Kudos! March 2025

March 13, 2025
By W&M Alumni Magazine

Congratulations to William & Mary alumni who are making moves in the world! This is where we celebrate awards, job changes, promotions, recognition and other career and civic engagement news we collected between Dec.1, 2024, and March 13, 2025. For more updates from your classmates, check out the Class Notes at magazine.wm.edu/class-notes and in the print edition of the W&M Alumni Magazine!

If you would like to submit an item for Kudos, email the W&M Alumni Magazine staff at alumni.magazine@wm.edu. We will also share your news with your class’s reporter.

Awards and Recognition

Ted Decker ’85, president, chair and CEO of The Home Depot, is the newest member of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Board of Trustees.

Sierra Johnson ’22 and several co-authors have won the 2025 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Richard Braddock Award for the article “Black Linguistic Justice From Theory to Practice,” published in June 2024. This prestigious award is presented for an outstanding article on writing or the teaching of writing in the CCCC journal, College Composition and Communication.

Todd Howard ’93, director and executive producer at Bethesda Games, appeared alongside Harrison Ford and Troy Baker to present the award for best performance at The Game Awards 2024. He also accepted the award for best adaptation for his series “Fallout.”

Job Changes and Promotions

Paris Bredehoft ’24 has been hired as the esports coordinator at Old Dominion University. He honed his leadership skills at William & Mary as the Overwatch captain, MilVet Esports Tournament organizer (a dynamic collaboration with the W&M Center for Military Transition and Office of Student Veteran Engagement) and senior esports assistant to Michele King, director of W&M Esports.

Chris Elton ’05 has been promoted to tax senior manager at James Moore & Co.’s Gainesville, Florida, office, which he joined in 2022.

Michael Kaplan ’90 has joined global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright’s corporate, M&A and securities practice as senior counsel in Denver. He previously served as the senior vice president, chief legal officer and general counsel at real estate developer MDC Holdings.

Kathi Lentzsch ’77 has been named the CEO of Rad Power Bikes, North America's largest electric bike brand. She previously served as CEO at Bartell Drugs, where she led the company through the pandemic, strategic changes and its merger with Rite-Aid.

Elizabeth Larner Leonard J.D. ’16 was included in the Super Lawyers 2025 North Carolina Rising Stars list. The Rising Stars list recognizes outstanding lawyers who are 40 years old or younger or have been in practice for 10 years or less, based on peer recognition and professional achievement through a rigorous selection process.

Laird Lile ’81 has been appointed to the Florida Judicial Management Council. The council addresses judicial administration issues that have statewide impact, affect multiple levels of the court system or involve multiple constituencies in the court community. He has also been named by Florida Trend to the Florida 500 as one of the most influential executives in different economic sectors throughout the state for the seventh consecutive year.

Harold Martin ’79 co-authored a textbook titled “Financial Valuation: Applications and Models, 5th Edition,” recently published by Wiley in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Shannon Murphy J.D. ’20 has joined the Raleigh, North Carolina, office of Cranfill Sumner LLP as an associate attorney. She focuses her practice in the Administrative, Regulatory & Government Law and White Collar, Government Investigation & Special Matters practice groups.

Julie Rogers Murawski ’99 has been named partner at CohnReznick LLP. Julie is a principal and CohnReznick’s chief marketing officer, leading the firm’s world-class marketing organization. Together with her leadership team, she oversees the firm’s brand strategy, go-to-market strategies across industry, service and geography, client experience, corporate communications, marketing operations and sales enablement.

Peter Shea ’82 has joined Seward & Kissel LLP as a partner in the firm’s New York office, in its Investment Management Group. Peter’s practice focuses on advising exchange-traded funds (ETFs), exchange-traded commodity pools, mutual funds, hedge funds, investment advisers and more on complex regulatory issues.

Ann Weber Langley ’05 has been named partner at Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs LLP. As a member of Wyatt’s Litigation and Dispute Resolution Service Team, Ann focuses her practice on civil and commercial litigation. Prior to joining Wyatt, she was a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Trevor York J.D. ’24 has joined the Commercial Law Counseling group of Delaware law firm Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell LLP.