IN MEMORIAM: THATCHER STONE ’82, AVIATION LAWYER, LECTURER AND PHILANTHROPIST

THATCHER A. STONE ’82 (COL ’78) died at age 67 on Nov. 29 while traveling in Israel. He leaves a lasting legacy at his alma mater, where he also taught aviation law and made significant development gifts.

For 32 years after graduating from UVA Law, Stone practiced law on Wall Street in the areas of finance, banking and asset-based lending, with an emphasis on secured financing related to intercontinental jet aircraft. He advised the ExportImport Bank of the United States for 25 years on loans for foreign aircraft buyers and, after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, he advised EXIM and the White House on global war risk insurance issues arising from the attacks.

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He retired from the firm in May 2022 but remained of counsel, according to his firm bio.

His commitment to Charlottesville and UVA preceded his law firm’s move, however. He began teaching aviation law at the Law School in 2005, served on the Law School’s Alumni Council and at one point chaired the selection committee for Jefferson Law Fellows. He also served on two nonprofit boards in Charlottesville, including UVA’s Fralin Museum of Art.

JOSEPH A. RIDEOUT was recognized in Best Lawyers as Toledo’s Real Estate Lawyer of the Year. Rideout is a partner in the Toledo, Ohio, office of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick

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Volumes six and seven in the “Ross’s Discoveries” quote-book series by MICHAEL ROSS were published in 2022. “Ross’s Life Discoveries” contains quotes about life’s trials, tribulations and satisfac-

The Thatcher A. Stone Garden was dedicated in 2010 after Stone pledged a generous donation to the Law School in 2009. The Philip M. Stone Dining Room, dedicated in 2002, was named for his father, who died when Thatcher was a child.

The Lillian Stone Distinguished Lecture, which is hosted jointly by the Law School and the School of Architecture, was named for his mother. Lillian Kolodiz Stone, who died in 2013, was the first female chemical engineering graduate of Northeastern University and served as chief of environmental project review at the U.S. Department of the Interior for 25 years.

In 2004, Stone made headlines—and new legal precedent—when he successfully sued Continental Airlines after getting bumped from a flight without appropriate compensation.

In 2013, he relocated his solo practice from New York to Charlottesville. He founded Stone & Woodrow in 2015, adding passenger litigation and personal injury to his corporate and aircraft trans-

His closest friend, Frank Kittredge Jr., a 1978 graduate of UVA’s School of Architecture, worked with Stone on two side-business opportunities, including one they turned into a philanthropic trust dedicated to supporting UVA. (Kittredge is the former chair of the UVA School of Architecture Foundation Board, on which Stone also served.)

In addition to funding the Stone Garden, Stone Dining Room and the Stone lecture, the trust endowed the Clay Thomas Memorial Scholarship, memorializing a college friend of Stone and Kittredge’s. The trust has also given pledges and gifts to fund the Kolodiz directorship of the Jewish Studies Program in the College of Arts & Sciences and the Rachel Winer Manin interdisciplinary graduate fellowship in Jewish Studies.

Law School Foundation President and CEO Luis Alvarez Jr. ’88 said Stone “was a great and special friend of the Law School, loyal to his classmates and a tireless promoter of our efforts.”

“He was never without his UVA cap or tie, and always led with his heart,” Alvarez said. “I speak for all who knew Thatcher in saying he was one of a kind and will be missed.”

—Melissa Castro Wyatt