2026 Virginia Black Business Leaders Awards: VINCENT TUCKER

Tucker started Quality Moving Services with one truck in 1989, initially offering just residential moving services, with Tucker doing the majority of work himself. By 2011, the company expanded to include commercial and contract moves. Today, it brings in annual revenue of about $1.1 million and employs five full-time and 10 part-time workers, with more brought on during its busy moving season from April to September.

A Hampton native, Tucker earned his public administration degree from Virginia State University in 1985. He serves on the board of Central Virginia’s Better Business Bureau and is president of the William Tucker 1624 Society, a nonprofit run by descendants like him of some of the first enslaved Africans to arrive in Virginia at Point Comfort in 1619. The group’s mission is to educate the public about the first Africans to arrive in Virginia. Once a year, the organization leads heritage tours to Angola, a trip Tucker estimates he’s taken around eight times.

FIRST JOB: Working for a family grocery store in Newport News. It was a small corner store. Back then, we had meat departments, so we had to cut up the meat — steaks, pork chops and all that stuff.

PROUDEST PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENT: Being able to run Quality Moving Services for 36 years

WHOSE FOOTSTEPS I’M FOLLOWING: Entrepreneurship has been in our family since probably about 1900. We’ve had a variety of businesses. The dry-cleaning laundry business, grocery business, clothing industry, all sorts of businesses.