We have renamed the Phi Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of Virginia Beta Inc.’s longtime President, Harry R. Marshall, Jr. ’61, who passed away on June 22, 2021. Henceforth, this most prestigious of awards will be named the Harry R. Marshall Lifetime Achievement award and will be awarded every five years.
“He loved his family, his country,
his University, and his fraternity.”
Those words truly do encapsulate Harry’s life. Harry treasured his family and friends, and was loved in return. He was a senior diplomat and defended our nation at the highest echelons of the State and Justice Departments.
For those of us who met him at UVA, he was the personification of a Virginia Gentleman (despite his New York roots) and lived the word “brotherhood.”
During the many years that Harry led the Fraternity, he showed nearly 500 young men what commitment looked like as he returned to One University Circle year after year to meet with the fraternity’s leadership, pledges, new initiates, and general membership. We watched Harry show the active brothers what shared identity felt like as he talked about the importance of his own educational journey and bonds that he had created with the University community at large. Harry connected with young men often decades younger through the use of humor and story.
Despite Harry’s recent passing, his spirit will live on as we present his award quinquennially at every five year anniversary of the founding of Virginia Beta. This year, we proudly honor two of our brothers who had a significant impact on the brotherhood while they were undergraduates; had incredible success in their careers; and made outstanding contributions to the University of Virginia community at large: Bill Utt ’79 and Chris Shumway ’88.
William P. Utt: Recipient of the 2023 Harry R. Marshall Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award
Bill Utt, a 1979 graduate of the University of Virginia, earned Bachelors and Masters degrees in mechanical engineering during his time in Charlottesville.
Bill served as Pledge Master for the class of ’81 where he led the character-building activities that shaped these future brothers, most of whom attended the 150th.
In the 1970’s and 80’s the Phi House was known for its dominant intramural athletic program. Phis won the coveted Intramural “High Point” award for all four of Bill’s undergrad years. Bill was a major contributor to that intramural success. He excelled in all racquet sports, basketball and as pitcher on the championship softball team.
After earning his first Masters, Bill returned to his hometown of Frederick, Maryland to pursue his engineering career and, most importantly, to meet and marry Carolyn Spann.
Bill returned to Charlottesville and earned his MBA at Darden in ’84. Following grad school, Bill held various positions and roles of increasing responsibility in the power business, up to and including as CEO and President of Suez Energy North America. There, he provided leadership for the development, engineering, construction, operation and ownership of power plants. His career culminated with his role as Chairman, CEO and President of global engineering and construction giant KBR. During his eight years at KBR, Bill led the company’s transition from wholly owned subsidiary to publicly traded company with a NYSE stock listing. Subsequent to his retirement from KBR in 2014, Bill continues to provide leadership guidance to several energy and energy-related businesses as Director and as Board Chair.
Bill’s business success positioned and enabled him to give back significantly to UVA. Bill served on the Boards of Trustees of the Engineering School for two years and the Darden School for eight years. He has given generously of his time and resources to develop and sponsor Programs and Scholarships at both the Engineering and Darden Schools, and is a member of Darden’s Principal Donors Society.
In 2020 Bill was inducted into the Raven Society in recognition of his many contributions to UVA. We are proud to recognize Bill Utt in the 2023 inaugural class of recipients of the Harry R. Marshall Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award.
Chris Shumway: Recipient of the 2023 Harry R. Marshall Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award
Chris, known to all in his era as “Shums”, was the President of the House in 1988. His most notable accomplishment as president was leading the active brotherhood through the critically needed 1988 Renovation. This was when we created the large party room in the lower level with French doors leading out to the large “well”. It is really hard to believe but it has been 35 years since we made such a big investment in the House.
Chris received his undergraduate degree from The McIntire School of Commerce and his MBA from Harvard. He enjoyed tremendous business success from the outset of his career. Chris joined Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management and was named a Senior Managing Director and Management Committee member at age 30. One of Julian’s famous “Tiger Cubs”, Chris later founded Shumway Capital, a leading hedge fund that grew to at least $9 billion in assets before recently becoming a family fund.
Among several other boards, Chris is a member of the board of The McIntire School of Commerce Foundation. He also serves as a visiting professor at UVA, teaching global investing.
Chris is a long-time supporter of, and advocate for a range of charitable causes. As a strong proponent of education reform, he and his wife established The Chris and Carrie Shumway Foundation with the primary goal of helping to break the cycle of poverty through better opportunities in public education.
In recent years, Chris has donated over $55 million to UVA, which includes a $30 million gift to help construct Shumway Hall, which is anticipated to be a hub for Commerce students just off of JPA.
Shums was a devoted and loyal brother and excellent leader who exhibited a high level of confidence and poise regardless of the circumstance. We are proud to recognize Chris Shumway in the 2023 inaugural class of recipients of the Harry R. Marshall Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award.