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Google official to give main commencement address
Margaret J. Thomas, human resources manager of Google Inc. and a 1992 Richmond graduate, will give the keynote address at the University’s commencement ceremony May 8. Some 740 undergraduates will receive degrees. A student speaker will be selected in April. On May 7, Phyllis Katz, an attorney with Sands Anderson Marks & Miller, will speak at the Richmond School of Law commencement, and David Cryer, retired history professor and mortgage lender, will deliver the commencement address for the School of Continuing Studies. Five people will receive honorary degrees at the May 8 ceremony. They are Thos. Capps, chairman, president and CEO of Dominion Resources Inc.; Marian Grace Collins Lindblom, president of Central Communications Network Inc.; Dr. Kwang-I Yu, a computer scientist and founder of Paracel Inc.; Robert L. Burrus, chairman and partner of McGuire Woods LLP; and Princess Cecilia de Medici, an accomplished pianist. Thomas is human resources manager and site lead for Google’s Santa Monica, Calif., office. She hires and manages for the office and also serves on the steering committee of the Google Foundation. When the company last year planned its initial public offering, Thomas worked on a stock option plan for employees. After graduating from Richmond, Thomas worked as communications assistant at Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. In 1995, she became special events coordinator for investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston in New York, and in 2000 she became human resources director for Internet startup company Oingo in Los Angeles, which was eventually purchased by Google. She holds a B.A. in English and speech communication from the University. Katz is a member of Sands Anderson Marks & Miller’s employment and local government practice groups. In addition to her preventative law practice, she works on cases involving discrimination, wrongful termination, employment torts and contractual issues, among others. Prior to joining the firm, Katz was appointed by three differetn governors to direct Virginia’s Department of Employee Relations Counselors, where she provided employment advice to all state agencies and administered a grievance procedure for local and state governments. Earlier, she was an assistant attorney general practicing in the areas of education, civil rights and disability law. Katz also is founder of LINC (Legal Information Network for Cancer), which provides legal and business assistance to cancer patients. She is winner of the 2000 Pro Bono Publico award from the Richmond Bar Association and is an adjunct professor at Richmond School of Law. She earned a B.A. in political science from Rutgers, a master’s of urban and regional planning from Ohio and a J.D. from Richmond. Cryer drove a taxi and collected bills while working his way to a bachelor’s degree from Richmond’s School of Continuing Studies. He went on to become a Henrico County history teacher, history professor at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, mortgage lender, bank director and investor. He and wife Linda made the largest-ever gift to the School of Continuing Studies-- $500,000--last year. Capps earned undergraduate and law degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill. After practicing law in Winston-Salem, N.C., he joined Carolina Power & Light in 1970 as senior counsel. In 1974 he joined Boston Edison Co. as vice president and general counsel. Capps joined Dominion’s principal subsidiary, Virginia Power, as executive vice president in 1984 and assumed the presidency of Dominion in 1986. In 1989 he became COO and in 1990, CEO. In 1992, he became chairman of the board, president and CEO. After the company’s merger with Consolidated Natural Gas in 2000, Capps became vice chairman, president and CEO of the combined company. He assumed the title of chairman in August 2000. He serves on the board of trustees of the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges. Lindblom owns Central Communications Network, which provides cell phone equipment and supplies and has four locations in Florida. She formerly owned U.S. Medical Corp., a wholesale computer company. She is a former financial analyst and received a B.A. degree from University of Richmond in 1952. Yu is a 1973 graduate of the University and a native of Hong Kong. A computer scientist in the field of high-speed computing, Yu made his mark in national security, space programming and the Human Genome Project, which indexed the 40,000 genes that define human beings. In the early 1980s, he invented the Fast Data Finder, a computer system that can cull through volumes of text and locate a desired passage within seconds. In 1992 he founded Paracel Inc., which provided high-speed supercomputer products for analyzing genome and other biological data. The company was sold to Celera Genomics in 2000. Burrus, a member and former rector of the University’s board of trustees, is chairman of McGuireWoods LLP, where he works in corporate and fiduciary counseling, mergers and acquisitions and shareholder disputes. He also serves as outside counsel for Dominion Resources, Circuit City Stores and a number of other public companies. He received a B.A. degree from Richmond and a law degree from Duke. The University of Richmond named a scholarship program for developing leaders after him in 2002, and he has received the Trustees Distinguished Service Award and the Richmond Alumnus of the Year Award. He formerly served as chair of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. de Medici promotes young American musicians through La Gesse Foundation, of which she is founder and president. The foundation also hosts an annual music festival in Toulouse, France. She is the widow of Dr. Abraham Horwitz, a physician, medical professor and prominent leader in public health in Chile until his death in 2001. She holds master’s and doctoral degrees in Greek and Latin from The Catholic University of America. Between working on her degrees, she studied piano at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. |
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