Making up the difference
Paul Atwell, R’51
Sixty years ago, Paul Atwell’s high school football coach told Richmond recruiters that Atwell weighed 180 pounds and was still growing. He tried to gain weight during the summer, but he stayed at 175, so he made up the difference with two thick sweaters and weights in this pockets.
Atwell played four seasons at center and served as president of his Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, but when graduation rolled around, he was a few credits short of a business degree. He intended to make up that difference, too, but he got married and was called up from the Army Reserves.
After his military service in Hawaii, Atwell went into the furniture business.
Eventually, he became president of two furniture companies in his native North Carolina. His second wife, Rebecca, had a keen eye for color, style, and dimension, and proved invaluable as they traveled extensively throughout Europe and Southeast Asia developing new products for their import firm.
“We saw a lot of dusty factories, along with historic and exotic places,” he recalls. “It’s been a good life and a happy life, and much of that is attributable to the city of Richmond and the University of Richmond.”
Soon after he retired in 2005, Atwell received a letter from the University saying it was offering honorary bachelor’s degrees to students whose educations were interrupted by military service during the Korean War or Vietnam War. He accepted that honorary degree last year and asked what it would take to finish his academic degree.
After reviewing his records, the University allowed him to make up the difference by taking two courses at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro near his home. He enjoyed the experience so much that he is now auditing three more courses, and he plans to walk across the stage with Richmond’s Class of 2008 at commencement in May.
Helping the Celtics win
Kevin Eastman, R’78 and G’89
Some basketball teams nurture young talent and hope to win a championship a few years down the road—not the Boston Celtics. They recently traded some of their promising young players for three veteran stars: Ray Allen, Kevin “Big Ticket” Garnett, and Paul Pierce.
“We have three all-star players, and we have some other veterans coming off the bench. So we have the opportunity to go deep into postseason play,” says assistant coach Kevin Eastman, R’78 and G’89. “It’s very difficult to win with young players at this level.”
Kevin was an assistant coach at VCU and UR (under Dick Tarrant) before becoming the head coach at Belmont Abby. He then served as an assistant at Tulsa before becoming head coach at UNC-Wilmington and then Washington State. More recently, he was Nike Inc.’s national director of player development, and now he is entering his fourth year as a Celtics assistant coach.
“The game is different” in the NBA, Eastman says. “You’ve got the best of the best up here. So as a coach, it’s 24 hours of pure basketball.” He focuses his work on player improvement, player development, game strategy, practices, and games.
He also deals with bigger egos, and “you have to know what motivates them,” Eastman says. “What you have at our level is adults coaching adults. The things that keep us up late at night keep them up, too.”
But the Celtics “have guys with level heads,” Eastman says. “They’re a little bit past the ego gratification. They’ve earned the big contract. They’ve scored all the points. They’ve gotten the recognition, and now it’s about winning championships.”
At press time, the Celtics had the best record in the NBA.
Helping Tsunami survivors
Christie Getman, ’97
Richmond’s international education program inspired her wanderlust, and the Jepson School of Leadership Studies solidified her commitment to international service. A decade later, Christie Getman, ’97, continues to explore the world, helping people who need it most.
She manages several recovery and development programs for the American Red Cross in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, a challenge she accepted nine months after a tsunami devastated Indonesia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka in December 2004. “I cannot fathom what it must have been like to have been here when it happened,” she says. Even now, “the scope of the disaster is so hard to understand.”
During her sophomore year at UR, the Lansdale, Pa., native studied abroad in Martinique, an experience that “opened the door” to the rest of the world.
After graduation, Getman worked for the Virginia Senate and then the Christian Children’s Fund in Senegal. She returned to the United States to earn a master’s degree in anthropology from George Washington University before heading to West Africa with Winrock International, a nonprofit organization that does sustainable economic development projects. She again returned to the United States to work in Winrock’s Washington office before joining the American Red Cross in Sri Lanka.
Political strife makes Sri Lanka a dangerous place. Bombs have exploded twice within blocks of the American Red Cross office in Colombo. Americans are not the targets, but she acknowledges the possibility of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Her life otherwise is “remarkably normal,” but she misses celebrating milestones with family and friends. Even so, Getman expects to stay in Sri Lanka until at least September and plans to continue working in international development.
More than 10 years after graduating, she attributes much of her success to her undergraduate education. “I owe a lot to my education,” she says. “My whole world opened up at Richmond.”
Securing Virginia’s Capitol
Kimberly Lettner, G’06
Judging by the display on her office wall, Kim Lettner’s rise through the ranks of law enforcement started in elementary school. Her safety patrol badges progress from patrolman to sergeant to lieutenant.
“We actually had two levels of lieutenant,” she says with a grin. “I was a two-bar lieutenant.”
After graduating from Bridgewater State College in 1983, she worked briefly in sports medicine as an assistant trainer. “When I was growing up I wanted to be a police officer, but at the time, women weren’t police officers,” she explains.
Lettner became an exception to that rule when she entered the Virginia State Police Academy in 1985, beginning a career that spanned 22 years and many parts of Virginia. The Spotsylvania native particularly relished her days in the motorcycle unit.
“In law enforcement, you look at your day on the road as 90 percent boredom and 10 percent sheer terror,” she says. But riding a motorcycle replaced the boredom with exhilaration.
In 2005, Lettner was promoted to captain while she was working on her master’s degree in human resource management at Richmond’s School of Continuing Studies. The following year, she heard that the chief of the Virginia Capitol Police was retiring and decided to apply for the job.
“I thought long and hard about it because I love the State Police,” she recalls. “The State Police had given me so many opportunities, but this was an additional opportunity for me.”
In her first year as chief, she has been responsible for providing security for high-profile events ranging from the visit of England’s Queen Elizabeth II to the court appearance of Michael Vick.
Lettner also gained recognition as the first female chief of the Capitol Police. “The state of Virginia has only three female police chiefs,” she observes. “All three are firsts in the state. You recognize those kinds of things, but you hope you are being given serious consideration because of your leadership ability and not because of gender.”
—Joan Tupponce
