Class Notes

Don Woodruff, MBA ’88, MS ’88, president of Woodruff Construction, was awarded the Build Iowa Award at the Master Builders of Iowa winter conference in March. The award recognizes his outstanding contributions to the construction industry and celebrates his decades-long dedication to innovation, safety, workforce development and community service. Woodruff has been an active leader in numerous industry organizations, including the Iowa Lean Consortium and the Construction Financial Management Association.

Monica McFee, CERT ’86, BS ’87, was selected docent board chair at the Saint Louis Art Museum. She joined the art museum as a member of the 2014 docent training class. McFee is also on the board of the St. Louis chapter of the National Society of Arts & Letters and past president of Women and the Kemper at WashU. She is an award-winning marketing and public relations professional, with leadership and giving ties to numerous arts and cultural organizations.

Pete Woods, JD ’84, was recognized in the 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America in the practice areas of commercial litigation and family law. Woods is the managing partner and a family law, business and commercial litigation attorney at the St. Louis law firm Haar & Woods, LLP.

Scott Sandford, MA ’81, PhD ’85, is currently serving as NASA’s senior laboratory astrophysicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, where he works in the astrophysics and astrochemistry laboratory. He has served as co-investigator and science team member on a number of sample return missions. These include NASA’s Stardust and OSIRIS-REx missions and the Japanese Space Agency’s Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 missions. In 2024, he was awarded a Presidential Rank Award for his work with NASA.

Larry A. Jones, Res/Fel ’81, MBA ’99, is a St. Louis–based life coach and retired pediatrician whose career has been dedicated to improving the lives of children. Recently, he was invited by MEDRIX (Medical Outreach to Southeast Asia) to present a series of lectures focused on ADHD, autism and suicide prevention at the National Children’s Hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam. His presentations caught the attention of the MEDRIX president, which led to a broader opportunity to contribute to MEDRIX’s mission in Vietnam in educating health-care professionals.

Gary Sutorius, BS ’80, BS ’82, became a certified bridge inspector, from which he has these takeaways: Bridge inspection is a cross between legalized “playing in heavy traffic” and the TV show Wild Kingdom; and his engineering classes had more bridge material in them than he realized at the time. Sutorius unofficially became the oldest player to score a goal in the McKinney Soccer Association coed open league (ages 18 and up). The game ended up being a forfeit, so the goal was not officially recorded.

Kerry Bernstein, BS ’78, is on his third attempt at retirement. After retiring from 33 fulfilling years at IBM Research, he was recruited by the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Washington, D.C., in 2012 to help secure the nation’s defense microelectronics. Retiring again in 2018, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Air Force in the fielding of these technologies. This time retirement may stick. Bernstein and his wife look forward to spending time with their granddaughter.

Lawrence E. Thomas, BSBA ’77, was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the St. Louis American Foundation during its 23rd Annual Salute to Excellence in Business Awards this year. Thomas, a member of the WashU Board of Trustees, was recognized as a “Lifetime Achiever in Business.” In addition to being a trustee, he has served as co-chair of the Make Way initiative, a leader of the Black Alumni Council, past president of the Olin Alumni Association Executive Committee, and past chair of the Alumni Board of Governors.

Donald Tye, MSW ’75, JD ’75, of Prince Lobel Tye LLP, in Boston, was selected as a 2024 Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Hall of Fame class member. Membership is reserved for attorneys who have practiced law for at least 30 years and is based on the lawyer’s career achievements, their contributions to the bar and the growth of Massachusetts law, as well as their endeavors to improve the standard of justice in Massachusetts. Tye specializes in family law.

Richard Holinger, MA ’75, wrote a book of poetry, Down from the Sycamores (Finishing Line Press, June 2025). The book takes readers on a tour of Paris. Holinger begins with a bizarre account of a streetwise
“fire-eater,” then captures the everyday lives of transients in the Paris metro. He moves to the more aesthetic realms of the Louvre, an ekphrastic celebration, and finally on to the “polar express,” in which readers become virtual Arctic explorers.