byline: Virginia Business

A former state secretary of commerce and trade, DuVal has led the Virginia Chamber of Commerce for 14 years, during which time the business advocacy organization has grown from around 1,000 members to more than 29,000.

DuVal and the chamber recently released the Blueprint Virginia 2030 plan, a strategy for positioning the commonwealth to maintain its rankings as one of the best places to do business in the United States. The plan’s objectives include improving broadband access, encouraging investment in transportation infrastructure and bolstering the number of health care professionals.

In January, the chamber partnered with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield to launch the WiseChoice Healthcare Alliance, creating a consortium for small business owners to purchase affordable health insurance for their employees.

Before leading the Virginia Chamber, DuVal put in eight years at Kaufman & Canoles Consulting. He also is a former mayor of Newport News. He earned his bachelor’s degree from James Madison University and his law degree from American University.

As head of the foundation administering two museums of early American history, Coleman is at the forefront of educators weaving a nuanced and inclusive story of American history.

She is the first woman and the first person of color to serve as executive director of the state agency that operates Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown.

Coleman is hosting the Jamestown Settlement’s Director’s Series, now in its third year, leading conversations with figures such as Ruth E. Carter, a two-time Academy Award-winning costume designer. Other guests in the series include historians Julian Zelizer and Edward L. Ayers.

With more than 30 years of experience in museum work, Coleman received the 2023 David McCullough Prize for Excellence in American Public History for her work furthering the public’s understanding of American history.

Before joining the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, she was CEO of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, and before that, president and CEO of one of its predecessors, the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar.

Coleman earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in museum studies from Hampton University.

Watson became CEO of federal contractor Serco Inc. in September 2022, after four years as senior vice president of defense business at the North American subsidiary of British parent company Serco Group plc. He previously worked for Science Applications International Corp. for 22 years, including as senior vice president of SAIC’s Navy and Marine Corps customer group. He also served six years in the Navy.

A $6.2 billion business worldwide, Serco has more than 9,000 employees in the Americas and provides professional, technology and management services to the U.S. military, U.S. federal civilian agencies and other public and private clients. In 2021, Serco acquired Whitney, Bradley & Brown, a Reston-based federal tech contractor, for $295 million.

In February 2023, Serco announced it had won a recompete bid for a $690 million, nearly five-year contract for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to continue aiding with consumer eligibility determinations for the federal health insurance exchanges.

Watson started out as an engineering technician for Resource Consultants Inc. (RCI), which was acquired by Serco in 2005. Watson earned his MBA from the University of Maryland and a bachelor’s degree in information technology from National University.

Safe to say, it’s a stressful time to be the CEO of UNOS, the Richmond nonprofit that has managed the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) for more than four decades.

In March, members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce — among them U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Christiansburg — launched a bipartisan investigation into UNOS with a stated goal of passing legislation that would spread the OPTN management contract award to multiple contractors instead of just one organization: UNOS. Some legislators sent McBride a letter this spring, in which the nonprofit was criticized for overseeing an organ donation system that is “unsafe, inequitable, self-dealing and retaliatory.”

Although UNOS’ woes — including Senate and White House investigations in recent years — predate McBride’s two-year tenure as CEO, she has been with the organ network since 1995, when she took a position as senior biostatistician. In 2014, she became the nonprofit’s chief operating officer overseeing the federal OPTN contract. She stepped up as interim CEO in 2022 and was named permanent head of the organization seven months later.

UNOS facilitated 46,000 organ transplants in 2023, including a record 10,660 liver transplants.

Williams served more than 37 years in the U.S. military and in 2022 became president of Hampton University, a private, historically Black university founded in 1868 — and Williams’ alma mater.

A retired Army lieutenant general, Williams was the first Black director of the Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency, where he oversaw nine supply chains supporting the military and more than 25,000 military and civilian employees. After his retirement from the military in 2020, he served as vice president for Leidos’ U.K. operations.

In addition to his bachelor’s degree from Hampton, Williams received master’s degrees from Pennsylvania State University, the Army Command and General Staff College, and the National War College. The recipient of a Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit, Williams also led the Fort Lee Army post and the Army Combined Arms Support Command.

Williams is the founding board chair for the Mary S. Peake Fellowship, which provides a one-year workforce leadership training program for recent college graduates, veterans and military spouses. A 19th-century Black educator, Peake taught slaves in Hampton to read, which was illegal in Virginia before the Civil War.

Since Anders became president of InterChange in 2000, the logistics and industrial land development company’s portfolio has grown to nearly 2 million square feet and 500-plus acres of prime industrial and commercial land. That includes 18 warehouses in the Shenandoah Valley and a cold storage facility in Mount Crawford.

InterChange Group ranked No. 22 on the Global Cold Chain Alliance’s 2023 North American Top 25 list of the largest refrigerated warehousing and logistics providers in Canada, Mexico and the United States, with its temperature-controlled capacity listed  more than 17.6 million cubic feet.

The company hopes to see additional growth once Norfolk International Terminals’ central rail yard is expanded and improvements to the Port of Virginia’s maritime terminals are in place, aiding inland ports.

A certified public accountant with a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Eastern Mennonite University, Anders leads more than 350 employees in the Shenandoah Valley and Portsmouth. Before joining InterChange, he was a controller at Packaging Services and an audit manager at PBMares (then PBGH).

Anders serves on GO Virginia’s Region 8 Council and chairs the Virginia Maritime Association’s Valley Logistics Chapter.

Beauchamp joined Carpenter in 2008 as national sales manager of its chemicals division. Twelve years later, he was promoted to CEO. Founded in 1950, Carpenter employs more than 6,500 people at its 70-plus locations worldwide.

The company manufactures polyurethane foams and related fibers and chemicals for a wide range of industries. In November 2023, Carpenter announced it would acquire the flexible foam assets of NCFI Polyurethanes’ Consumer Products division, which is based in Mount Airy, North Carolina, providing additional capacity to make foams from its Engineered Foams business, previously acquired from Recticel. Beauchamp is a graduate of Bethel and Southern Methodist universities. He was elected to serve a two-year term — from 2024 to 2026 — as the Center for the Polyurethanes Industry’s steering committee vice chair.

Beaman became office managing partner in Virginia Beach in May, succeeding John Ramirez, who had led the office since 2016. Ramirez is now general counsel at ADS, a Virginia Beach-based military equipment supplier. 

Beaman is a member of the firm’s real estate practice group. He handles commercial real estate development, commercial leasing, real estate transactions and real estate litigation. His clients include leaders in the retail, manufacturing, energy, hospitality, entertainment and residential industries. He’s experienced in working with local government offices on zoning requests.

After graduating from the University of Virginia, Beaman worked as a title examiner for a year before earning his law degree at William & Mary Law School. Beaman joined Troutman Pepper in 2007 and was named partner in 2017. 

He’s a member of the board of directors for Virginia Beach Vision, a business advocacy group.

Troutman Pepper has more than 1,100 attorneys located in more than 20 cities. Law.com reported in July that Troutman Pepper’s merger with Locke Lord, creating a firm with $1.6 billion annual revenue, would likely close by the end of 2024.

One of Roanoke’s best-known attorneys, Fishwick also is a familiar face to national news viewers. A former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia nominated during the Obama administration, Fishwick regularly appears on national news outlets like MSNBC, Fox News and NBC News as a legal expert opining on current events ranging from U.S. Supreme Court decisions to the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump and Hunter Biden.

As founder of downtown Roanoke trial law firm Fishwick & Associates, Fishwick primarily takes on personal injury and federal criminal defense clients.

In September 2023, U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine met with the Rev. Edward Burton, Fishwick and others championing the effort to rename the Poff Federal Building in Roanoke after civil rights lawyer Reuben Lawson. A few months later, Warner introduced a Senate bill to rename the building. It’s not the first time Fishwick has campaigned to honor a trailblazer. In 2018, Fishwick spearheaded efforts to name the tennis courts at Roanoke’s River’s Edge
Sport Complex after Carnis Poindexter, a Black player who won the first integrated tennis tournament in the
Star City. 

Fishwick earned his law degree from Washington and Lee University.

Lee’s role expanded in October to include oversight of Maryland, following the retirement of Greg Farno, whom Lee described as a friend and a “true leader” of both Baltimore and Truist. 

A William & Mary alumna, Lee has led the greater Washington market since 2019, following the merger of BB&T and SunTrust Banks that created Truist, the eighth largest bank in the nation with total assets of $535 billion as of the end of March. Previously, Lee worked for SunTrust for two decades. 

In October, Truist donated a former bank branch and adjacent plaza at the corner of Columbia Road and 18th Street Northwest to Jubilee Housing, a D.C. nonprofit that develops and manages affordable housing communities. “It is rare that the community members facing the greatest obstacles are provided the resources they need not just to survive but to thrive,” Lee stated in a news release. 

Lee sits on several boards, including the D.C. Policy Center, the United Way of the National Capital Area and the Goodwill of Greater Washington. She is assistant treasurer of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, where she also sits on the executive committee.