Virginia Tech receives $10M gift for endowed scholarship

Preston White, the founder of Virginia Beach-based concrete contractor Century Concrete, and his wife, Catharine, have donated $10 million to Virginia Tech to create an endowed scholarship, the university announced Tuesday.

The Whites’ latest gift to Tech, the Preston and Catharine White Endowed Diversity Scholarship, will eventually provide scholarships of $5,000 to $7,500 to about 70 to 80 students a year. This semester, nine students received scholarships.

“This extraordinary gift will make it possible for students with financial needs to fully benefit from the Virginia Tech experience and the long-term value of their degrees,” Virginia Tech President Tim Sands said in a statement. “We are extremely grateful to Preston and his family for establishing this generous scholarship, and their enthusiastic support for our university.”

Preston White, a 1963 graduate of Virginia Tech, founded Century Concrete in 1966. The Whites sold it a year and a half ago. The company specializes in larger-scale construction like airport paving, seawalls, water treatment plants, high-rise buildings, data centers and tilt-wall warehouses.

White started the company with one excavator and three employees: B.C. Cross, Earl Carter and Sylvester Riddick, all middle-aged Black men who were not college graduates. Century Concrete now has more than 500 employees.

“We started thinking about where the success of the business came from, rolled it all the way back to day one with those three men and a lot of others along the way that played a part in the success of our company and our financial success,” Catharine White said in a statement. “We thought, if we give back, why not give back to honor people who never had the same opportunities we did?”

The scholarship gives priority to in-state applicants who have participated in or been identified through Virginia Tech’s Black College Institute, a summer enrichment program for rising high school juniors and seniors that is open to students from any race.

The scholarship also has preferences for students who demonstrate a commitment to the Black student experience by participating in organizations like the Black Student Alliance, Black Organizations Council and other registered student organizations.

Students in programs from Tech’s College of Engineering and the Pamplin College of Business’ Blackwood Department of Real Estate are encouraged to apply.

“The scholarship is a big help,” Elroi Elias, a first-year student from Fairfax in the College of Engineering’s computer science program, said in a statement. “Being a first-generation student and the oldest sibling, I’m something of a guinea pig for my family when it comes to college. I don’t want to leave a big burden, and this scholarship allows me to just focus hard on school.”

White and his family have given more than $21 million to Virginia Tech, supporting a range of programs including the Myers-Lawson School of Construction, the Blackwood Department of Real Estate and Virginia Tech Athletics.

White has served on the Virginia Tech and Christopher Newport University boards of visitors and was rector at CNU for three years. He currently serves on the boards for the Eastern Virginia Medical School and The New E3 School, a year-round school for children ages 1 to 5 in Norfolk. He also served in the Coast Guard Reserve for eight years.

“I look at the divisions of all the people in this country and the world, and a lot of it comes from lack of education, probably the bulk of it,” White said in a statement. “If we can educate everybody, things will change.”