Hardy Vieux '93
President
Alexandria, VA

Hardy Vieux ’93, of Alexandria, Va., is president of the Duke Alumni Association Board and leads its Executive Committee. He is a board member at large.

An attorney by profession, Hardy is of counsel to Blank Rome LLP in Washington, D.C., where he specializes in white-collar criminal defense. After graduating from Duke, Hardy entered law school and graduate school studying public policy at the University of Michigan. He served as a Navy JAG officer before he entered private practice.

Duke has given Hardy much throughout his life, and he feels compelled to give back. He came to Duke, he says, as “a misguided teenager from New York City” but left with a sense of character, ambition, and focus – and the tools to be a productive, socially-conscious member of society. He has volunteered in the Duke Club of Washington and on his 10th class reunion planning committee, and he has presented numerous times at Duke’s Career Week.

Hardy also volunteers as a mentor for high school students and has served as a tutor and a street law teacher in D.C.’s public schools. Additionally, he coordinates his law firm’s effort to address the legal needs of at-risk teenagers in the community.

Jeffrey C. Howard '76,
P'06, P'09, P'11
President-elect
Lewisville, NC

Jeffrey C. Howard '76, P'06, P'09, P'11, of Lewisville, N.C., is  president-elect of the Duke Alumni Association board and serves on the Executive Committee.

He is vice president of Salem Investment Counselors, Inc., which manages assets for individuals, families, foundations and endowments. Jeff previously practiced law for 15 years with Petree Stockton, a Winston-Salem firm that later became Kilpatrick Stockton LLP. He earned his law degree from the University of Tulsa in 1979.

Jeff has served Duke as a member of Duke Parent's Advisory Council representing the class of 2009, on the Alumni Admissions Advisory Committee, and as a member of his reunion fundraising committee. Jeff also volunteers as chair of the Hospice and Palliative Care Foundation Board of Directors, and as president and organizer of Golf Fore! Fun, which promotes character and life skills development to underprivileged youth through golf. He is past president of the Young Lawyers Division of the North Carolina Bar Association and past president and former Board of Trustees chair for Forsyth Country Day School.

Jeff met his wife, Carson '76, at Duke. They have three daughters, two of whom have graduated from Duke, while the youngest is currently in her junior year at Duke.

Ann Pelham '74
Immediate Past President and Chair, Nominating Committee
Chevy Chase, MD

Ann Pelham ’74, of Chevy Chase, Md., is immediate past president of the DAA board. She chairs the Nominating Committee and serves on the Executive Committee. She is a board member at large and also is a member of Duke University’s Board of Trustees.

Ann retired in 2008 from Legal Times, an award-winning publication focused on law and lobbying in Washington, D.C. She spent almost 20 years there, beginning as a reporter and ascending to executive editor, associate publisher and, in 1998, publisher. Previously, Ann worked at The News & Observer in Raleigh and at Congressional Quarterly in Washington. She serves on the board of Canal Insurance Company and the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation, which provides tennis and educational programs to D.C.-area youth. She volunteered in her children's schools.

She has served as vice-chair of the Duke Magazine Editorial Advisory Board and as vice president of the Duke Club of Washington. She is a former chair of Duke Student Publishing Company Inc., which publishes The Chronicle. Ann says she relishes the sense of building something together in cooperation with a Duke community that believes the university can keep getting better, that it is “not finished.”

Ann’s husband, Bob Cullen, is a former reporter, an author, and since 2006, a high school teacher. Their daughter, Catherine, graduated in 2006 from Trinity as a history major with an elementary-education teaching certificate and spent two years teaching in the D.C. public schools. After serving as a fellow of the Fordham Foundation in 2008-2009, she joined the Hope Street Group, where she focuses on education policy. Their son, Peter, earned his master’s degree in fine arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art and lives and works in Baltimore.

Sterly Wilder '83
Associate Vice President for Alumni Affairs
(919) 684-5114

Sterly Wilder ’83, of Durham, N.C., serves as secretary-treasurer of the DAA Board and is the associate vice president, Alumni Affairs, for Duke.

After graduation from Duke, Sterly went to work in Alumni and Development Records, researching lost alumni. In 1985, she began working with the Duke Annual Fund, where she ran the phonathon program, the young-alumni program, the 55th reunion gift drive, and the Parents' Fund (but not all at once!). She was promoted to director of the Annual Fund in 1991. In August of 2004, Sterly became executive director of Alumni Affairs, and in 2009, was promoted to Associate Vice President.

Duke is integral to Sterly's life, and she views her work as a way to give back to an institution that has done so much for her and her family. Her father, Pelham Wilder, retired in 2000 as a professor of chemistry and pharmacology after more than 50 years on the faculty. He also served more than 20 years as university marshal. Now Sterly is assistant university marshal.

She is also an academic advisor for first-year and sophomore students, has served on the Duke Club of the Triangle board, and volunteered for her fifth, 10th, 15th, 20th, and 25th reunions and as an Alumni Admissions interviewer. She has also served as President of the Ronald McDonald House Board of Directors and the Durham Academy Alumni Board. She was actively involved with the Volunteer Center of Durham as a Board member and volunteer and is a member of the Junior League of Durham and Orange Counties and the Durham Academy Board of Trustees.