W&L Welcomes New Trustees Betsy Pakenas ’94 and Jonathan Wortham ’04

By News Office
October 15, 2021

Betsy Pakenas and Jonathan Wortham joined the Washington and Lee University Board of Trustees on October 15, at the board’s fall meeting in Lexington.

Betsy Pakenas ’94 graduated from W&L with a B.S. degree in biology and is a Managing Director and financial advisor for Morgan Stanley in Frederick, Maryland. As the managing partner of Four Points Group at Morgan Stanley, she oversees all aspects of the practice while working closely with her team to provide comprehensive wealth management to high net worth families and business owners.

As a student, Pakenas was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and the Alpha Epsilon Delta Honor Society. She has served as an alumni chapter president and reunion volunteer, chairing her 15th and 25th reunion committees. She currently serves on the Capital Campaign Council and the Annual Fund Council. In May 2019, she was honored with W&L’s Distinguished Alumna Award.

A financial advisor since 1998, Pakenas has been named to Forbes “Best-in-State Wealth Advisors,” Forbes “America’s Top Women Wealth Advisors,” Working Mother magazine’s “Top Wealth Adviser Moms,” and Financial Times “Top 400 Financial Advisors.” She has served on multiple Morgan Stanley national advisory councils, currently representing her region on the firm’s Consulting Group Advisory Board, and was named to the MAKERS class of 2020, a project dedicated to identifying and celebrating women of accomplishment across multiple fields who sponsor and champion women’s advancement.

Active in her local community, Pakenas has held leadership positions in organizations including the Frederick County Commission for Women and the Rotary Club of Frederick, where she is a past president of the 200- member service organization. She is currently a director of Frederick Health and contributes her time as a board member for the Association of Professional Investment Consultants.

Pakenas and her husband, Peter, live in Frederick, Maryland, with their two children.

Jonathan Wortham ’04 graduated from W&L with a B.S. in chemistry and earned his M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine. He completed a pediatric residency at Baylor before joining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where he leads the Molecular Epidemiology and Outbreak Investigations Team within the Division of Tuberculosis Elimination as a medical epidemiologist. While at the CDC, Wortham’s work has focused on protecting people from various infectious pathogens, including Ebola, Zika, tuberculosis, Legionnaire’s Disease and COVID-19. He also continues to practice clinical pediatrics. 

As a student, Wortham was a resident assistant, a writer for the Ring-tum Phi, a Shepherd Program intern, and a member of the ONYX-Minority Student Association and the Student Voting Regulations Board. He was elected to Omicron Delta Kappa, Phi Eta Sigma and Alpha Epsilon Delta, and was a member of the Lambda Chi Alpha social fraternity.

Wortham was a speaker in the 2021 Mudd Lecture Series and has been a member of the Alumni Board of Directors, chair of the Shepherd Poverty Program Advisory Board, and chair of the Alumni Admissions Program in Atlanta. He has also served as a class agent, a member of his class reunion committees, and a member of W&L’s Science Advisory Board.

Wortham resides in Atlanta, Georgia.