Board of Directors
Board of Directors Biographies
Col. Kevin V. Culhane (US Army, Ret.), Board Chair
M.A., Ph.D. in Russian & Eastern European Studies; Georgetown University
Kevin is a disciplined, scholarly leader with 45 years of distinguished service in the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense, followed by five years as a faculty member at George Mason University. His military career encompassed senior roles in intelligence and strategic analysis, including expertise in Russian and Eastern European affairs during the Cold War and service in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Following his retirement from teaching, he brought his considerable skills and his passion for history to the volunteer ranks of Virginia's historic sites, serving for a decade at Historic Gunston Hall — where he was named Volunteer of the Year in 2023 — before finding a new home at Historic Smithfield.
Kevin offers Smithfield the full breadth of a remarkable career: strategic leadership, scholarly rigor, rare books expertise, and a genuine and ever-deepening love for the history of the founding era. In his two years at Historic Smithfield prior to joining the Board, he has served as a house interpreter, rare books curator, and Properties Committee Chair — demonstrating through action, not words, the depth of his commitment to this institution. His nomination as Board Chair represents a natural and well-deserved next step.
Kevin came to the New River Valley from Northern Virginia in early 2024 to be closer to his son and grandchildren. He is a student of Russian language and culture, a passionate historian, and a dedicated steward of the places and stories that define American heritage.
Dr. Kerri Moseley-Hobbs, Board Vice-Chair
M.S. & M.BA, University of Maryland; Ed.D., Walden University
Dr. Kerri Moseley-Hobbs is a policy, regulation, and administration specialist in the field of higher education. She continues an almost 25-year professional career in management, administration, and policy. Prior to her career in higher education administration and leadership, Dr. Moseley-Hobbs worked as a promotions assistant and junior writer at The Baltimore Times Newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland. She was first published by the newspaper when she was 12 years old and continued to be published until she was 18 years old at which time, she began her career in higher education. Kerri is a 6th generation descendant of John Fraction, who was enslaved at Smithfield and the subject of her Creative Nonfiction book More Than A Fraction. In her current role Dr. Moseley-Hobbs continues an almost 15-year career in higher education administration and leadership including working in the efforts to ensure strength in areas such as student aid, federal title IV compliance, accreditation, curriculum development, and innovative academic programs.
Julie Tollison McMichael, Board Treasurer
B.S., University of Virginia; Commerce with concentrations in Finance and Management
Julie Tollison McMichael is a native of the New River Valley having been born and raised in Riner, VA. After graduating from Christiansburg High School, she attended the University of Virginia where she received a Bachelor of Science in Commerce with concentrations in Finance and Management. Following in her father’s footsteps, she’s spent the last 31 years in Banking having worked the bulk of her career with Wachovia in North Carolina. She moved back to the area nearly nine years ago to live closer to her parents and determined that First Bank & Trust was the most like her Dad’s bank back in the day and is really enjoying lending to commercial and consumer customers again.
Julie has a daughter Molly, graduating from college this May and enjoys running, tennis, church and her volunteer efforts in the community both past and present. Most of all, Julie likes working with the community to help it grow and develop to better serve the community members and helping people follow their true passions.
Dr. Elizabeth Lee Robertson
B.S., Virginia Tech and Longwood University; MA, Virginia Tech; Ed.D. in Administration, Virginia Tech
Betty’s interest in history intensified with her marriage to Professor Bud Robertson in 2010 and accompanied him on most of his speaking engagements throughout the US, including several programs hosted by Historic Smithfield. Since her husband’s death, she has continued to work on a documentary featuring his career and service beginning with his appointment to Virginia’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission.
Her background has included degrees from Longwood, MA from VA Tech, and Doctorate in Administration from VA Tech. She served as a Teacher, Counselor, Guidance Coordinator, Vice Principal, Middle School Principal, and High School Principal - Patrick Henry HS - Roanoke City. And she participated in professional development conferences at Oxford University. After early retirement from Roanoke City Schools, she served on VT’s alumni relations staff in the Richmond office. Her work involved Legislative advocacy and organizing Hokie Day at the General Assembly. She also served on several boards related to education, amateur sports, and international sister community organizations.
Laura Wedin
M.F.A., Virginia Tech; Certified Archaeological Technician (VADHR, CoVA, and ASV)
Originally from Texas, Laura completed her Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Tech in 1984 and stayed in Blacksburg. She raised two sons and has enjoyed a long career in student programming with Alumni Relations and Advancement at Virginia Tech, where her interest in university and area history began. Her work at Smithfield started in 1999, first as a house interpreter, then later as a newsletter editor for 6 years, museum store staff, and writing articles for the Smithfield Review. She is a member of the Archaeological Society of Virginia and is a certified archaeological technician in the Commonwealth of Virginia. She has been involved in archaeological work at the Preston Cemetery and the grounds of Smithfield. Her interest in Smithfield is a holistic one - the Preston family, the full plantation grounds which had also included Solitude and White Thorn, the enslaved who worked in the homes and the land, and how the area and narrative evolved over time. A diehard Virginia Tech Hokie, she holds the belief that the founding of Olin and Preston Institute in 1851 was the earliest glimmer of Virginia Tech, now a major land grant public institution.
In semi-retirement, Laura continues to work at Virginia Tech, part-time for the Pamplin College of Business Advancement team. Since 2014, she has volunteered with Blacksburg Rescue Squad with their technical rescue division and serves as dispatcher for their search and rescue team.
Dr. Phyllis Cave
Bachelor’s Degree, William & Mary; Master’s Degree, William & Mary; Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Dr. Phyllis Cave is a retired clinical psychologist who returned to Virginia in 2009 after a career in Minnesota, and now resides near Harrisonburg. She discovered her family's connection to Smithfield during the pandemic: Colonel William Preston's mother was her seventh-great-aunt, and her lineage also traces to James Jay Patton's granddaughter, Anne, who married John White — son of Dr. Robert White and brother to a fellow member of the Virginia House of Delegates who served alongside the Colonel. Dr. Cave is also a descendant of the Taliaferro family, who settled in Virginia in the 1650s. Given these deep Virginia roots, her volunteer work at Smithfield feels like a natural extension of her family history. She is active at Asbury United Methodist Church in Harrisonburg and enjoys genealogy and self-guided travel to Europe each year.
Breyon Fraction
Breyon has many years of experience in state government and behavioral health. He established The Stratamas Group, LLC. Breyon values providing mentorship to Virginia Tech students, where he joined his fraternal organization and served the Montgomery County, Radford, and Greater Roanoke Valley communities. He participates in local and statewide behavioral health initiatives, national business development organizations, and youth sports development leagues.
Miriam Preston Davie, Board Secretary
B.S., M.S., North Carolina State University; Chemical Engineering
Miriam is a chemical engineer employed by TE Connectivity in the Global Operations organization, supporting manufacturing excellence and safety initiatives for plastics injection molding.
Miriam grew up with a knowledge of and appreciation for her Preston ancestors due to the family history that was lovingly shared by her great-aunt, Ellinor Graham Preston. Family trips often included visits to Preston homes – including Smithfield.
Outside of work, Miriam is involved with the FIRST Robotics Program for high school students, local theater companies, and Highland Presbyterian Church. She, her husband Kevin, and their 11 rescued dogs and cats live in North Carolina.
Dr. Jennifer Hart
Jennifer Hart is a professor and chair in the History Department at Virginia Tech. Before coming to VT, Hart spent 12 years at Wayne State where she served as a professor of History, director of the General Education Program, director of the Digital Humanities minor, and founding director of the History Communications Lab. An award-winning historian of Africa, Hart is the author of “Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation” and the forthcoming “Making an African City: Technopolitics and the Infrastructure of Everyday Life in Colonial Accra”, both published by Indiana University Press. She is also the project director for the digital humanities project “Accra Wala” (www.accrawala.com). A committed public scholar and pedagogue, her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Conversation, The Detroit News, Nursing Clio, and Africa is a Country, and she currently serves as both the North American President for the International Society for the Scholarship on Teaching and Learning in History and a Senior Scholar in the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ Office of Curricular and Pedagogical Innovation.
John Tilton
B.S.; Virginia Tech with a degree in Forestry
Following college graduation, John entered the US Army as a logistics officer where he served for seven years – including a deployment to Mogadishu, Somalia. After leaving the service, John began a new career in Information Technology while raising four children, all of whom are grown now and still a big part of his life.
IT jobs took John all over Virginia and Tennessee until he wound up at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation where he stayed for five years until 2021. The pandemic saw him come back to where he started at Virginia Tech. He is now a System Administrator for the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. In 2021, he also began blacksmithing and soon began serving as a volunteer smith for Smithfield. He now has a complete forge set up but still loves the opportunities that volunteering in the smithy gives him to serve the Foundation and his community, passing on historical knowledge and a love for a rare art to a new generation. He also volunteers as a blacksmith in support of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets, of which he is also an alum.
Wendy H. Warren
B.S. in History from Sweet Briar College and an A.A.S. in Accounting from Virginia Western C.C.
Having grown up along the Great Wagon Road west of Philadelphia, Wendy has always loved American History, having special interests in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. She remembers when the Bicentennial Wagon Train passed through Valley Forge in 1976 and looks forward to celebrating this country’s 250th anniversary in 2026 and beyond.
Wendy has over twenty-five years of experience working in nonprofit administration and currently serves as business manager for WVTF Public Radio. She is a member of the Colonel William Preston Chapter, NSDAR and the Historic Greenfield Advisory Council of Botetourt County. She recently became a member of the Blue Ridge VA250 Committee and looks forward to helping plan VA250 events in the Roanoke Valley.
She shares her keen interest in history and genealogy with her husband, Stephen. They have two grown children, two granddaughters, and two English Springer Spaniels.
Jody Booze Daniels
B.S. in Plant Sciences from the University of Delaware and an M.S. in Horticulture with a focus on plant nutrition from Virginia Tech
Jody, a resident of Blacksburg since 1980, recently retired from a lengthy career at Virginia Tech, where she worked in agriculture with a specialization in turfgrass management, regulatory compliance, and nutrient management across the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences’ statewide properties. Her diverse experience also includes landscape design, arboretum management, and plant accessions.
A resolute advocate for public history, Jody is passionate about uncovering and sharing the stories and artifacts of individuals often left out of the historical record. As a board member of Historic Smithfield, she brings her deep knowledge of land stewardship and material culture to the preservation and interpretation of Central Appalachia’s rich and complex heritage.
Courtney Sutphin Hebdon
B.S. Social Work and MS Clinical Social Work, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Courtney is a native of Blacksburg, having returned to the area in 2016 after 19 years in North Carolina and Tennessee. She currently serves as the Senior Director of Clinical Quality at Thriveworks, a national behavioral health company. She has worked in non-profits and grant-funded social programs throughout her career. She is excited to bring her community engagement and program development expertise to Historic Smithfield, where she can contribute to initiatives that honor and preserve local history.
She is married and has two children. Her daughter Christine is an active Historic Smithfield volunteer during school breaks.
Betsy Preston
B.S., DePauw University
Betsy is a future-focused, strategic leader with experience in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. She is driven to build strong communities and serve those in need by applying systematic, analytical, and creative solutions. Her 30+ year career has included roles in program development and management, training, budget and procurement, and media. Her skills have been applied to ventures ranging in size and scope from multi-million-dollar federal projects to start-up nonprofits. She is currently a senior staff member providing resource management for litigators at the U.S. Department of Justice. She has been instrumental in founding and managing a dialogue program equipping employees with tools for appreciating diversity and holding difficult conversations around topics seldom discussed in the workplace.
Betsy offers Smithfield a passion for history and social justice, along with grant writing and public speaking skills. Her previous board experience includes nonprofits advocating for children and arts organizations. She has been a member of the Smithfield Family Council for two years and has been assisting with Smithfield grant writing for the past year.
Betsy grew up in Knoxville, TN, and now lives in Alexandria, VA. She also has lived in Chattanooga, TN, Greencastle, IN (while attending DePauw University), and Columbia, SC. Betsy loves reading history and novels, being outdoors, watching movies and football, and snuggling with her two cats.
Steve McLellan
B.S., Virginia Tech; M.P.A., Troy University
Steve is a methodical, hands-on leader with four decades of experience spanning environmental engineering, natural resources management, and federal facilities oversight. His career has included roles in municipal and industrial wastewater treatment, environmental compliance, and energy conservation, with positions ranging from Bay County Utilities in Florida to the U.S. Air Force at Tyndall Air Force Base, where he served as Chief of the Environmental Section managing approximately 24,000 acres of forests, 14 miles of undeveloped Gulf Coast beach, and significant Native American archaeological site protection. He completed the last five years of his career as a Program Manager at the Air Force Civil Engineer Center, coordinating $250 million per year of energy conservation projects at Air Force installations worldwide.
Steve offers Smithfield a rare combination of environmental stewardship expertise, facilities management experience, and a deep personal connection to the site itself. He is a longtime Virginia Tech alumnus who retired to Blacksburg in 2018, and he has already made his mark on Historic Smithfield in a tangible way — the conference table in the museum's library was built by his own hands from wood harvested from the historic Merry Oak. His previous volunteer work and his careful approach to the stewardship of natural and historic resources make him a natural fit for the Board.
Steve grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and now makes his home in Blacksburg. His hobbies include furniture building, hiking, Virginia Tech sports, and spending time with his dogs.
LeAnn Turbyfill
B.A. in Economics, Dickinson College
LeAnn is a seasoned organizational leader and passionate advocate for history, heritage, and community service, with four decades of experience in one of America's most distinguished patriotic organizations. As a 40-year member of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, she has served at the chapter, district, state, divisional, and national levels, holding elected positions including State Regent of Virginia — a role she fulfilled during the particularly challenging COVID years — and nationally elected Vice President General. Her experience spans policy development, committee leadership, budget oversight, and large-scale event management across seven states where she and her husband John have made their home over the years.
LeAnn offers Smithfield deep nonprofit governance expertise, a passionate commitment to telling the full story of all who have called this place home, and a proven track record of fundraising for historic preservation. As Virginia State Regent, she raised $50,000 to support the development of a demonstration area at Smithfield honoring the craft skills of the plantation's enslaved and working community. She is also an avid genealogist and serves as the unofficial Turbyfill Family Genealogist, bringing a researcher's eye for detail to her Board work.
LeAnn grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania and has lived in seven states, developing a rich appreciation for the history and culture of each. She and her husband John now make their home in the Charlottesville. They are the parents of two sons and grandparents of two very tall teenage grandsons.
Jef Graham
Career Executive, Technology Industry
Jef is a visionary, globally experienced executive leader with a career spanning the heart of the computer industry's most transformative decades. Born in England's Lake District, he began his career in the United Kingdom before moving through Germany and Switzerland and ultimately settling for 33 years in California's Silicon Valley and Santa Barbara. His roles have included Sales & Marketing leadership, General Manager, Vice President, and CEO of multiple public and private companies — among them Hewlett-Packard, 3Com, Juniper Networks, and NetGear — as well as Board Chairman and committee service on Audit, Nominating, Governance, and Compensation committees. His product development teams contributed to foundational technologies including email, Ethernet, WiFi, and cloud computing.
Jef offers Smithfield sophisticated governance experience, entrepreneurial energy, and a genuine and growing passion for Colonial American history and genealogy. He has already made meaningful contributions to the institution — sponsoring a Thomas Jefferson historical interpreter for Opening Day, contributing original scholarship to the Smithfield Review on the origins of the Patton and Preston families in Northern Ireland, and exploring collaborative partnership opportunities between Historic Smithfield and the historic Linkous-Kipps House and Farm, which he and his wife Katie own in Blacksburg.
Jef and Katie are dual American and British citizens and retired to Blacksburg in 2023 to be near their daughter's family. They serve together on the Advisory Board for the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech. Jef is an oil painter, an avid polo player and foxhunter, and a coaching enthusiast who coaches Virginia Tech Polo and his grandchildren's soccer teams.
Bobbi Boyea
A.A.S. in Accounting; B.S. in Business Administration (Marketing), Marist College
Bobbi is a practical, community-minded leader with a career spanning four decades in the retail industry, beginning as a high school clerk and progressing through store management, executive support, and ultimately corporate sales of register systems to major national retailers. Her professional background includes deep experience in accounting, marketing, organizational management, and client relations — skills she has applied with equal dedication to her volunteer work in the communities she has called home.
Bobbi offers Smithfield sharp business acumen, organizational talent, and an infectious enthusiasm for the museum's mission that was apparent from the very first day she walked through our doors. A lifelong student of American history — particularly the period from the Revolution through the Civil War — she felt an immediate and personal connection to Historic Smithfield upon her first visit and signed up to volunteer on the spot. She has since become one of the museum's most dependable and creative behind-the-scenes contributors, taking on demanding projects that keep daily operations running smoothly. Her previous charitable experience includes nonprofit and community mission work in New York.
Bobbi grew up in the Northeast and relocated to the Blacksburg area in 2023 with her husband to be closer to their son. She enjoys crafting, organizing, and giving back to her community — all of which, it turns out, Historic Smithfield has in abundance.
Cheryl Sullivan-Willis
Owner & Master Stylist, PZAZ Salon & Spa
Cheryl is a dedicated entrepreneur, community leader, and committed advocate for the history and heritage of the New River Valley. Since 2004, she has owned and operated PZAZ Salon & Spa in Botetourt County, building a reputation as a skilled stylist, esthetician, and educator. Her community leadership extends to the Historic Greenfield Advisory Council and the Board of the Botetourt County Chamber of Commerce, where she has developed experience in nonprofit governance, civic advocacy, and regional partnership building.
Cheryl offers Smithfield a deeply personal connection to the history this institution is charged with preserving. A descendant of those enslaved at the related Greenfield Plantation, she brings an irreplaceable lived perspective to the museum's ongoing commitment to telling the full and honest story of all who have shaped this place. Her voice has already proven powerful in public settings — her reflections at Historic Smithfield's 2026 Juneteenth Commemoration were among the most moving of the afternoon. Her board experience and entrepreneurial spirit will serve the institution well.
Cheryl is a Botetourt County native with deep roots in the New River Valley. In her free time she enjoys volunteering, hiking, reading, and spending time with her family.