Robert W. Woody

Robert Wells Woody was born in Mr. Woody was born in Roanoke, VA and was a 1935 graduate of Roanoke College. He earned a Master’s in business administration in 1937, from the Harvard Business School. Mr. Woody was a man who believed in duty, truth, and honor, but the love of his family, community and country was paramount in his life. He was a mild-mannered man who did not seek the limelight and frequently stated “that getting the job done was his main objective, not recognition”. He was a long-time member of St. John’s Episcopal Church and active in its Vestry.

Mr. Woody joined the United States Navy in June 1942, and served as Communications Officer and Aide to Rear Admiral Morton L. Deyo. He participated in support of the Normandy Invasion and later received the Bronze Star medal for valor while serving in the Pacific Theatre. He was honorably discharged with the rank of Lieutenant in 1946, at the conclusion of World War II.

As a long-standing business leader in the Roanoke area, he very active in public service. He was President of Roanoke Hardware Company, and later Chairman and President of Nelson Roanoke Corporation. In 1968, he was elected President and CEO of the Vance Company. He served on the Roanoke City Council from 1952-1956; first as Vice Mayor for two years and then as Mayor of Roanoke for a two-year term. He was President of the Chamber of Commerce in 1980, and he chaired the restoration of the Mayor’s Monument in Elmwood Park in 2009.

Robert Woody believed strongly in giving back to his community, with both time and money. He served on the Board of Carilion Health System and Roanoke Hospital Association for nearly 40 years, 18 years of which he was chairman. He also served for many years on the boards of the Roanoke Gas Company, Walker Machine and Foundry, First National Exchange Bank, First Federal Savings & Loan, Roanoke College, and the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges. He was active in the arts community with leadership roles in the Roanoke Historical Society, the Roanoke Symphony Society, and the Roanoke Fine Arts Museum -now the Taubman Museum of Art. In addition, he led the General Campaign for the Southwest Virginia Center for The Arts and Sciences, now known as “Center in the Square.”

He served as Chairman of the Roanoke City Budget Planning Commission, Chairman of the Roanoke Charter Study Committee, chaired the Campaign for the Roanoke Civic Center Building Committee, and served as Chairman of the Roanoke Municipal Airport Commission and Vice Chairman of the Industrial Development Authority of the City of Roanoke.

While always modest about his achievements, he was publicly acknowledged on several occasions for his active role in the Roanoke community and dedication to civic service. In 1966, he received The Jaycees “Outstanding Civic Citizen Award.” In 1967, he was awarded Roanoke College’s Medal for Distinguished Service and Professional Achievement. In 1981, he received the “Roanoke’s First Citizen Award” established by the Roanoke City Council. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame and passed away in April 2011.


Robert W. Woody was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1995.

Edward H. Ould

Edward H. Ould, Jr. was born on September 13, 1907, to Ethel and Ed Ould. Ed’s father was the president of the Bank of Norton and owned a country store and coal mine. Ed helped his father deliver the payroll by horseback. Ed’s father died in 1919 when Ed was only 12 years old and his mother, now widowed with three children, moved to Roanoke. He then assumed many adult responsibilities and learned to take charge.

As a 1925 graduate of Jefferson High School, Ed was known as, “one of the most popular boys in the senior class” and as “one who took an active part in almost all high school activities.” It seems fortuitous he was a member of a class whose slogan was “first and foremost”. Ed enrolled at Washington & Lee University and received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration in 1929.

Ed’s first job was selling stocks and bonds for F.W. McWane & Company and in 1933, he accepted a job with the old Roanoke Bond Company. His jobs during the Great Depression only increased his tenacity and work ethic. Although the country was in the midst of the Depression, Ed met and fell in love with Madolyn Burruss Airheart. They were married on October 21, 1933, and had two children, Ed H. Ould III (Ted) and Mary Robertson (Robin). They enjoyed 39 years of marriage until her death in 1972.

Ed Ould’s career with First National Exchange Bank would ultimately span more than 40 years: from the lean, money-short, depression era of the 1930’s to the competitive 1970’s. He started at FNEB in 1936 when he accepted a part-time job offer from J. Tyler Meadows, Chairman. He was quickly elevated to Vice- President. In 1949, he was named Executive Vice-President and by 1950, he was a director.

During WWII, at the age of 35, Ould applied for a commission in the US Naval Reserve. He was named commanding officer of the Roanoke Volunteer Naval Reserve Supply Division in 1948 and was commended with a Certificate of Appreciation before being honorably discharged as a Lieutenant from the United States Navy in 1950.

Ould would become FNEB’s seventh president in 1956. His professional and civic achievements, by this time, were countless. In addition to serving on the Board of Directors for the Times-World Corporation, the Roanoke Symphony Society and the United Fund Drive, he chaired the Red Cross Fund Drive and was president of the Chamber of Commerce in 1949. He and the local Merchants Association were instrumental in erecting the star on Mill Mountain. Ed also spent countless hours in service to his community and state, with particular emphasis on serving youth. He was a director of the Blue Ridge Council and Boy Scouts of America and served as a Board member of the YMCA. His interests in educational institutions extended over and above his ties to Washington & Lee University. He was on the Board of Trustees for Roanoke College and North Cross School, and he accepted an appointment from the Governor to the VMI Board of Visitors. He was among the founders of the Roanoke Junior Achievement and believed in the value of work and supported opportunities for youth to have business experience. In 1957, he was listed in “Who’s Who in America.”

Some of the most interesting times in Roanoke Banking history occurred in the 1960’s. Ould began the expansion course he charted for FNEB with the merger of Peoples National Bank in 1960. In the next few years, 14 banks joined FNEB, tripling the bank’s size and consolidating their position in Southwest Virginia. When asked about the phenomenal growth the bank enjoyed during his leadership, he would modestly say, “we don’t regard size as significant, except that it enables the bank to make larger loans and provide stronger service.”

By 1967, Ould headed another form of expansion when FNEB and Metropolitan National Bank in Richmond combined to form Dominion Bank=shares, the first and largest holding company in the state based on this side of Richmond. During Ed’s years as president, assets at FNEB multiplied almost nine times. The bank’s operations expanded from 2 to 35 offices, and assets grew from $92 million in 1956 to $834 million in 1977 (over $4 billion today). It has been said by many that Ed Ould clearly saw the potential of FNEB in Southwest Virginia in the late 1950’s. He has been recognized for his keen perception of the future and ability to effectively meet, in advance, those economic and consumer demands. He attributed much of his success to the “good fortune of a talented management staff” and said, “I did work very hard, mostly because I loved the business, but partly, too, because I’ve always tried to have consideration for others and have had their support.” A former colleague once said that Ould “never sought recognition or publicity. He is one of the silent giants of the business and banking worlds of Virginia.”

He enjoyed gardening, boating and tennis, but his favorite pastime was banking. He was intensely dedicated to his profession, and exuded leadership. His daughter, Robin, remembers her father saying, “I never woke up when I did not want to go to work.” Ed retired from active banking in 1977 and was recognized as one of Virginia’s greatest bankers and business leaders until his death in 1979. He was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1996.

Edward H. Ould was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1996.

E. Cabell Brand

E. Cabell Brand grew up in a highly conservative, wealthy family in Salem, Virginia. Upon his graduation from Andrew Lewis High School in 1940, he decided to become the next in his family’s long line of Virginia Military Institute (VMI) graduates. It was during his time at VMI that he began to pay close attention to society’s injustices. Liza Urso, Cabell’s stepdaughter, recalls a story he often told of being a young man and bringing a Black friend home to spend the night while he was passing through town. “Cabell was so surprised, aghast, and confused at his father’s violent, racist reaction, when Cabell had never thought of his friend as being any different…that really opened Cabell’s eyes, mind, and heart to the disparate opportunities of certain segments of the population,” she explains. 

During his first year at VMI, Cabell was called to Germany to serve in World War II. Following the war and his eventual graduation from VMI, Cabell returned to Europe to help implement the Marshall Plan. That experience spurred his life-long penchant for public service. “When he was in the war, he was seeing the devastation. He was seeing the poverty and the homelessness that the war triggered. It just sort of opened his eyes to how lucky he was and how sheltered he’d been,” says Caroline Brand, Cabell’s daughter.

While in Europe, Cabell learned of another struggle taking place back home. His family’s shoe business, founded by his grandfather in 1904, was on the verge of collapse. Never one to back down from a fight, Cabell returned home and got to work. The soon-to-be Stuart McGuire Company became a booming business, with Cabell as its president.

Cabell’s work as a businessman allowed him to control his schedule, giving him the freedom to pursue his calling to fight poverty and injustice. “He believed that society was only as strong as its weakest member. We couldn’t really consider ourselves successful until we were all given the same opportunity and the same access to that opportunity. You must level the playing field and then it’s fair,” explains Caroline. Liza adds, “There are two main guidelines that he lived by. First, everybody is equal. The color of one’s skin or the size of one’s bank account or home has nothing to do with what kind of person someone is. Everyone deserves to be treated equally and with great respect. Second, those who have more opportunities have an obligation to help those who don’t have those opportunities.”

When President Lyndon Johnson announced his War on Poverty and accompanying Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, Cabell seized the chance to bring real, lasting change to the Roanoke Valley. The EOA provided federal funding for the creation of Community Action Agencies, designed to fight poverty at the local level. “When the Economic Opportunity Act was passed, I believe it spoke to these feelings and thoughts which had been concerning Cabell for 20 or more years, and he saw an opportunity to make a difference,” explains Liza. Cabell and his wife, Shirley, who was pregnant at the time, agreed that he would take six months off from Stuart McGuire to pursue this funding for their community.

It wasn’t an easy task. In fact, Cabell faced pushback nearly every step of the way. “You know, it’s hard to stand up in the Roanoke Valley in the 60s and say, ‘I’m going to start this Community Action Agency to help underprivileged people,’ meanwhile people are burning crosses on his lawn,” explains Caroline.

But, yet again, Cabell persisted in the face of adversity. “His philosophy was don’t worry about what people think about you or what people say about you if you’re doing the right thing… If you’re doing the right thing, then hold your head up high and go forward with it. Don’t let your naysayers hold you back,” says Liza.

Cabell studied the EOA’s provisions, and in 1965 he was able to use his considerable business and political connections to apply for federal funding and form a nonprofit Community Action Agency. Thus, TAP was chartered as the official anti-poverty agency in the Roanoke Valley, and the rest is history. TAP’s first order of business was opening a Head Start program, which created the first integrated classrooms in the Roanoke Valley. With the help of Cabell’s leadership, TAP quickly grew to offer additional services in housing, job training, and more—an impact that is still felt today. “It’s cool to see that all that work he did is still paying off. He started something that has legs and longevity, and it’s really, truly making an impact,” notes Caroline.

Of course, Cabell didn’t stop with the Roanoke Valley. He helped turn several TAP programs into statewide organizations. He was instrumental in VMI’s decision to allow Black students into his alma mater. He even traveled to more than 100 countries and did consulting work with the United Nations. As Caroline puts it, “No challenge was ever too big for him… He always figured out a way or found the people to figure out how to make the problem solvable.”

In 1987, The Cabell Brand Center was founded with a dedication ceremony with the then President of Roanoke College, Norman Fintel, and guest speaker Sargent Shriver. Scores of local businesspeople and friends attended the ceremony on the Roanoke College campus.

“A challenge of our society and to our education institutions is providing students an opportunity to study and participate in global problems with local “hands-on” projects. The Center believes in the principle of “Think globally, act locally.” The Center with its various programs, library and networking facilities, offers both an opportunity and a challenge to students to study the two critical issues of resource limitation and global poverty, and hopefully, become involved in the action programs of their choice.” – Norman Fintel, Former President, Roanoke College

The Center was founded primarily to give students in the colleges of this region an opportunity to study and research issues of poverty, the environment, and peace. The idea was to supplement student academic projects. The student would conduct his/her research for class credit and ultimately supply the Center with a copy that would be filed and sometimes published. The Center would pay the student a stipend of $500 to $1,000 and in some instances a class project of up to $5000. Funding for these research projects came from foundation grants or from annual contributions from local corporations, businesspeople, local organizations and individuals.

Since the program’s inception, the Center has awarded and had relationships with over 500 individual projects and students at Roanoke College, Hollins University, Virginia Western Community College, Radford University, Virginia Tech, Virginia Military Institute, Washington & Lee University, and Lynchburg College.

In addition to the student projects, over the years the Cabell Brand Center has helped sponsor sustainable development seminars at Hollins University, Roanoke College and Ferrum College, with hundreds of participants at each of these seminars and with speakers from international organizations such as World Resource Institute, World Bank, USAID, US Department of State, and many others.

The activities of Cabell Brand in the areas of poverty and peace (conflict resolution) are documented in Cabell Brand’s book “If Not Me, Then Who.” These issues are still actively addressed through ongoing relationships with both national and international peace organizations. At the local level, poverty objectives continue with TAP programming in the Roanoke Valley and the expansion of the Shepherd Poverty Program from Washington & Lee University to colleges and universities across the country. The TAP program led to the launch of many innovative programs focused on public education for people from low-income households. From a national and international perspective, we collaborate with the U.S. Institute of Peace, The Carter Center, Rotary International Peace Fellowship program and others. These relationships stem from Cabell Brand’s previous involvement with the United National Development Program (UNDP) and the World Bank in economic development projects in Bangladesh, India, Egypt, and Botswana.

To this day, Total Action for Progress honor’s Cabell’s legacy by presenting the Cabell Brand Hope Award to a member of the community who shares in Cabell’s relentless pursuit of social change and work for the common good.

“People who receive this award need to feel that there’s always something else to do to help somebody else. There’s always another step and another thing on the list. They need to have that kind of vision and be forward thinking,” says Caroline. Cabell was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1997 and passed away in January 2015.

E. Cabell Brand was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1997.

Carter L. Burgess

Carter Lane Burgess was born on December 31, 1916, in Roanoke, Virginia, and was an American soldier, business executive, and diplomat. The Washington Post once described Mr. Burgess’s military advancement in World War II as “meteoric.” The strapping military policeman became aide-de-camp to Gen. Walter Bedell “Beetle” Smith, chief of staff to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In the mid-1950s, then-President Eisenhower named Mr. Burgess assistant secretary of defense for manpower and personnel. He overhauled the armed forces reserve system to face Cold War threats and oversaw legislation to improve military benefits involving life insurance and medical treatment. He also mobilized forces to assist in drought relief in Western states. His service in the private sector proved no less auspicious. He rose from insurance claims adjuster to president of Trans World Airlines and American Machine and Foundry, maker of automatic bowling pinsetters and other devices.

He took over the ailing TWA in 1956, just before his 40th birthday. Reportedly the youngest president of a major airline, he helped restore it to profitability. Mr. Burgess once said he could “get through to anyone in America” because of his contacts in and out of government. He had a stint as ambassador to Argentina in the late 1960s, followed by a few years as chairman of the National Corporation for Housing Partnerships, a body authorized by Congress to promote private construction of lower-income housing.

His economic foresight led to jobs on corporate boards. During the oil crisis of the 1970s, he persuaded reluctant board members of Ford Motor Co. to proceed with expensive plans to build a European model called the Fiesta, which became a success. He once told Fortune magazine he could be “too insistent” at times, leading to clashes with management and other boards.

From 1974 to 1981, he was chairman of the New York-based Foreign Policy Association, a nonprofit education group focusing on foreign affairs. At the association, he helped create the World Affairs Council of Washington, a nonpartisan organization. He moved to his native Roanoke in 1980 and was a trustee emeritus of the George C. Marshall Foundation.

Carter Lane Burgess, the son of a railway routeman with Railway Express Agency, was a 1939 graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. He worked for Railway Express Agency as a baggage handler and water boy to pay his college tuition and joined the Army Reserve after leaving college. He was called to active duty in 1941. A chance encounter with Gen. Smith led to a lifelong friendship between the two, and Mr. Burgess became executor of his will.

During the war, Mr. Burgess was assistant secretary of the general staff for the Army Air Forces headquarters in North Africa, and secretary of the general staff at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces. He was administrative secretary of the Casablanca Conference in 1943, where Allied leaders formulated the demand for “unconditional surrender” from the Axis powers. He told an interviewer he did the “pick and shovel work” at Casablanca, ensuring that French generals such as Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud had identical numbers of balconies and towels in their villas.

During his encounter with Winston S. Churchill, the British prime minister was said to have hummed “Oh, Susanna” to the Southern-accented Mr. Burgess, believing he was from Alabama. He left active duty as a colonel, and his military decorations included the Legion of Merit. After the war, he was a top aide to business and university leaders and served as deputy executive secretary of the International Secretariat at the 1945 U.N. conference in San Francisco, where the U.N. charter was drawn up.

He resigned from Defense in 1956 to take over TWA. He helped persuade Eisenhower to approve an around-the-world air route for TWA, which Pan American also had at the time. He left TWA in 1957 over policy disputes with Howard Hughes, who owned the parent company.

He was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1997 and passed away in August 2022.

Carter L. Burgess was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1997.

Warner Dalhouse

Warner Dalhouse is the former CEO and chairman of the board of directors of Dominion Bankshares Corp.as well as First Union National Bank of Virginia. He began his banking career with First National Exchange Bank. Dalhouse is an avid Roanoke community supporter, having served on numerous boards for higher education, the Roanoke Valley SPCA, and the local banking industry. He currently serves on the board of HomeTown Bank. He received his bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Virginia and is a graduate of the Stonier School of Banking at Rutgers University. He was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1998 and is currently residing in Roanoke, VA.

Warner Dalhouse was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1998.

Nicholas F. Taubman

Nicholas Taubman is the current President of Mozart Investments and is the former U.S. Ambassador to Romania, where he was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2005 and previously served as Chairman, CEO, and Director of Advance Auto Parts. Mr. Taubman serves as a Managing Director for the Metropolitan Opera. He formerly served on the Board of Regents of Mercersburg Academy, was a member of the World President’s Organization, and was a Trustee of the Virginia Historical Society. He served as Director of the Virginia College Fund in Richmond; President and Director of the Roanoke Valley Chamber of Commerce; Director of Roanoke Valley Industries and the Roanoke Merchants Association; Director of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra; President of the Automotive Executive Association; Director of the Alliance Tire & Rubber Company in Hadera, Israel; Trustee of Hollins University, and as a Member of the Young President’s Organization. Ambassador Taubman and his wife Jenny are the largest donors to the new Taubman Museum of Art (located in Roanoke, VA). He resides in Roanoke, VA.

Nicholas F. Taubman was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1998.

Caldwell Butler

Caldwell Butler was born in Roanoke, Virginia, to William Wilson Samuel Butler and the former Sarah Poage Caldwell. H Butler attended Roanoke City public schools and graduated from Jefferson Senior High School in 1942. He then began undergraduate studies in Richmond as well as joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). After training at Columbia University, Butler was commissioned an ensign in the United States Navy, assigned to command a rescue boat in Rhode Island. Upon his discharge in 1946, Butler completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Richmond in 1948. He went to Charlottesville to attend the University of Virginia Law School and graduated with an LLB degree in 1950. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Order of the Coif, and the Raven Society.

Butler was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1950 and began a private legal practice in Roanoke. Butler’s first political campaign was for Roanoke City Council in 1958, and he lost. However, in 1961, Butler became the first Republican to represent Roanoke in the Virginia House of Delegates since 1901. In the widespread upset over closing of Virginia’s public schools because of U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd’s vow of Massive Resistance to the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education, Butler defeated veteran Byrd Organization Democrat Julian H. Rutherford Jr., who had served since 1948.

Butler represented Roanoke in the House of Delegates (a part-time position) from 1962 to 1971. He fought corruption, such as a local highway commissioner with a conflict of interest, and revitalized a two-party system as the Byrd Organization crumbled. Butler became involved in redistricting controversies, necessitated by censuses, as well the Supreme Court decision in Davis v. Mann and federal civil rights legislation.

He later called helping to revitalize a two-party system in Virginia “the greatest thrill of my life.” Butler served as chairman of the joint Republican caucus from 1964 to 1966, and as minority leader from 1966 to 1971. In representing Roanoke in the House of Delegates, Butler served alongside Democrat Kossen Gregory until 1963, then Democrat Willis M. Anderson. In the 1971 elections Ray L. Garland and John C. Towler replaced Anderson and Butler. In 1970, his law partner Linwood Holton was elected Governor of Virginia. Holton later recalled Butler’s ability to make alliances, as well as his ability to concentrate on specific issues.]

When United States Representative Richard H. Poff, a fellow Republican, resigned, Butler won the Republican nomination to fill the ensuing vacancy in the Roanoke-based 6th District. He ran in two elections on Election Day—a special election for the balance of Poff’s 10th term, and a regular election for a full two-year term—winning both. He initially supported President Richard M. Nixon, crediting his own victory to the coattails of Nixon’s landslide in the 1972 elections. However, as the Watergate tapes revealed dirty tricks and chicanery at the White House, Butler joined six other Republicans and three conservative Southern Democrats—known among themselves as “the unholy alliance”—in questioning Nixon’s conduct. The freshman representative drew national attention on July 25, 1974, when he announced his support for impeachment. He noted that for Republicans who had long campaigned against dishonest and criminal conduct in government, “Watergate is our shame.” Two days later, the Judiciary Committee voted to refer three articles of impeachment to the full House, with Butler voting for two of them. Nixon resigned the presidency the following month.

Despite his mother’s warnings about endangering his political career, Butler never questioned the appropriateness of his vote, though fellow Republicans may have disciplined him with unfavorable committee assignments. Those who knew Butler said that he was “free of politics” and acted more like a judge.

Voters appeared to appreciate Butler’s courage in 1974. While many of his Republican colleagues went down in defeat due to voter anger over Watergate, Butler himself defeated his Democratic challenger by 18 points, albeit falling short of a majority. It would be the last time he would face major-party opposition in an election; he only faced an independent in 1976 and was completely unopposed in 1978 and 1980. Besides the Watergate hearings, he also participated in the hearings for vice-presidents Gerald R. Ford and Nelson Rockefeller, and in the creation of the Legal Services Corporation. He was the main author of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978. In 1982, he chose not to seek re-election but instead resumed practicing law in Roanoke the following year with Woods, Rogers & Hazelgrove although he also served on the National Bankruptcy Review Commission in 1995–1997.

He was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1999 and passed away on July 28, 2014, at the age of 89.

Caldwell Butler was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 1999.

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