Abney Boxley III was born February 21, 1958, in Roanoke, Virginia. Ab III attended Crystal Spring Elementary.  His 7^th grade year he was a student at the brand-new James Madison Junior High which opened in January 1971. His high school years were at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, VA. As far back as Ab can remember he spent his youth on Little League teams.  He enjoyed camping and recalls his first leadership roles as the president of the 4^th grade class, another time in 5^th grade he was a safety patrol at the intersection of Willow Oak and Edgehill.   This important role also included his pal John Parrott who was a bus patrol.  Ab recalls his first experience with elections in Junior High when he was drafted by one formidable young lady, Harrison Hagan, who was running for student council and her strategy was to have a campaign manager in each grade, Ab was the manager for 7^th grade. When asked if his candidate won, he noted “with a landslide vote.” 

Ab’s love for sports led to his being on a state championship football team that was a part of the rec leagues and coached by Bill Andrews and Stan Comer.  Another rec football coach who influenced Ab was Bob Linkous of Linkous Supply Company.  He was always impressed with the patience of these men and how they promoted team spirit and a strong work ethic.  This led to Ab being on the high school varsity Football team and the Track and Field team, throwing the shot put and discus. 

Sports solidified Ab’s leadership abilities and he was appointed a monitor of a dorm on the Episcopal School campus.  Ab went on to Washington & Lee University (“the second-best school in Lexington” according to his VMI alum father) graduating in 1980 with a major in Economics.  One of his summer jobs at Boxley was driving a truck from the quarry to a primary site.  September of 1981 he was 23 years old and worked with his dad at the family business based in Greenville/Skippers and Emporia Virginia.  For 15 months as a Trainee and Project Coordinator, Ab experienced every level of the business working as night shift driver, welder, and management trainee.  He worked on the rate structure for mileage and eliminated single car shipments to promote unit car (=80 cars of same product) shipments.  His co-workers fondly called him a STUMP – ‘stupid trainee under management protection.’

Ab was restless and entered the MBA program at Colgate Darden School of Business University of Virginia where he completed his grad work in 1983. Ab had job interviews around the country during his last year of grad school, but there was one that was most memorable and led to his position today.   The best salesman from Boxley Company, Bobby Watts, made an appointment with Ab and shared with him that the company is changing and with its anticipated growth new leadership would be needed and, of course, who would know what the best of the company had been than Ab III.

He was hired as the Manager of New Product Development.  Ab is quick to add that his father never implied that he was expected to work for the family business.  However, as he looks back on the time, he spent with his father on hunting trips to South Carolina and fishing trips where the conversations often led to the family business.   Ab’s observation is “family business – you do to your kids not for your kids”.  As Manager of New Product Development, he promoted their riprap for securing shorelines.  He was over sales in Martinsville and Superintendent of a quarry in Lynchburg.  These strides were made in five years’ time.  His father’s friendly advice was “if you are any good you will probably keep your job, but’s not a guarantee.” 

The unexpected death of Abney Jr. at the age of 56 in 1988 led Abney III to examine his options for keeping the company viable.  In sync with Ab III was his father’s brother, Frank, who called together a business meeting at a local McDonalds which included the two Boxley’s and Jim White, a retired Boxley VP.  It was decided over a ham biscuit and coffee that Ab III would be the new president and the other two men would serve as business advisors, Mr. White agreed to come out of retirement and work with young Ab for one year.  Uncle Frank was running his own successful business SW Construction, but he made three visits weekly to Ab’s office to provide any support that Ab would need.   “Ab picked up the company and ran with it in a time of crisis in 1988 and has never looked back, “says Frank.

Drawing upon his graduate work Ab decided to create a board of directors that would include two outside members.  Spencer Frantz, CEO of Graham White, and Bill Sandy Senior Sales Executive for Caterpillar accepted. They all poured over monthly expense reports and investments each time they met.   Scheduled within weeks of Ab Jr’s funeral was a customer party, and staff wanted to cancel to respect their former boss.   Ab III insisted on going ahead with the party plans to assure all customers “we have a job to do and we are here to stay.”  Ab felt strongly that because his father knew of the celebration that he would want to have it held.  Ab III became the president of Boxley Company at the age of 30 and is the fourth generation at the helm.

In his first year – 1988 as President/CEO of W.W. Boxley Company Ab acquired two Virginia businesses:  a quarry in Piney River and in Stuarts Draft.  Ab has continued to oversee acquisitions and these days mergers are its key focus. That year, the Blue Ridge plant participated in furnishing material for the Roanoke Regional Airport expansion, a $25.2 million project, equating to 150,000 tons being shipped – Boxley’s largest single job to date.   By 1999 Ab is elected Chairman and CEO of Boxley Company and he is adding quarries that can provide downstream business-like asphalt and paving, this product is 95% stone, plus concrete and that composition is 80% stone and 20% sand, limestone.

Ab has led the company to create a marketing initiative and he was responsible for creating a new brochure for customers. There is a new emphasis on using computer technology to forecast and manage sales, expenses, and production.  Beginning in 1991, Boxley Company’s core beliefs were amended to include “be responsible stewards of our environment.”  Today there is the added concern of the impact business must ensure our environment and its creatures are here for many generations to come.   For instance, Mr. Puckett at Boxley oversees the “greener production” and the mission statement avers “Boxley is in business because of the community buy- in”.  Time is spent to ensure that the company is sound and adding to the economic development of the community.

In 2002 the corporate/formal name of the company is Boxley Materials Company and has been for 20 years.  The trade name was Boxley Quarries. Ab is concerned about Boxley being a good neighbor and image. His own observation is that the “company trucks on the outside should tell you what the company looks like on the inside.” This is nonnegotiable – his business is about cleanliness right down to preventing dust from flying over the byways located near his quarries.

While the business continues to expand and support the surrounding communities Ab’s personal life is grounded by a large and loving family.

Ab has actively contributed his time and talents to over 30 organizations in his efforts to better our community, his industry, and this region.  He currently serves on the Boards for Virginia Aggregates Legislative Committee, Young President’s Organization (YPO), RGC Resources, Inc. Valley Bank/Legislative and Loan Committees, Roanoke Valley Development Foundation, Carilion Health Systems /Investment Committee, Art Museum of SW Virginia, Center in the Square, and The Business Council/New VA Region. In addition to coaching three sports for the Greater Southwest Athletics in Roanoke City.

In terms of businesspeople who have set the pace for Ab, he first mentions his father, next is his Uncle Frank Boxley who tirelessly gave the time and counsel to young Ab while running his own thriving company.  The third man who exudes leadership in business is George Logan of Salem. George now serves on the faculty for the Darden School of Business at University of Virginia.  George also paved the way in serving as the chair of Valley Bank prior to Ab taking that position in 2000??? The last mentor that Ab mentioned is a mutual friend Dr. John Colley who Ab describes as an “ethical, clear thinker”.  Dr. Colley, over the past four years, has received honors of distinction from the UVA/ Darden board of visitors and accolades from his undergraduate university for his multiple contributions and discoveries that have enhanced Industrial and Systems Engineering.   Currently Dr. Colley resides on the hallowed “Lawn” at UVA because of his servant leadership style. He embraces the Jeffersonian way of gathering students on the “lawn” to learn. 

Ab states his management style is getting across to every employee their value to the entire operation.  Staff meetings are opened with a pre-assigned employee ready to quote the company mission and what it means to them personally.   The next person to speak is someone who can publicly declare the fine attributes of another co-worker who exemplifies the brand/mission.   For Boxley to continue to prosper, each employee must understand and appreciate the skills of the line man, driller, flag man, and front office.   A testament to noticing the talent and taking the business from the bottom up are the long-term employees:  Bill Hamblin, and two hires from 1988 in addition to Vada Sarsfield who has worked for two generations of Boxley’s now 40 years at the company and has the distinction of being an assistant to Ab III.

Ab was, in fact, a Junior Achievement classroom volunteer in 1988 at his alma mater, James Madison Middle School. He taught the program, Project Business, and used a Michael Jordan basketball analogy for his lesson on supply and demand.  The best advice that Ab shares with our young people: “the golden rule is still important in doing your work.  Everyone’s first name is important. Do what you say you are going to do, and back it up! Work with people you respect, you want to be around, and that you have fun.  If you articulate what you want, you can go far. Show up every day and do your job as best as possible.

Abney Boxley, III was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2014.

Claudia Sedonia Alexander Whitworth, born in Fayetteville, WV, in 1927, the daughter of Rev. F.E. Alexander and Sedonia (Rotan) Alexander, began her early years in Lynchburg. Her multitasking father served as pastor of Rustburg Baptist Church taught printing at the Virginia Theological Seminary and College and ran a private printing business.  In 1935, Whitworth and siblings, Frieda & F.E., Jr., moved to Christiansburg where her father took over as pastor of First Memorial Baptist Church and continued his printing business, the Tribune. After completing first and second grades in Lynchburg, Whitworth attended Quaker schools in Christiansburg, her only option. She graduated from Christiansburg Institute at age 16.

She briefly attended Bluefield State, although her mother was a 1922 graduate of Ohio State and three of Whitworth’s four aunts were all college graduates, and all were educators. Whitworth says she was the “rebel” and wanted to find her own way in the world. She pulled out a big geography book and, using a somewhat unconventional method, chose her first move from home. A place she says, “where I didn’t know anyone.”  “The map had big dots for big cities, little dots for little cities,” she says. “I wanted a medium dot. I figured that in a big city, I’d just be a hick. In a little city, there wouldn’t be enough work.” She chose Dayton, Ohio. From earnings selling newspapers door-to-door, Whitworth purchased a one-way train ticket.  Finding a job in the printing business there turned out to be difficult as most were union shops, and she was still a teenager. So, she took a job as a waitress by telling them she was 21.

After her limited stay in Dayton, she relocated to New York where she took her first newspaper job working as a linotype operator for the New York Age, the African American newspaper, co-founded by Timothy Thomas Fortune, a former slave. There were no women working in the composition rooms at that time, and it was heavy work changing typefaces.  Following New York, Whitworth worked on the Cleveland Herald, and Ohio State Sentinel in Columbus, Ohio for brief intervals, returning home to Roanoke between each to help her father in the family business, The Roanoke Tribune, founded in 1939. In the summer of 1945, Whitworth joined her father at the Tribune.

After her marriage to Robert Hale in 1952, the couple relocated to Los Angeles, CA. The family’s stay in California was short-lived. Following the birth of her first son, Robyn, the family returned to VA.  Back in Roanoke, Whitworth gave birth to twins, Steven and Stanley, fourteen months after Robyn was born. Tragically, Steven did not survive.   Daughter, Eva, joined Robyn and Stanley ten years later.

In 1971, following her father’s car accident in Roanoke and subsequent retirement, Whitworth purchased the Roanoke Tribune thus beginning her long tenure at the paper’s helm. Whitworth realized the responsibility she and her paper had to the African American community using the power of the press as a means of uniting a divided community.

The Tribune has never missed a weekly edition under Whitworth’s leadership despite many obstacles. In 1979 following confrontations with the City of Roanoke during the revitalization of Gainsboro, she lost nearly everything when her office was firebombed destroying all records, however the antiquated printing equipment went unscathed.  History repeated itself in 1983 when one morning, Whitworth arrived at the newspaper to find the city had bulldozed the plant. Unbelievably, Whitworth’s new photo typesetting machine had been temporarily set up in her home while she was taking care of her ailing father. The Roanoke Tribune relocated to its present location on Melrose Avenue. Unfortunately, earlier that same year, Whitworth’s husband, Clifton B. Whitworth, Jr. lost his 12-year battle with cancer end.  The couple was a dynamic force and served as ambassadors for the northwest quadrant of Roanoke.

In 1991, Whitworth also purchased the building next door, remodeled, and opened it as a community center. Her goal was to provide a place for instilling a sense of worth, responsibility and mutual respect in neighborhood youth who also helped with the weekly mailing and distribution of The Roanoke Tribune.

This sense of service pervades all aspects of Whitworth’s life extending throughout the Roanoke community and beyond. She has served on the Norfolk State University’s President’s Roundtable and Board of Visitors and chaired the Employee Relations Committee of the Welfare Reform Commission during the Wilder Administration. Locally she has served on numerous boards that provided health care, clothing, shelter to restore human dignity.  She currently serves on the Roanoke City Bahai Local Spiritual Assembly.        

Among the many honors, Whitworth considers her first recognition the most amazing. In 1976 she was listed in a publication in Washington, DC in a Pictorial Review of “Selected Leaders” among such greats as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Mary McLeod Bethune, and others, “At a time when I had done absolutely nothing that anyone could ever have heard of.” She claims this miracle to be the propelling motivation behind the rest of her life of service.

Today, the Roanoke Tribune continues as a real “family affair,” as she, son Stan, daughter Lauren, and grandchildren, triplets Kenneth, Kaitlyn and Klaudia Shaw, work together with a great staff to get out each meaningful edition.

Claudia Whitworth was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2009.

Thomas Marshall Hahn, Jr., was born in Lexington, Kentucky on December 2, 1926, to Thomas Marshall Hahn, Sr., and Mary Elizabeth Boston Hahn. His father taught physics at the University of Kentucky. Hahn and his two younger siblings—David and Elizabeth—grew up during the Great Depression in Lexington with little money. When Marshall Jr. reached school age, his father took a year off from teaching in order to complete his Ph.D. in Chicago. Hahn entered the first grade at a public school near the university on Chicago’s South Side.

Upon entering school, his teacher immediately recognized that Marshall was a gifted student and chose to advance him to the second grade, which he completed before moving back to Lexington with his family. Back in Lexington, Marshall worked hard during the days of the Depression delivering newspapers, working part-time in a florist shop, and helping with daily chores in the family vegetable garden. He continued to advance scholastically in the public schools of Lexington and was allowed to skip ninth and twelfth grades. However, he never completed high school before moving on to college.

Hahn enrolled at the University of Kentucky at the age of fifteen with aspirations to pursue a degree in physics. As the United States entered World War II, Hahn began his undergraduate studies on an accelerated wartime schedule. He graduated two-and-a-half years later in 1945, at the age of eighteen with a BS in physics “with highest honors.”

Upon graduation, Marshall joined the Navy, spending a year teaching physics at the Naval Academy Preparatory School. A year later, he moved to a civilian job at the Naval Ordinance Laboratory in White Oak, Maryland. From there, he decided to pursue a career in physics and applied to several universities’ graduate programs. He accepted a graduate assistantship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Before leaving his job in suburban Maryland, Marshall met his future wife, Ms. Margaret Louise “Peggy” Lee of Dinwiddie County, Virginia, who was a recent graduate of Madison State Teacher College and teacher in Hyattsville, Maryland. After meeting at a Methodist Youth Fellowship Christmas program, their romance developed and continued after Marshall left for MIT. They were to marry in 1948. Together, they had three children—William, Elizabeth, and Anne.

Hahn thrived under the fast-paced conditions of MIT. He completed his doctorate in 1950 at the age of twenty-three. However, after observing the exceptional research of his fellow classmates, he decided to pursue a different career path—university teaching and academic administration. After receiving his doctorate, Hahn accepted a position as an associate professor in the physics department at the University of Kentucky. During his four years back at Kentucky, he became a full professor, director of the graduate studies in physics, and director of Kentucky’s nuclear accelerator laboratories.

At the University of Kentucky, Hahn realized that he was limited in what he could accomplish within the school’s physics department. So, a chance meeting with family friend and chief academic officer for Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Dr. Louis A. Pardue, seemed promising. During their meeting, Pardue mentioned that the chair of VPI’s physics department was planning on retiring. The position would provide a great opportunity for growth, as VPI’s department did not have true graduate or research programs. He applied for the job and quickly accepted an offer. He served as the department chair for five years, during which he tirelessly sought out sources of funding and equipment for his department to attract more physics students. During his five years, physics enrollment tripled, he developed a new master’s program in nuclear engineering and a Ph.D. program in physics. He was able to obtain more than $635,000 in research grants, which included money for a nuclear reactor simulator for teaching purposes, the first in the nation. He also helped the president, Dr. Walter Newman, in getting $1 million in state funding for a new physics building.

At the time that Hahn became a member of the staff at VPI, the school was extremely limited in scope. It was largely restricted to white male students with a compulsory military system for most freshmen and sophomores. Its curriculum focuses on professional and occupational training, especially in the fields of engineering and agriculture. President Newman realized the need to break away from the original charter of the school to become a more comprehensive land-grant institution and he laid the groundwork for a change to occur.

While Hahn had become devoted to VPI, he still desired to advance his career further in academic administration. In 1959, he accepted an appointment as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Kansas State University. President Newman was disappointed to lose Hahn and he wished to remain in contact with him, alluding to a possible future for Hahn back at VPI. Hahn spent three years as dean at Kansas State. Throughout his time away from VPI, President Newman did keep in touch with him, making his intentions clear in 1961 that he wished for Hahn to succeed him as president of VPI. In the meantime, Hahn had been offered the opportunity to become president of the University of South Carolina. In November of 1961, the rector of the VPI Board extended an offer to Hahn and he soon turned down the offer from USC and began discussions with the VPI Board of Visitors and President Newman. At a special meeting of the Board in Richmond on December 4, 1961, Hahn was formally appointed as the eleventh president of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, two days after turning thirty-five. His appointment became effective on July 1, 1962. For many years, he would be the youngest land-grant college president in the nation.

Marshall Hahn returned to VPI in the summer of 1962 knowing the challenges that he would face, but confident that he would be able to take advantage of the many opportunities that he saw for growth and change. At the age of thirty-five, he was an energetic and visionary leader with a marveling level of enthusiasm for his work. During his twelve and a half years as president, he was able to accomplish more than most people ever thought imaginable.

Looking back on his appointment, Hahn recalled that he had accepted the VPI presidency “deliberately, with the idea that with engineering and agriculture, both of which had some national prominence, that you could develop a nationally prominent institution…that you could really build.” He further explained, “There was a real opportunity to stir things up. The state needed to be awakened, the institution needed to be vitalized, and the opportunity was just hitting you over the head every morning.”

Beginning on his first day as president, Hahn immediately began referring to VPI as a “university,” which did not go unnoticed by those who called upon him on his first day in office. It soon became apparent that Hahn envisioned a transformed institution with preserved traditions. He showed courage in developing a vast pool of knowledge by encouraging more programs for research and expanding the areas of study. During his time as president between 1962 and 1974, Hahn oversaw the addition of thirty-three new academic programs and three new colleges, including the flourishing College of Arts and Sciences as well as the College of Veterinary Medicine. Student enrollment nearly tripled, increasing from 6,358 to 17,470 students. He opened enrollment to women and African Americans and saw the first hiring of a black faculty member as well as the graduation of the school’s first African American woman. He severed VPI’s ties with Radford College, eliminated the compulsory military service requirement for freshmen and sophomores and opened the Corps of Cadets to women. The physical campus grew tremendously as well during Hahn’s tenure, with the construction of many major academic, athletic, and residential facilities, including Lane Stadium, Cassell Coliseum, Cowgill Hall, Slusher Hall, and many others. Perhaps most significantly, Hahn’s administration proposed legislation in 1970 to change the school’s name to Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, to reflect VPI’s transformation into a major research university. It would later be encompassed by the name Virginia Tech, as it is known today.

By the late 1960s, it became evident that Hahn wished to move on to another challenge. After holding the highest position possible at a state university, he began to see the business sector as his next mountain to conquer. Robert B. Pamplin Sr., the chairman of the board and president of Georgia-Pacific Corporation and trustee of Virginia Tech, attempted to pull Hahn away from Tech first. Although he was interested, he was not ready to leave the school yet. Beginning in January 1973, Hahn instead served as a member of the board of Georgia-Pacific. Pamplin later said of Hahn, “He was a good disciplinarian, smart, a hard worker and had integrity. I felt sure that we could train him to be a good executive.”

Despite making a pledge to stay another ten years at the school, Hahn knew that he could not stay that long and that it was his time to move on. He left Virginia Tech in 1974 to become president of Georgia-Pacific’s chemical division. He was made chief executive officer and chairman of the board in 1983, two positions he held until 1993 when he retired. During his time as CEO, Hahn saved the company from a heavy debt load and watched it prosper with sales nearly doubling, increasing from $6.5 billion to $12.3 billion. He was named CEO of the Year for the Forest Products and Lumber Industry by The Wall Street Transcript for seven years and was recognized as “Top 10 Best Executives: Big Business Category” by the Gallagher Report in 1986 and 1988.

Upon retiring in 1993, Hahn joined his wife Peggy at their beloved 1,000-acre farm, Hickory Hill, in Montgomery County. Always one to lead an active life, he continued to serve on the board of Georgia-Pacific as well as the boards of Norfolk-Southern, and the Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hahn enjoys spending his spare time raising cattle, playing tennis, traveling the world to hunt or sail his yacht, and following his beloved Hokies. He continues to be a member of Virginia Tech’s President Circle and Ut Prosim society.

T. Marshall Hahn was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2010.

Anna Logan was born May 10, 1943, the middle child and only daughter of Frances McNulty Logan and Joseph D. Logan, Jr.  Anna’s parents settled in Salem in 1941 in the house where Mr. Logan had grown up, joining his mother and his sister, Miss Nancy Logan.  Along with Anna they had Joe III, born in 1940, and George in 1945.   Anna’s father, with a partner from his tobacco-buying days, started Martha Washington Candies, later Old Dominion Candies in Roanoke.  A decade later, in 1944, they started Frigid Freeze Foods, an innovation in food storage and distribution.  In 1950, Mr. Logan died and Anna’s mother–trained as a philosopher, violinist, and English teacher–went to work in the business.  Eventually the company expanded to become a distributor of a complete range of frozen and canned foods—from meats to desserts, juice to vegetables—and, by the 1980’s–fresh produce. In 1959 Frances Logan remarried to JMB Lewis, Jr. a Norfolk Western lawyer.  The Logan siblings instantly gained stepbrother Minor Lewis and Anna was delighted to have a wonderful big sister Stuart Lewis Smith.   Through 1986, Anna’s brothers ran the company and Joe, Anna, George, and their mother all served on the board—Joe as board chair, Anna as corporate secretary, and George as CEO.  George ran the company until 1986, when it merged with the Sara Lee Corporation.

Anna began her education at North Cross School, then located on Union Street in Salem for grades K-3.  She attended Broad Street School (now Salem City Hall) for grades 4-7, was a student at Andrew Lewis for grades 8-10, and finished her high school education at St. Anne’s, a boarding school in Charlottesville.  Her first official employment was in 1959 when, at 16, she held a part time summer job filing at the old Lindsey-Robinson Feed Company.

She earned a B. A. in English at Hollins in 1965 and received an M. A. in English and Creative Writing in 1970, also from Hollins.  As an undergraduate, she was associate editor of the student newspaper, and worked in student government as a class officer and served as a member of the college’s student legislative body, creating and interpreting regulations governing student life.

As with many young women in the 1960s, Anna’s aspirations were not clear cut.  “I think I was more interested in causes than in a career,” she says now. She notes, she “wanted to avoid confrontations and was willing to make compromises by looking into how the system could be adjusted.”  Certainly, the years at Hollins were a time when the system was being questioned on several fronts, among them, civil rights (classmates and faculty were involved in sit-ins and marches in Roanoke), and women’s rights (required reading one summer was Betty Freidan’s “The Feminine Mystique.”).

Upon receiving her undergraduate degree, Anna set out for New York and a job at the publisher William Morrow, where the work was “mostly low-level secretarial, but with a bit of opportunity to read unsolicited manuscripts.” She returned to Roanoke after a year and married Thomas Lawson, whom she’d met while she was at Hollins, and he was in law school at the University of Virginia.  A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tom served in the U. S. Navy 1960-62, and joined Woods Rogers, Muse, & Walker (now Woods Rogers) in 1965 where he was a trial lawyer until leaving the firm in 1992.  In 2008, Tom’s book, Carl Jung, Darwin of the Mind  (2008) about the Swiss psychoanalyst, came out from the London publishing house, Karnac, and he has received acclaim and developed a steady market for his abstract paintings.

After their marriage, Anna went to work (part time) for the Roanoke Historical Society as its first executive director, under the guidance of George Kegley, and the late Jean Showalter and Louise Goodwin.  From 1967 to 1970, Anna was employed as News Director at Hollins, writing press releases covering exciting times at the college, while at the same time working on her master’s degree in English.  Her years at Hollins under the tutelage of forward-thinking faculty and administration shaped her mission for questioning “the system” and began her career as a social entrepreneur. And in the Publications and Information Office she found a mentor in her boss, Virginia Carter.  Active in the arts, all things literary, but especially politics, Ginny urged Anna to become involved in Common Cause, the national non-partisan group founded by John Gardner in 1970, advocating open, honest, and accountable government.  Common Cause captured her attention and talent because if its focus on the system—it was not about a particular political issue; it was the process of creating and refining the process of making and administering the rules and regulations governing a civil society.

Anna and Tom had two children: Thomas Towles, Jr., born in 1971, Frances Blair, in 1973.  Towles, who earned a joint degree in art history and philosophy at UVA, is an inventor who holds patents that address such engineering areas as turbo-lag and zero turn radius.  Blair, in New York after obtaining a B. A. from Stanford and a MBA from Northwestern, is a vice president at Louis Vuitton, the Paris-based leather goods and fashion firm.  Anna and Tom have 4 grandchildren, two in Charlottesville and two in New York. 

It was the birth of their children that led Anna onto another pioneering path.  With research, peer support from other new parents, and instinct, Anna embraced “prepared” or “natural” childbirth, a movement to help women better understand and have a role in the process of childbearing.  In 1971, Anna and Tom were one of the early couples in the Roanoke area to have natural childbirth in a Roanoke hospital; the staff were a bit tentative—some even reluctant–about the process.  And nursing the baby—having him only on breast milk– was a struggle.  However, by 1973, when Blair was born, the medical staff was fully behind natural childbirth, and the hospital encouraged “rooming in,” having the baby with its mother for “on-demand” feeding.  A “system” had adjusted!

In 1976 Anna returned to Hollins as editor of the college alumnae magazine, and co-editor of the college’s admission catalog.  She stayed in this job until 1982, serving as interim director of the annual fund for a 6-month period.  In 1983-84 she returned to campus as assistant to President Paula Brownlee, at the same time working part-time between l982-86 as newsletter editor and publications planner for the Kettering Foundation in Dayton, Ohio.

A long-held interest in archaeology and anthropology led Anna back to school in 1986, when she enrolled in the doctoral program at UVA.  Going part-time was not an option for graduate students in the anthropology department at the University, so she took a full load for three years, living in Charlottesville 2 nights a week.  Tom, meanwhile, and the children, beginning when they were 13 and 15, took care of things at home, generously assisted by her sisters-in-law; her mother, Frances; a longtime housekeeper, Jean Wiley; and wonderful boxed dinners provided by Bridget Meagher from Alexander’s.  Anna received her PhD in Anthropology in 1995, her dissertation entitled – “The Other Half”: Making African American History at Colonial Williamsburg.  While writing her dissertation, Anna taught anthropology for a semester at Hollins, and, in line with her research topic, she was a consultant in 1997-98 with the National Park Service on the Booker T. Washington National Monument, helping rewrite its general management plan. 

Two publications by Anna have tackled her concerns about how systems work and make them more responsive to the constituents.  In 1985 she prepared A New Age for University Research for the American Council on Education at the University of Georgia.  Again in 1992 she wrote, with two anthropologist colleagues, “On the Uses of Relativism: Fact, Conjecture, and Black and White Histories at Colonial Williamsburg” for American Ethnologist.   And there was writing “for fun.”  For several years in the 1970s she was a regular reviewer for the Roanoke Times Sunday Book Page, edited by Paxton Davis, and published book reviews in various anthropology journals.

As a director Frigid Freeze Foods in the mid-1970s -1980s she learned about spread sheets, net interest margin, facility depreciation, marketing and sales, and staff management.   In 1994, as Roanoke’s locally owned financial institutions were being absorbed by banks in Charlotte and Atlanta, she helped found, under the leadership of her brother George, Valley Bank, to serve our region as a locally owned and operated community institution. She continues as a director, today sitting on the Audit Committee and heading the Human Resources Committee.  The understanding of “systems” is a theme that continues.  

“Compassion and curiosity” coupled with an attempt to understand and adjust (when necessary) the social, economic, and political systems that govern our lives, are what drive Anna.  Those qualities have led to her leadership roles with Hollins (board chair, 2000-2003), TAP (chair 1999-2001), and The Nature Conservancy-Virginia Chapter (chair 2005-2009).  In addition, she is currently active with the Virginia Environmental Endowment, Virginia Land Conservation Foundation (appointment by Gov. Kaine), and the Virginia Historical Society.    She has been an advocate of education and the arts, as evidenced by a sampling of the boards she has served: Taubman Museum, Hollins College Alumnae Association, North Cross School, Science Museum of Western Virginia, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (chair 2007-09), Family Service, Virginia League of Conservation Voters.

“If I have a legacy, she says, “I hope it is about making systems effective, efficient, and accessible.”  Perhaps the non-profits of which she’s most proud are her involvement as a director and volunteer fund-raiser with Planned Parenthood, TAP (Total Action Against Poverty), the Nature Conservancy, and Hollins University.

She and Tom have supported Planned Parenthood from its beginning in The Roanoke Valley in the 1960s.  Between 1975-85 she was a board member, and in the late 1990s she and Warner Dalhouse served as co-chair of Planned Parenthood’s capital campaign for construction of its new headquarters, dedicated in 2000.

Anna’s work with The Nature Conservancy is again about changing culture in how we approach the environment. Thinking globally about our natural resources has direct consequences for the physical and economic health of our world. Complementing this work, Anna is involved with the Virginia Environmental Endowment which is a foundation that grants funds to small projects that can make a difference.

Hollins helped Anna hone thinking and analytic skills and learn how to apply them toward making organizations and institutions, and perhaps even society, function better. Working in development and administration, she found out “on the ground,” as they say, something about two interesting “systems”—fundraising, mostly with volunteers, and institutional management, with employees.  In addition to a total of 11 years, off and on, as an employee, Anna served 15 years as a Hollins trustee.  In her three years as board chair, a president left the institution, and the country experienced the horror of 9/11. “What inspired me most in that period was the leadership of interim president Walter Rugaber, drafted into the job from his then recent retirement as publisher of The Roanoke Times.  Anna also remembers relying as well on the leadership of Hollins student government president Beth Burgin, now an attorney at Woods Rogers. 

The importance of role models in Anna’s life have been profound in the choices she made from watching her widowed mother tackle the world of work, to living with the aunt who was a dedicated civil servant all her life, to working alongside former college President Paula Brownlee who supported her entering the PhD program.  President Brownlee, while advising that taking on the PhD program might involve getting rid of unwanted responsibilities, noted that there would things Anna loved doing that she would have to sacrifice.  A cellist with the symphony in upstate New York, where she was taking up the post of dean at Union College, Dr. Brownlee said, “I put the cello in the closet—there just wasn’t going to be time.”  Barbara Lemon, community leader and volunteer with whom Anna serves on the Valley Bank board, has been consistently influential with her question, always: “What have we learned?” When an outcome is positive, be sure how we got there; and when it’s negative, be sure to analyze our mistakes.

Asked about a motto, Anna responds, “The Platinum Rule: Do unto others as they would have you do unto THEM.” In other words, try to figure out what the other person wants or needs, what his or her culture is, its values, and then try to respond in a respectful, compassionate manner.  In a way, it’s the flip side, or complement, to her belief in the importance of “curiosity and compassion.”  “It’s not always pleasant, or easy,” she continues. “Often, I’m dead wrong about what’s going on with a person or a situation, but usually something good comes out of the effort.  It takes curiosity, the mind, to determine what drives someone, and compassion, the heart, to understand it.”

Anna Lawson was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2010.

Leon Harris was born on April 3, 1942, in Floyd County, Virginia. Harris earned his bachelor’s in industrial engineering from Virginia Tech in 1964.   He is currently the president of KelTech Inc., of Roanoke, Virginia, a company specializing in electronic contract manufacturing.

While attending Virginia Tech, Harris served as a member of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets (VTCC) and was a member of the industrial engineering professional society, now known as the Institute of Industrial Engineers, Professional Society, and Alpha Pi Mu, the industrial engineering national honor society.

Post-graduation, Harris was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and accepted his first job at General Electric on the engineering and manufacturing management team.   Shortly after, Harris was called to serve in active duty at U.S. Army Fort Belvoir and Fort Campbell.   In 1966, he was promoted to first lieutenant and then served as a combat engineering officer in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.   In 1967, Harris was discharged from active to reserve status and later promoted to captain in 1970.

After three years of military service, Harris rejoined the GE management development program and stayed with the company through 1983.   His broad experience with GE instilled the background necessary to move into small business ownership.   Harris purchased a local radio station and served as president of Waynesboro Broadcasting Inc, in Waynesboro, Virginia.

Harris developed Tele-Path Instruments in Salem, Virginia, a company that designed and produced digital test equipment for the burgeoning telecommunications industry.   Under Harris’ leadership as president, Tele-Path grew into a $30 million business.   In 1995, the family sold the business and soon after, Harris and his wife Beverly purchased KelTech.

Student success and creating opportunities for engineering students has been a focus for Harris.   In 2998, he endowed the Leon P. Harris Scholarship Fund, supporting undergraduate students in Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering.   Together with Beverly, the couple endowed the Harris Manufacturing Processes Laboratories, an instructional lab used to teach about 650 industrial and systems engineering, mechanical engineering, and materials science engineering students each year in a variety of manufacturing processes, including machining, welding, and sand casting.

Harris is an actively engaged Hokie.   He is a member of the 1872 Society, the Pylon Society, and the Ut Prosim Society.   He has helped propel many university projects with his generosity, including the VTCC building fund and the VTCC Leon Harris ’64 and Beverly Harris scholarship, the W.E. Skelton R-H Educational Conference Center Smith Mountain Lake 4-H fund, and the Moss Arts Center.

Harris and Beverly served as the Roanoke regional co-chairs for The Campaign for Virginia Tech: Invent the Future, which concluded in 2011 and raised more than $1.1 billion. In 2010, Virginia Tech’s Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering bestowed its highest honor upon Harris, the Marvin Agee Distinguished Alumni Award.

Harris is a member of the board of directors for the W.E. Skelton 4-H Educational Conference Center at Smith Mountain Lake, Hokies for Higher Education, and Virginia Tech Carilion Health Systems and Technology Steering Committee.   He currently serves as the chair for the Taubman Museum of Art and president of the Virginia Western Community College Educational Foundation Board.

Leon Harris was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2011.

John Williamson, III was born in Bedford County, Virginia in 1954.  He is a Roanoke businessman and civic leader who took an early career in local government and turned it into a long, successful run in the business world. John attended Montvale elementary school, and liberty school, with half days spent working on architectural drafting at Bedford vocational center. He was working for money by age 14, stocking shelves at carter’s store, and running the gas and diesel service at the Atlantic truck stop in Montvale. Although he worked long hours, he still had time to be a member of the Beta Club, Future Farmers of America, and the JV baseball team. 

After high school john attended Virginia Western Community College, where he received his associate of science degree in business administration. After that he attended Virginia Commonwealth University and graduated with his bachelor’s degree in May of 1977. From there, John became the assistant county administrator in Bedford County… where he approved early plans for development at smith mountain lake.

In 1979 John, at 24, became the youngest county administrator in the state of Virginia, when he took over the reins in Nelson County. There, he would work with businessman L.F Payne on the development of The Wintergreen Resort. In 1981, John left the job in nelson county to earn his MBA at William and Mary.   Upon graduation in 1983, he took a job with C & P Telephone, which would later become Verizon. 

Not wanting to move to larger cities to move up the corporate ladder, the Williamson family started looking at living in Roanoke. John wanted to be near his aging parents, so he accepted a job as Botetourt County administrator. During his time in this role, he from 1986 to 1992 he would develop the county’s first industrial park, east park commerce center, create the county’s public works department, and manage the steady growth of southern Botetourt County and finance upgrades to the county’s public-school buildings and fire department and rescue fleets. 

Despite those successes in the public sector, john’s best work was still ahead of him. In 1992 he joined Roanoke Gas Company as director of rates and finance. In less than a year he was named vice president of rates and finance – a position he held for five years. Then in 1998 John was named President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director.  In 2003 he added the title of chairman – positions he still holds today.

Among his early actions – the creation of RGC Resources, a holding company that allowed for diversification – including the acquisition of several propane companies and ventures into heating and air conditioning, information systems and utility services consulting. When John and the board sold highland propane in 2004, the company paid a special dividend of almost $10 million to the shareholders. Since john joined the company in 1992, the company’s stock has improved from $15 a share to $34, paying $27 in dividends and a 300-percent increase for shareholders over 20 years. Today the company has more than $100 million invested in natural gas plants, provides 60-thousand customers with environmentally friendly fuel and pumps $7 million in wages into the local economy, while remitting 3.5 million in property and utility taxes to local governments.

Beyond work and family, John has been a significant contributor to the community as well, serving on the boards of numerous businesses including corning natural gas, Luna innovations, Botetourt Bankshares, optical cable, synchrony, friendship retirement community, Roanoke regional partnership, Virginia Tech corporate research center the business council and of course RGC Resources. The list of non-profits which have benefitted from his service is equally long, and he has chaired many of them. With John’s career still in full swing, he uses a quote from President John F. Kennedy for daily guidance:  for those to whom much is given, much is expected.

John Williamson was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2011.

William Heywood Lee Fralin was born in 1940, in Union Hall Virginia. The youngest of three boys, Heywood was named for writer Heywood Hale Broun.  It was his mother’s desire to give all three sons strong names.  Mrs. Fralin was from Scruggs, Virginia and taught school in a one room Franklin County school house which is still standing and located in Explore Park.  This young teacher barely started her career when at the age of nineteen she met the man she would be married to for 50 years.   His mother was strong-willed with a great work ethic and strong belief in the virtues of an education. 

Mr. Fralin was born in Union Hall, Virginia and with a 7^th grade education plowed the farmland around him from the age of 11 until he married at the age of 31.  Starting a new job, he followed the exodus with his wife into Roanoke to work at the silk mill later known as the American Viscose.  As Mr. Fralin matured, he had entrepreneurial instinct, and, with a partner, opened and operated an automobile service station in Garden City. This venture lasted until 1945 when he sold his interest.  Taking his earnings, Mr. Fralin began a business constructing homes in Roanoke County and Roanoke City. This continued until he built his last home for Heywood on Wycliffe Avenue in 1972.  He died in 1973.

While in grade school, middle school and high school Heywood was a decent student.  He played on little league sports teams at an early age and has enjoyed being a spectator his entire life.   The bar had been set and young Heywood graduated from Jefferson High School in May 1957 and was accepted into the University of Virginia after turning 17 in June.  He joined a social fraternity and made the social adjustment most college students do.   He would add that he often enjoyed social life a little too much.  He graduated in May 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. “My mother would have preferred that I attend Virginia Tech, but I had a rebellious streak and because my brothers went to Tech, I chose Virginia.”    The competitive and academic prowess held by Heywood led to American University Law School and in two and a half years he obtained his law degree by January 1965.  It was quite apparent that a law degree would be a great background for business.

Heywood returned to the Roanoke area to begin his law career under the mentorship of Tracy Lloyd and was paid $200 per month.  Over the years with several mergers, his firm became Jolly, Place, Fralin, and Prillaman, with Heywood being the managing partner.  Heywood’s specialties were real estate law, representing developers, HUD loan closings, and estate planning. He mostly represented the business side of law and rarely ventured into trial law.

This dedicated lawyer was a true asset to his family as brother, Horace, partnered with Elbert Waldron to create Fralin and Waldron, Inc. (F&W), a development and construction company.  Heywood was the legal counsel to the business and honed his specialties as his brother went from home and multi-family construction to the development of Skilled Nursing Care Centers and Retirement Centers.  The Skilled Nursing business is very different today than it was when it started.  The acuity level is much higher and most residents in the skilled nursing facilities go home in 30 days or less.  They operate more like rural hospitals operated years ago.

 The sudden death of Horace Fralin in 1993 spurred Elbert Waldron to reach out to Heywood and convince him that he would be the most natural fit into the Fralin and Waldron enterprises.   Heywood had a working knowledge of the business dealings as he originally did the legal work setting up the businesses and securing the loans to finance the businesses.   Four years later the death of Mr. Waldron led to another natural fit from the Waldron family.  Elbert’s daughter, Karen, came on board in 1997 and the new team has led the many businesses for the last 15 years.  Heywood’s focus was with the Skilled Nursing Facilities in VA and NC plus the Assisted Living Centers.  Karen’s focus was the multi-family operation and construction, the construction company having been purchased by Elbert Waldron at Horace Fralin’s death.  Even with this defined order of business, major decisions for the company would remain the same since the doors opened in 1962. Both partners would meet and discuss the issues before making any major decisions.  This arrangement worked in the beginning and continues to be a successful collaboration.  Heywood is quick to add that work has been pleasant and successful because we have surrounded ourselves with a “crackerjack” staff which number almost 7,000 full and part time employees based in Virginia and North Carolina. 

Heywood espouses a keen observation that understanding politics on all levels is important for existence and survival in health care.   It is also important for higher education which has been a life-long passion.  His first and lasting impression of courting a politician to share industry concerns was setting a meeting with the late Senator Hunter Andrews.  Sen. Andrews was a formidable member of the Senate Finance Committee and Majority leader in the Virginia Senate.  He represented the Hampton Roads area for 32 years.   His first meeting in the late Senator’s office was to take place in the early morning and upon Heywood’s arrival to the office he was told by the Senator to please leave him alone.   The Senator’s secretary, a wonderful lady, reported that “land mines are everywhere – I would have to come back tomorrow”.  After multiple attempts by Heywood to meet with this most important figure to discuss issues he finally succeeded and developed a lasting friendship and mutual admiration.   The political posturing that exists to uphold quality of life issues transcended to the next generation of the Fralin family and Heywood’s son, William Fralin, served 3 terms as State delegate for the 17th district before retiring to become President of MFA.  Ironically, Heywood could not vote for his son because he did not live in his district. 

Heywood and Cynthia treasure a tradition of taking their children and spouses annually to a different location in the world for a 7–10-day venture.  This helps Heywood complete his bucket list and build a deeper admiration for his adult children.  They have had twelve expeditions.  The first was a trip to a dude ranch in Wyoming, while the children’s favorite trip was a picture safari in Kenya, Africa.  The other trips include a tour of the countryside in England and Ireland, a cruise in Alaska, a cruise up the Baltic Sea from England to Russia, and a trip to India to see the Bengal tiger in its natural habitat.  It was noted by Heywood they have shared with friends how wonderful these excursions have been with their children and now other families are emulating their vacation ideas.  

Notable Accomplishments:

• The recent rehiring of University of Virginia President Theresa Sullivan just prior to the end of his term on the board of visitors having formerly served as Rector for UVA.
• Serving on the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors and having the opportunity to participate in the choosing of Paul Torgerson and Charles Steger as Presidents.
• Appointed by the Speaker of the House to the Council of Virginia’s Future, a body assembled to provide the road map for measuring the performance of state agencies.
• Serving as a member and former Chairman of the Alliance for Quality Nursing – the health care trade association for the largest long term skilled nursing care providers in the country.
• Appointed by the Governor to his Commission on Higher Education and his Higher Education Advisory Council to make higher education a priority of his Administration.
• Recipient of the 2012 Dunton Award by the Virginia Health Care Association – the state trade organization for the long-term health care industry, for outstanding leadership in long term health care.
• A member and former Chairman of the Virginia Business Council – comprised of the state’s largest major businesses.
• A member of the Carter Immunology Center (created by the Beirne Carter Foundation) on the UVA campus providing immunology and medical research at UVA.
• Recently serving on the Virginia Historical Society Board of Directors.

He is a former member of Board of Directors for Explore Park, a former member of The Jefferson Center Board of Directors – Heywood served with the honorable Beverly T. Fitzpatrick on the board and participated in overseeing the renovation of the Shaftman Performance Hall. In addition, the Horace Fralin Charitable Trust was the largest benefactor of the center. He is also a benefactor of Taubman Art Museum – The Horace Fralin Charitable Trust made major donations of American Art, and Heywood and the Trust contributed significantly to the construction of the building and Heywood served previously on the Board of Directors and as Chairman.

In all the years he has advocated for health and education there are some observations that Heywood would like to make to those young people in middle and high school.  “Obtain as much education in the STEM subjects as possible to prepare for our knowledge-based economy. Those subjects and other rigorous studies will lead to significant jobs.”  It is important to be the “best at what you do –then there will always be a need for your services.  You only get one opportunity to get an education – take advantage of it.  Once you pass the age of thirty it becomes tough.  Prepare for a job you enjoy because it’s terrible to dread your employment.”

 “Success” is a word that is used often by Heywood in sharing the key to being fulfilled.  The definition of success to him “depends on the topic – but generally lead productive lives; stay healthy by working to preserve one’s health through exercise and good eating habits.  Give back time and resources to make your city, state, and nation better for everyone. “

Fralin was asked for a motto he lives by, he shared “Give back to the community, state and nation to make it a better place than you found it.”  He values work ethic and instilling values, to replace the current attitude of entitlement. A true gentleman and renaissance man who looks for ways to sustain a quality of life for others he has made a major gift along with his wife Cynthia of beautiful turn- of- the century American artist paintings.   The collection of 41 paintings will be housed at Heywood’s alma mater, the University of Virginia.  Upon their demise the collection they have amassed will be placed in the newly named Fralin Museum of Art a division of the College of Arts and Science for students and Virginians to study the great works.

W. Heywood Fralin was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2012.

Raymond Smoot was born January 21, 1947, in Lynchburg, an only child to parents Raymond Dillard Smoot and Gladys Masencup Smoot. Ray attended Bedford County schools through 5^th grade and then went to Lynchburg public schools (E.C. Glass High School). At 10 years old Ray’s first job was cutting grass for neighbors.  His mother stirred his artistic blood with piano lessons on an old upright that was replaced with a prize piano.  As the story goes his mother was in the Roberts’ Piano Company store in Lynchburg and placed her name in a drawing for a piano.  Her name was pulled along with a couple others and the question they had to answer was “who were the first two colleges to play against each other in competitive football?”  Ray’s mother cringed because she knew nothing about football, but blurted out the only colleges that came to mind, “Harvard and Princeton”.  Mrs. Smoot won the piano and young Ray continued his lessons through elementary school and he perfected the organ.  This made Ray the perfect stand in for any church services that had an absentee pianist or organist.  The Roberts’ piano still is being used by Ray today in a special place in his home.   In High School he managed the basketball team and was the Sports Editor for the school newspaper, along with being a representative to Virginia Boys State. 

Ray was the first generation of his family to attend college.  He was first attracted to Virginia Tech because he wanted to be an engineer.  However, he got his Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1969 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (VT) with the idea that he would be a teacher.  After getting his Master of Educational Administration he worked at Virginia Tech for two years before going to get his Doctorate degree at Ohio State University. 

In 1964 during high school, he began working for the Department of Agriculture measuring tobacco allotments.  He would literally measure each row of tobacco to see how many plants were growing.  This was a very interesting job because it allowed him to meet a variety of unique people.  Many of the farms were family owned and operated in Amherst County.    In 1965 – Ray had a job in construction digging foundations for commercial buildings.  He was paid $1.25 an hour.  This job helped motivate him to stick with college.

In obtaining his English Degree Ray originally wanted to be a teacher but he met Marshal Hahn, President of VA Tech who got him interested in University Administration. During college Ray was very involved with the Student Government and was president his senior year and later interned in the president’s office. This allowed him a front-row seat to the ever able and aggressive vision of Hahn.  For fun Ray joined a fraternity who had very productive fund raisers and his passion for music placed him in the glee club not to mention he had become an accomplished pianist.  While working on his doctoral degree at Ohio State Ray worked for the Ohio State Legislature.  This job focused on Education and policy matters (his office space was the size of a phone booth).  This job was very eye opening and exciting letting him see the political aspects that play a role in Educational Administration.  Ray worked with a state representative who was very responsive to his constituents.  There were multiple requests from local schools and businesses to acquire an Ohio state flag that had flown over the state capital.  Every so often Ray was sent up to the state capitol dome to wave an Ohio flag back and forth and then pack it up to be shipped to the constituent.   He learned to be truthful!

In 1975 he came back to Virginia Tech and became involved in the University financial operations.  He was the assistant to the VP for Administration (Stuart Cassell, former school business manager).  This job involved him working on various projects with the Virginia Tech Foundation which then had assets valued at $10 million.  Mr. Cassell passed away unexpectedly just one year after Ray had been working there.  With his death Ray was given some of his boss’s responsibility and took the reins of the foundation at the age of 29. 

2003- Ray becomes the full time Chief Executive Officer of the Virginia Tech Foundation. This role makes him responsible for managing investments, acquiring, and managing real estate and large/unique gifts, communication with the foundation board and managing a large staff plus foundation projects.

Over the years, the foundation also acquired and developed real estate for use by the university. The foundation now owns 17 properties around the state, including the 130-year-old Hotel Roanoke, the Virginia Tech Research Center-Arlington and the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center in Blacksburg plus the Virginia Tech Center for European Studies & Architecture housed in a 275-year-old villa near Lugano, Switzerland.

Changes since 1975:

• Student enrollment in 1975 was 11,000 and today the University boasts of 30,000 students.
• Funded research has grown to $450 Million (and has a major economic impact on our region.
• Virginia Tech Foundation assets have grown to $1.3 billion.
• Research enterprise is focused on areas of interest of public needs (ex. Energy, Cyber-Security and Transportation)
• How VT is funded- State funding has become smaller creating higher student cost.  The Virginia Tech Foundation now provides over $100 Million annually to students at the university.
• Increasing outreach of Tech across the state.  Examples are Hotel Roanoke, WVTF, The Pete Dye River Course (golf), Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, VT Seafood research center in Hampton, Virginia Tech/Carilion school of Medicine and Research Institute, the Corporate Research Center, the Equine Medical Center in Leesburg.
• Blacksburg and Roanoke are more united as a region.  Ray travels at least 3 times a week to Roanoke and described it as not going to another town but just going across town.  On occasion or two he has come to Roanoke three times in a day.
• More cooperative ventures and research initiatives are on the horizon, this includes the soon to be completed Turner Street project in Blacksburg in support the new Performing Arts Center.

Ray’s advice to young people is to determine what you enjoy doing and steer your volunteer work and education toward that goal.  Understand what you like to do!  Always prepare for unforeseeable events and circumstances that can arise. Ray stated that he always believes in Virginia Tech and his staff. They have taken up new and risky projects because they have confidence in each other’s ability to make their dreams a reality.

In looking back on the work, he has done his greatest project has been the reopening of The Hotel Roanoke. There was a lot of skepticism about whether that thing was going to work or not.  We bring about $600,000 or $700,000 a year out of that project now to help fund Virginia Tech. More important has been establishing the university in a very prominent way in Roanoke and bringing together the Roanoke and Blacksburg communities.

Another dream to reality venture was taking a cow pasture in 1985 and transforming it into the Corporate Research Center that houses 140 companies and approximately 2,400 workers. The Center has nurtured new businesses that are utilizing the research programs that originated at Virginia Tech.  This is the type of economic driver that had been speculated but now is responsible for the quality of life in Blacksburg and all of Western Virginia.  Ray has seen the increased number of dedicated VT alumni who are retiring and returning to the NRV to purchase condos leading to new services for the mature population.

As a board member of Warm Hearth Village, a 220-acre comprehensive senior living complex Ray has seen new facilities added and the resident population grow from 100 to 550 residents coming from all income levels.  Ray jokes that he is preparing a place for himself in those twilight years.

It is said you are known by the company you keep, well in Ray’s case the company is quite illustrious and dedicated to sustaining VT well into the future.  In his undergraduate class of 1969, there were the following orange and maroon proponents Frank Beamer/ VT Head Football Coach, Dr. Charles Steger/VT President, Joe Meredith/President of VT Corporate Research Center, and Tom Tiller/Vice President of Alumni Relations.  If it had not been for these five and their roles to put VT on the national map this valley would have a completely different look. The truth is that none of us were friends when we were undergraduates.  It’s not like we sat around at night thinking about how we could eventually go to work at Virginia Tech.  We knew each other, but back then, heck, Tech was a fourth the size of what it is now.  But yes, we’ve all had a good ride here. Ray has done his part to make the University, and the region an economic force and to complement this initiative comes the development of the natural assets.

Ray recently joined the board of directors of the Mountain Lake Conservancy which is repositioning this property as an outdoor recreation venue.

Ray enjoys life. He considers himself blessed to be a Virginian and American, to have been brought up by loving and Christian parents of modest means who worked hard and felt entitled to little.  Ray is thoroughly engaged in his community, feeling an obligation to give back and help advance its civic and economic life.  He is fortunate to work with talented people who are also committed to accomplishing positive things.  He can’t sit still and enjoys being with people who are similarly active and purposeful.  And he is proud of his family and is married to the love of his life.

Special awards and recognitions include:

• Meritorious Service Award – United States Army Reserve
• 2005 – National Community Leadership Award- American Association of Research Parks
• 2006 – Professional Leadership Award for Community Service- Blacksburg Christiansburg Rotary Club
• 2011 – Named among 25 Best Connected Virginia Business Leaders-   Virginia Business Magazine
• Distinguished Volunteer Service Recognition- Warm Hearth Retirement Community
• President’s Award- Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center
• 2012 Virginia Business Hall of Fame

Dr. Raymond Smoot was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2012.

George B. Cartledge Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Grand Home Furnishings, Inc., was born in Atlanta on August 8, 1941. He moved to Roanoke with his family in 1952. His father, the eldest of five children, was from Ila, GA. His mother was from Thomaston, GA. His parents married in 1932 and his sister, Pat Bennett, was born in 1934.  His father went into the furniture business during the Depression.  After proving his ability to a furniture store in Atlanta, he became the best furniture salesman in Atlanta and eventually a partner in that business. In 1952, George Sr. made a deal with his employers to take over their new store, Grand Piano, in Roanoke.

When his family moved to Roanoke from Atlanta, Cartledge Jr. went into the sixth grade at Crystal Spring Elementary and later attended Virginia Episcopal School in Lynchburg.  He then applied to Hampden-Sydney and was graduated with honors in 1963 with a B.A. in Economics.  In 1961, following his sophomore year at Hampden-Sydney, he married his girlfriend, Mary Ann James.  They have a son and daughter and nine grandchildren. Son, George Cartledge III, was born in 1963, is married to Barbara and has four children. Daughter, Ann, was born in 1965, is married to Joe Hoff and has five children.

While Cartledge was still a boy in Atlanta, he started his sales career by selling Cokes. At first, he stood on a corner and sold the Cokes, much like a lemonade stand. Then he figured he could sell more if he put the Cokes in a wagon and took them to apartment buildings – which he did with great success!  In Roanoke, he first went to work for Grand Piano in the warehouse at the age of 13. He made $10 a week. His father let him keep $1 and made him put $9 in the bank.  He has served as a truck driver, salesman and, later, buyer.  As of this year, Cartledge has been at Grand full-time for 50 years.

In 1951, Grand Piano began to expand outside of Roanoke.  At one time, Grand had 23 stores. Largely because of consolidating several stores within a community into a single store, the total number was reduced to 17. Recently, the company acquired four stores in West Virginia. Grand has stores in most college towns and in all instances except Lexington stores have been moved out of the city center.

Grand is a family-owned business which treats employees like family and the company’s policies toward customers are family-friendly. The business also has a 30-day return policy and, to ensure satisfaction, calls every customer after a delivery is made.  The key corporate focus is on not only attracting but also keeping customers.  “We get a lot of repeat business,” Cartledge said. “We sell to second and third generations.” Attention to each customer is one-way Grand keeps and grows its customer base. “The customer’s experience needs to be excellent, Cartledge stressed, whether they buy anything.  In 1997, the company dropped “piano” from its name.  Cartledge discussed the difference between the furniture industry and other industries, which he attributed largely to long-time working relationships. “One thing about the furniture business, the principals of companies are directly involved in buying – picking the merchandise – and in marketing. You’ll find this across the country,” he said.

When the company celebrated its 100^th anniversary two years ago, every current and former employee and their spouse were invited to a dinner at Hotel Roanoke. “We take care of them, and they take care of us.” He also said that the company promotes from within. “The executives who make the decisions have come up through the ranks,” he explained.  Son, George III is President and nephew, Robert, is Executive Vice President of the corporation serving as “co-chiefs” for operating the corporation.

Cartledge has served on numerous boards of local corporations and non-profit organizations. He has served on Roanoke Memorial’s and Carilion Clinic’s board for almost 40 years. He currently is the chairman of the board for Center in the Square and was a key figure in the Center’s recent capital campaign. He is vice-chair and a charter member of the Hometown Bank board. He was president of the Rescue Mission when they funded the main building that houses most of the mission’s activities His service has garnered several awards and recognition. Hampden-Sydney College, where he is a trustee emeritus, presented him with the Algernon Sydney Sullivan award. He also has received the Multiple Sclerosis Society award, the Excellence in Governance award from the Virginia Hospital Association and the Red Triangle Award from the YMCA. His key passions are traveling with family, reading, photography, fishing, golf, and cars which even led to the Woods Brothers and Nascar involvement.

George B. Cartledge, Jr. was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2013.

Donald Edward Lorton, Sr. was born January 7, 1948, in Radford, VA to Sally Alberta Williams Lorton and Willard Norman Lorton.  Both of Don’s parents came from large families, however Don was an only child who was surrounded by cousins and good buddies.  He was educated in Radford city schools until 6^th grade when he and his family moved mid-year to Pulaski where he remained until high school graduation.   Don had a great passion for competition and was a member of the football, wrestling and track teams.  When asked about his grades Don admitted they were strong because they were a factor in his ability to join the school sports teams.  With a father, grandfather, and several uncles being mechanics or carpenters it was natural for Don to enjoy tinkering with most machines and building things.  Don had a brief stint in the Civil Air Patrol that led to summer camp at Langley Air Force base to learn the particulars of search and rescue training, creased pants, and spit shine shoes.  

Based on his love for sports Don always dreamed he would have a degree in Physical Education and become a coach.  However, life changed as he became a teenage dad and married while in high school and then the birth of his son, Don Jr. occurred in 1965.  From his early teens he held a job, starting first as a farm hand and while in high school he became a bagger at the local Kroger store.   It was there that Mr. Palmer the local Kroger Manager and neighbor to the Lorton’s made a great impression on young Don.  He realized that if you had a management job that it also meant opportunity to make a difference for the employees and the customers.

 As a young breadwinner, Don headed off to National Business College in Roanoke to obtain his associate degree in business.  To supplement the cost for his college he was able to be transferred to the Kroger at Crossroads Mall and was able to live with his brother-in-law.  It was upon the insistence of his accounting instructor Richard Adams at National Business College that Don changed his degree from business to accounting.  Mr. Adams realized Don’s ease with numbers would open doors and increase his options with an accounting degree and sitting for the CPA exam.   Upon graduation from National Business College Don returned to Pulaski and sought work with a local CPA, who referred him to Pulaski Community Hospital for an accounting position.  The advent of Medicare in 1965 forced hospitals to implement new and better accounting and financial management systems.  It was apparent that each hospital needed to build a solid team of number crunchers to keep pace with Medicare regulations and payments.

Don describes the management of health care industry finances in the late 1960s as being reminiscent of the “wild west”; compared to his National Business accounting classmates who were hired by Norfolk Western, or Appalachian Power who had very structured jobs.  Hospital financial jobs were fluid and developed definition after Medicare had been in place for several years.   Don began as the controller for Pulaski County Hospital covering payroll, preparing financial statements, tax returns, typing up refund checks and all other duties as assigned.  By the time he had completed three years with PCH he was departing as the Chief Financial Officer to start his career at Roanoke Memorial Hospital.  The growth in his career was complemented by his membership in the Hospital Financial Management Association (HFMA).  HFMA is a professional association focused on the continuing education of its members and serving as a trade association in matters of hospital financial management.  In the very year Don started work with PCH he was called upon by the association to give a 45-minute overview of the Ameriplan Bill, a version of healthcare reform.  This was a stretch for young Don because while he had studied the bill thoroughly presenting it to a crowd of more than a hundred of his peers was a bit intimidating.  Don describes this presentation as “45 minutes of agony for him and his audience”.

In addition to the CFO position at Pulaski Hospital Don was holding down a weekend job that he started working in 1967 at Burlington Industries. The job consisted of loading freight, and they were pushing him to obtain his CDL so he could drive a big rig and make more money than he could at the position of CFO; however, at Burlington there would be no growth.  The time spent working both jobs helped him pay off two loans, one for his first car and the other for school.

Through HFMA meetings he came to know Thomas (Tom) L. Robertson, Financial Officer of Roanoke Memorial Hospital.  Tom was revered by many as a gentleman that had a strong knowledge and command of hospital finances.  Roanoke Memorial, like other hospitals of the era, had a trusty CPA firm conducting the day-to-day books prior to the formation of a controller and staff.  Tom offered Don a job as Assistant Controller at the Roanoke Memorial and he loved the idea of working for a bigger hospital. However, he still had to study for his CPA exam which he took two times to pass.  Tom was most supportive of Don trying to acquire his CPA license along with the mandate to perform services in a CPA firm.  Don’s early time on the job at Roanoke Memorial was filled with long hours as he and Tom worked to bring the financial and management reporting system up to speed.  Don did not bring his family to Roanoke until late in 1972 because his second son John was born in February of the same year.  At the end of his workday Don would spend his free time running the track at Patrick Henry High School.  Don’s diligence did not go unnoticed by Tom Robertson in his three-year stint.  Don went to Tom in 1975 and shared his desire to complete 18 months with a CPA firm as required by the Board of Accountancy to obtain his long-desired CPA license.  Tom encouraged Don who had planned for a smooth transition with the hiring of Curtis Mills to be budget director. 

In 1976 Don was rehired by Tom Robertson to Roanoke Memorial as the Vice President of Finance.    In the hospital arena Don returned to more exciting times with exploration into tax exempt debt to lower costs of capital for not-for profit hospitals.  Traditional loans had been taken out for expansion.  Yet new ideas were percolating for financing capital needs like CT scanners and operating room equipment from an innovative investment banker at First Merchants in Richmond.  Don gained a mentor in “Ham” Sherra who he describes as one of the most innovative thinkers he has ever met.  Harnessing Mr. Sherra’s creativity, Don began implementing a series of debt issues leveraging both the tax-exempt status and yield curve.  This put RMH at the forefront of capital financing which would later attract New York investment bankers.

In our nation during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s health care was experiencing run-away costs.  Virginia implemented a voluntary rate review program that was later replaced with a legislated program administered by the Virginia Health Services Cost Review Council.  Its mission is to “promote the economic delivery of high quality and effective institutional health care services to the citizens of the Commonwealth”.  Don Lorton was appointed to the Council as one of three hospital representatives where he served two (2) three-year terms.  Ultimately the concept of a rate setting agency proved unsuccessful in controlling healthcare costs. 

To identify an alternative solution Virginia’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Howard Cullum called together business leaders, hospital leaders, insurance executives, physician and State agency heads.  Don’s contribution at that meeting landed him a seat on a special task force to create a vehicle to share pricing and cost information to drive competition and innovation.  From that work came the Patient Level Database Act and Virginia Health Information, a public private partnership.  Don served as a founding board member and Treasurer of VHI.  Today, VHI remains Virginia’s home for cost, quality, and efficiency healthcare information, with links to nursing, health insurance, physicians and long-term care/nursing homes and hospital patient information.   

Debt issues at RMH got the attention of a group of New York investment bankers and one individual Rondy Jennings.  In the early 1980s he was an innovative investment banker for J P Morgan who made multiple trips to Roanoke to explore financing options with Don.  It was Rondy’s “servant” attitude towards his clients that cemented a bond with Don and the hospital that has lasted close to three decades.  Don recognizes Rondy and others like local bond attorney Al Knighton as valuable mentors. 

In this same decade Roanoke Memorial Hospital evolved into Carilion Health System and took on the management of several smaller community hospitals.   Don and his finance team were assigned the task of performing due diligence and the developing of financial improvement plans.  Growing up in Pulaski, Don felt at home as his team worked from motels in Big Stone Gap, Wytheville, and Lebanon. 

In 1982, Roanoke Memorial Hospital was reorganizing and adopted a new name, Carilion Health System.  By 1986 new administrators evolved by pulling existing personnel up through the ranks.  In 1986 Thomas Robertson is named CEO and Don is named CFO.  Don now has a deeper pool of talent for his Finance Department.  And they were focused on reducing cost and providing new forms of revenue to support Carilion’s mission.  The use of prepackaged surgical trays was adopted to reduce costs in the OR.  Carilion leadership recognized the growth potential for companies producing these trays.  Carilion purchased a small Richmond based producer, Sterile Concepts.  Carilion grew this $3 Million company to more than $100 million in sales before diversity through an IPO.  The proceeds of this sale boosted Carilion’s investment fund and contributed to Don’s Treasury Department being a significant source of funds to support Carilion’s mission.

In the 1990’s two new trends were developing for hospitals, the formation of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO’s) and the employment of more physicians.  Don’s familiarity with deal making and business structure made him a natural to take on these tasks.  Don was attracted to the fundamental concept of the Health Maintenance Organization; accept a fixed payment in exchange for keeping patients well.  In contrast the old fee for service model provided an incentive to treat patients for illness but nothing for keeping them well.  Don pulled together physician investors, a management team, and obtained a license from the Bureau of Insurance for Carilion to operate an HMO.  In a little over two years Carilion had gone from concept to having the largest HMO market share in the region. 

Unfortunately, many HMOs across the country were more focused on managing costs, through obstacles to care and limiting access to hospitals and physicians.  By the late 90’s a national backlash to these tactics had undermined the real intent of Health Maintenance Organization and members began to move back into more traditional forms of insurance like PPO’s.  With falling volume and rising overhead, Carilion closed its HMO in 2002. On the physician front Tom Robertson and Don structured Carilion’s acquisition of a large regional primary care physicians’ group.  Many of the original 81 physicians remain with Carilion today and were an important part of the core around which Carilion Clinic was formed. 

HFMA served as an industry advocate, but its primary goal was the professional development of hospital leaders.  Each state chapter held periodic conferences with speakers covering a variety of topics.   Tom Robertson was very active in the association.  During his term as the President-elect, he was to lead the development of four conferences for the year.  However, Tom was very resourceful and created a programs committee and appointed Don to head up the work.   Once Tom Robertson became the Association chair, he advocated having programs be independent of the chair-elect and it was approved once again with Don now appointed Programs Chair.  By the time Don was elected chair-elect several years later programs were once again the responsibility of that position.  This equated to Don establishing twelve programs for the statewide membership and getting on a first name bases with many state and national health care experts.  Today the whole staff in Carilion’s finance department is enrolled and active members of HFMA.

The Virginia Health and Hospital Association (VHHA) was another place Don was always willing to volunteer his time.  He served on many committees, Task Forces, and Study Groups across 4 decades.  He credits his appointments to the Virginia Health Services Cost Review Committee and Virginia Health Information to his work at VHHA.  He was the first recipient of VHHA’s Meritorious Service Award. 

In the 1990s, Carilion’s Vice President of Human Resources Tony Bongiovanni realized not only that Don was great at taking on challenges to create a fiscally sound hospital, but he rarely said no when it came to assisting others.  Tony’s wife Jane was the Volunteer Coordinator of Junior Achievement (JA) and convinced Don to teach a William Fleming class of High School seniors the fine points of running a business. This one JA classroom experience led to meeting some bright students who were in their last high school semester and most had all been accepted to college.  This was a JA program that had 16 lessons built around setting up a student run business.  While Don was attempting to teach them about organization, leadership, and finance they were teaching him the virtues of a sales driven organization.  The company was a financial success, paying a 2 to 1 return to its investors, nice bonuses to its top salespeople and administrative leaders and a franchise tax to JA.

Don was asked what advice he would give young people preparing for the world of work and he shared he realizes there are a lot of pressures on young people to pick a college and course of study.  He continued that frequently individuals find careers not directly related to their degree.  His advice is that a good education provides one with options.  Seek a good education and you can adapt it to meet your career and life goals.  It is good to plan even though it may not work out the way you envisioned.

Outside of building a strong reputation in hospital financial management, Don also served on Family Services of Roanoke Valley board, and he continues to serve on the national board for the Alliance for Children and Families in Milwaukee, WI and the Junior Achievement of Southwest Virginia where he has the distinction of serving 22 years and two times as board chair.  Don does not have a bucket list but in his newfound hours of leisure he vows to spend more quality time with his family.  Plus carving out time to do more than write a check for the less fortunate and put in some sweat equity.

Don was an integral part of the team that led Carilion through its transition to Carilion Clinic.  The anticipated financial burdens of this transition were amplified by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.  Dealing with huge financial losses was a new experience for Don and his team.  Don realized the losses were not sustainable but that too abrupt a response could damage the young clinic with its focus on coordinated, integrated, patient centered care.  Don feels that helping Carilion maintain a balance approach to turning around its finances while continuing to grow the clinic is the most significant accomplishment of his career.  “Yes, I retired from Carilion after it once again achieved profitability but more importantly, with Carilion being a leader in developing a patient centered, integrated model of care bent on improving the health status of its patients.”

Donald E. Lorton was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2013.