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Whether shining a light on underserved people or helping startups get ahead, these impactful Virginians are changing the commonwealth for the better.
Eileen Brewer
Executive director, 757 Accelerate
Norfolk
With 20-plus years of experience working for tech companies in Silicon Valley, Eileen Brewer was promoted in May to executive director of 757 Accelerate, a Norfolk mentorship-based accelerator program for full-time founders of businesses with high-growth potential. She joined 757 Collab, 757 Accelerate’s parent organization, as director of strategic partnerships in January 2022.
In recent decades, Brewer also served as a mentor in the U.S. State Department’s TechWomen Exchange Program, a program that aids high-achieving women from the Middle East and Africa working in STEM careers and provides them with professional mentorship in Silicon Valley. As an international consultant, she focused on entrepreneurship and STEM training and built the first tech accelerator in Iraq.
Bonnie Chavez
CEO, Building Beloved Communities
Roanoke
When the world shifted to virtual meetings during the pandemic, not much changed for Bonnie Chavez. She’d launched her consulting business in 2018 and quickly decided that driving to meetings was a waste of time. “We became a virtual company before it was forced on everyone,” she recalls. A second-generation American, Chavez was working in the corporate world and trying to figure out her life’s purpose when she heard a sermon at church in her native New Mexico that referenced a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. about “beloved communities.” It was enough to inspire her to create a company focused on helping nonprofits thrive and assisting government agencies with project management. “I’m a nonprofit badass, and I love fighting for them,” she says. When not assisting nonprofits, she’s devoted to spending time with her partner and their two daughters as well as enjoying the outdoors and good coffee.
Erica Cole
CEO and founder, No Limbits
Richmond
In college, Erica Cole turned her hobby into a side gig by sewing costumes for friends. In 2018, while studying at the University of Iowa, Cole was in a car wreck that led to her left leg being amputated below the knee. Soon, she started tailoring her own clothes to accommodate her prosthetic. Demand from other people snowballed quickly.
“I was really embedded in this amputee community, altering clothes for other folks in that community,” says Cole, who went on to found No Limbits, a maker of adaptive clothing for people with disabilities.
Appearing on ABC’s “Shark Tank” last year, she received a $100,000 investment from sharks Mark Cuban and Emma Grede in exchange for 10% of her business. Cole moved her startup to Richmond after graduating from the local Lighthouse Labs accelerator. She’s now expanding into other adaptive apparel and is planning a Series A funding round in 2024.
Braden Croy
Program director, Dominion Energy Innovation Center
Ashland
As programmer of Dominion Energy’s startup incubator, Braden Croy says that he invents “creative collisions,” running pitch competitions and supporting clean energy-focused entrepreneurs at the coworking space just a stone’s throw from Ashland’s railroad tracks. The Virginia Tech grad joined DEIC in 2021, after having worked in real estate, hospitality consulting and risk management. A woodworker who also expends energy running after his three children, Croy says he loves mentoring innovators as they work in the fields of energy storage, carbon capture, electricity transmission and distribution, and grid management. The center also has workshops for agribusiness entrepreneurs, and DEIC’s Spark Virginia program awards $75,000 in grants to help energy entrepreneurs across the state.
Sue Deagle
Senior vice president and chief growth and client service officer, V2
McLean
Sue Deagle holds an important job at aerospace and defense contractor V2X, but outside of work, Deagle writes The Luminist newsletter, discussing loss and pain that applies not only to individuals but communities struggling with the pandemic and world conflict. She also speaks openly about her inner life — addressing her grief over the 2016 heart attack death of her husband, Mike. The Wall Street Journal wrote about Deagle’s decision to build a new, glass-filled house in Great Falls designed by New York-based Robert Young Architects that has helped her and her two children start a new life following Mike’s death. At work, too, her worldview is important, since V2X trains soldiers, sailors and airmen when they’re deployed, and Deagle says she also finds meaning in serving members of the military.
Art Espey
Managing director, Lighthouse Labs
Richmond
Lighthouse Labs, an equity-free, early-stage startup accelerator launched in 2012, offers guidance to help tech founders on their entrepreneurial journeys, and Art Espey has been part of the process since 2015, as founding vice chair of Lighthouse’s board.
When Lighthouse’s former managing director, Paul Nolde, left in June to join 757 Collab in Hampton Roads, Espey was named as his replacement. In his new position, the serial entrepreneur and former Marine saw an opportunity to think big and reinvent Lighthouse’s work with founders, investors and the area’s innovation ecosystem.
“The [Interstate] 64 corridor from Charlottesville to Richmond to Hampton Roads represents a huge number of smart people collectively and collaboratively,” Espey says. “We’re a mega-region if we choose to be.”
A lifelong martial artist and avid reader, Espey also kayaks, backpacks and teaches yoga workshops.
Kathryn Fessler
Senior director of community impact and co-founder of Mosaic, Altria Group
Henrico County
Raised in Reading, Pennsylvania, Kathryn Fessler was the first person in her family to graduate from college. She went to the University of Richmond on a merit scholarship and studied English literature. Since 2008, she has worked for Altria Group, the Henrico County-based Fortune 500 tobacco manufacturer of Marlboro cigarettes.
A decade ago, Fessler took charge in co-founding Mosaic, an employee resource group for LGBTQ+ workers at Altria. It’s among a dozen similar affinity groups at the company, and it has about 500 members. In her role as senior director of community impact, Fessler says she gets to help lead a team that is focused on the company’s investment and strengthening communities.
Michael Hemphill
Creator and host, Buzz; owner, Buzz4Good
Roanoke
A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Michael Hemphill moved to Virginia in 1997 when his wife was doing her residency in family medicine. Since then, Roanoke’s been his home and he’s helped tell the region’s stories throughout his career, including as a former reporter for The Roanoke Times, as a marketer, and now as host of the Blue Ridge PBS TV show “Buzz.” The show’s focus is on nonprofit groups in the Roanoke and New River Valley regions and the good they’re accomplishing. Hemphill also started Buzz4Good, a pro bono marketing company that helps attract volunteers and donors to nonprofit organizations. Outside of work, Hemphill enjoys traveling, and in 2015 he followed the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada, catching soccer matches across 8,000 miles and five time zones.
Ryan Key
Customer projects designer and community engagement lead, Dominion Energy
Hampton
Although he’s a designer with a background in customer service, one of Ryan Key’s most significant roles at work is letting colleagues know about Pride, Dominion Energy’s LGBTQ+ employee resource group.
Having joined Dominion in 2015 as an intern and returning as an employee in 2017, Key first got involved in Pride in 2018, and now he’s one of the group’s leaders. He also aids in recruiting diverse candidates in his role as community engagement lead. Doing otherwise, he says, “would be casting people away that could potentially bring something new, something innovative. It only benefits the company to embrace everyone.”
In 2024, Key aims for Pride to have a larger presence in the community at career fairs and other events.
Michelle Maldonado
Delegate, Virginia House of Delegates
Manassas
Coming from a background of educators and military veterans, state Del. Michelle Maldonado believes in the importance of serving and helping others. A freshman Democratic legislator, she started her career as a tech lawyer but always looked for ways to uplift people. At AOL, Maldonado initiated programs to help workers whose first language wasn’t English improve their language skills to excel in their jobs. She later started a leadership and team development coaching company, Lucenscia. Elected to the House of Delegates in 2021, Maldonado established the Technology and Innovation Caucus in the General Assembly to educate legislators and the public about technology issues and is working on a statewide initiative to govern the use of artificial intelligence. “Our job is to really educate people, keep people safe and innovative at the same time,” she says. (Editor’s note: After this article went to press, Maldonado announced she would be entering the 10th Congressional District race to succeed U.S. Rep. Jennifer Wexton.)
Paul Nolde
Managing director, 757 Collab; market director, 757 Angels powered by VentureSouth
Norfolk
In May, Paul Nolde jumped from leading Richmond’s Lighthouse Labs accelerator to head up 757 Collab, the founder-focused innovation network that includes
757 Accelerate, 757 Startup Studios and 757 Angels. Nolde studied foreign affairs at the University of Virginia but got into wealth management banking, working for a string of banks including Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Nolde, who relishes the relationship management side of his job, was executive managing director at Lighthouse Labs before taking the reins at 757 Collab.
He’s excited about working with Hampton Roads investors to advance the entrepreneurial ecosystem. “There’s wealth here that is willing to take risks,” Nolde says. “When you marry the two together, it’s pretty compelling what a founder can find here.”
Paul Rucker
iCubed Arts Research Fellow, curator for creative collaboration and assistant professor, Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond
A conceptual artist, composer and musician, Paul Rucker is also an obsessive collector of more than 20,000 historical items, most related to the history of slavery and racism in the South. “They’re primary source materials that act as evidence. … They act as documentation of historic events,” he says. Last year, he was awarded $2 million in grants from the Mellon Foundation and the Art for Justice Fund to turn his collection into Cary Forward, a Richmond museum, arts space and lending library focused on “the omitted histories of race and gender.”
The museum, which plans to provide residencies for local and international artists, as well as a banned book library, will open in 2025 on Richmond’s Cary Street. Rucker notes that the thoroughfare, which includes the Carytown shopping district and parts of VCU’s campus, is named for Archibald Cary, an 18th-century Colonial Virginia legislator who enslaved more than 200 people.
Becky Sawyer
Executive vice president and chief people officer, Sentara Health
Norfolk
Becky Sawyer’s focus for 2024 revolves around several priorities to attract, retain and engage a diverse and talented workforce at Sentara’s facilities, despite ongoing staffing challenges throughout the health care industry. Promoted in 2017 as the first woman to lead human resources for the health system’s 31,000-person workforce, Sawyer says that among her key focuses are staff burnout and mental health, issues that present challenges for the health care industry overall. Her plans, she says, include prioritizing “internal support systems to boost overall well-being, improve safety in the workplace and decrease burnout.”
Sawyer has been with the health system for more than two decades, previously leading HR departments at nine hospitals and for Sentara’s health insurance plan. She serves on the board for Virginia Ready, the nonprofit workforce initiative started by Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Virginia first lady Suzanne Youngkin.
Hunter Walsh
Director, 757 Startup Studios
Norfolk
You could say Hunter Walsh believes in forging long-term relationships.
A newlywed, he met his wife when they were preschoolers. His family’s roots in Virginia date back to the 1800s, and he started his career working in sales and marketing for his family’s Cullipher Farm, an agritourism destination in Virginia Beach, before going on to work in membership development for the Hampton Roads Chamber. In 2021, Walsh, a James Madison University alumnus who has an MBA from Virginia Wesleyan University, became founding director of 757 Collab’s 757 Startup Studios, a program that provides rent-free workspaces for qualifying startups. Next year,
757 Startup Studios plans to expand its influence, rolling out tech assistance for all types of entrepreneurs and engaging in more community events.
Richard Wintsch
Executive director, Startup Virginia
Richmond
Hailing from Geneva, Richard Wintsch spent years in private banking and working for ChamberRVA before the Swiss native landed at Startup Virginia, where he’s now executive director. He attended James Madison University on a golf scholarship, where he met his wife, Katherine, a nationally recognized expert on motherhood and consultant to Fortune 500 companies. A nonprofit incubator and entrepreneurial hub, Startup Virginia this year won a gold award for entrepreneurship from the International Economic Development Council. Wintsch thinks the startup scene has made tremendous progress not only in Central Virginia, but across the state. “I believe we have a good infrastructure for high-growth businesses,” he says. “The foundations are in place for us to continue to improve.”