adviser. A Board member for the Sorensen Institute, he holds a bachelor’s degree in historic preservation from Mary Washington. He is active with Toys for Tots and was named to Style Weekly’s “Top 40 under 40” in 2011 for his work with Richmond-area food banks and Share Our Strength, a national organization working to end childhood hunger and poverty.
Robert J. Strassheim ’96
Appointed By: Governor Ralph S. Northam
Term: 2021-2024
Robert J. Strassheim (Vice-Rector of the Board of Visitors) of Keswick is a certified project management professional, serves as vice president of business operations for Dickinson + Associates Inc., a midsize software consulting company headquartered in Chicago. He has also held various leadership positions at Electronic Data Systems Inc., working for the Department of the Navy. In addition, Strassheim has served as a part-time lecturer in UMW’s College of Business (COB) for more than two decades, teaching courses in marketing, management, corporate financial management, retail management, and introduction to business, as well as a senior seminar in international business. Strassheim earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Mary Washington, graduating with academic honors. He also holds an MBA and a graduate certificate in international business from Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, ranking third in his class. At UMW, he is the current chair of COB’s Alumni Advisory Board and previously served as a Capital Campaign cabinet member. He is the recipient of the 2017 College of Business Distinguished Business Alumnus Achievement Award and the 2021 Frances Liebenow Armstrong ’36 Service Award.
Terrie L. Suit (MBA) ’16
Appointed By: Governor Glenn Youngkin
Term: 2022-2026
Terrie Suit is currently CEO of Virginia Realtors and served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates for nearly a decade. She was appointed as the commonwealth’s first Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs and Homeland Security, and worked to fulfill the governor’s mission of making Virginia “the most veteran-friendly state in the nation.” Prior to that, she carved out a two-decade career in mortgage lending, after becoming a real estate agent in 1985. Suit earned an associate’s degree in general education from Tidewater Community College and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Old Dominion University. She also holds a master’s degree in business administration from UMW, where she delivered the graduate address at Mary Washington’s 108th Commencement.