byline: Virginia Business

In 2017, Roy was appointed the first nonfamily member to lead the then-80-year-old company. Interested in building from a young age, she graduated from Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in construction. Roy joined Hitt in 1999 as an assistant project manager.

Founded in 1937, Hitt has more than 1,600 employees in 14 U.S. office locations. The company reported $5.6 billion in 2023 revenue and ranked No. 26 on Engineering News-Record’s list of the top 400 general contractors this year, down from No. 18 last year.

Hitt’s recent projects include the restoration and renovation of the Omni Homestead Resort’s interiors and an 11,000-square-foot office for BlackSky in Seattle. In November 2023, Hitt announced plans for a new headquarters that will have six stories and 270,000 square feet, expected to be complete in late 2026.

Roy is also president of Hitt Contracting Foundation, a nonprofit she helped launch focusing on the company’s philanthropic initiatives.

Henry is the college’s first female chancellor since its founding in 1954 as a junior college with two buildings. She presides over a four-year liberal arts college encompassing 396 acres with 26 main buildings, attended by more than 1,900 students.

Chancellor since 2013, Henry previously spent 16 years in a variety of positions at Florida Gulf Coast University, including as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Henry is a trustee for the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center. In 2020, she received the Virginia Network for Women in Higher Education’s Outstanding Woman Leader in Virginia Higher Education award.

Henry holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

WHAT I WAS LIKE IN HIGH SCHOOL: I was very active in clubs and organizations. I was in the rifle squad of our marching band. I was class secretary. I enjoyed studying, particularly biology.

INTERESTING PLACE I’VE TRAVELED: Sevilla, Spain. I studied there as an undergraduate student. I lived with a family and was immersed in a new culture for the first time in my life.

Friedrich joined Liebherr’s U.S. operations in 2021 as its managing director and director of the global company’s earthmoving and material- handling technology. He also serves as a divisional director for construction equipment. Friedrich has worked for the Swiss equipment manufacturer for two decades, previously serving in management roles in Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Switzerland.

As managing director, Friedrich provides oversight and guidance on corporate and strategic plans for the nine product segments under Liebherr USA. As divisional director for construction equipment, he manages a team of sales, service, training and product management staff.

A graduate of the Fontys Venlo University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, Friedrich’s 20 years in the heavy equipment industry have mostly been spent within the Liebherr footprint.

Out of a worldwide workforce of about 50,000, Liebherr employs more than 600 people in the United States. A $60 million expansion of its Newport News facilities was completed in 2020.

Girvin manages the largest factory for chemical manufacturer AdvanSix, which boasts approximately 750 workers. In 1994, he joined Honeywell as a project engineer, working as global asset manager for its resin and chemicals division, which was spun off into AdvanSix in 2016.

In spring 2023, Girvin faced challenges, including nearly half of the AdvanSix Hopewell workforce striking; according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, there were more than 60 Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act violations during the previous eight years. The strike was resolved, but in summer 2023, a hazmat team was dispatched to the Hopewell plant to address a liquid ammonia leak.

Earlier this year, the company applied to the state to renew its five-year Title V permit, which outlines pollution control regulations that apply to the facility.

In late March, AdvanSix received a Patriot Award from the Department of Defense’s Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve recognizing its commitment to National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve employees.

Girvin’s term on the Hopewell Water Renewal Commission ends Oct. 31. His bachelor’s degree is in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia, and his MBA from William & Mary.

Gottwald joined NewMarket, parent company of Afton Chemical and Ethyl, in 1984 and worked in its petroleum additives and former plastics businesses before succeeding his father, Bruce, as chairman of the board two decades later.

NewMarket traces its roots to Ethyl Gasoline Corp., a company acquired in 1962 by Albemarle Paper Manufacturing Co., which was run by Gottwald’s late grandfather, Floyd Gottwald.

NewMarket acquired the parent company of American Pacific Corp. (AMPAC) for approximately $700 million in January. NewMarket employs around 2,000 people worldwide, with about 1,000 working in the United States.

Gottwald, a Richmond native, was among notable opponents of a proposed Richmond casino that voters rejected for the second time in November 2023. The father of five Eagle Scouts, Gottwald served in the U.S. Army Reserve in the 1980s. He completed his bachelor’s degree at Virginia Military Institute and his MBA at Harvard Business School.

He serves as a member of the Founding & Emeriti Board of Trustees for Virginia Commonwealth University’s College of Engineering Foundation and on the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors, appointed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Gottwald also chairs the VMI Jackson-Hope Board of Overseers.

In June, Knippenberg began his new role as Volvo’s senior vice president in North America for Group Truck Operations (GTO), a position in which he oversees four vehicle assembly plants: Volvo’s New River Valley plant in Dublin; two Mack Trucks factories in Roanoke County and Pennsylvania; and a heavy-duty truck plant under construction in Mexico. Scheduled to open in 2026, the Mexican plant will supplement U.S. production.

A Belgium native, Knippenberg previously served as vice president and general manager of the New River Valley Volvo Trucks plant since 2022. The company’s largest truck manufacturing facility, the 1.6 million-square-foot assembly plant produces all Volvo trucks sold in North America and employs about 3,600 people. The plant began manufacturing the company’s redesigned flagship VNL long-haul truck cabs in June.

Before that, he was vice president for the company’s plant in Ghent, Belgium, as well as managing director for Volvo Group Belgium for five years. Knippenberg also was director of operations for Volvo Trucks North America at the New River Valley plant.

Knippenberg holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Belgium’s Katholieke Hogeschool Sint-Lieven.

PRA Group, a global business that acquires and collects on nonperforming loans, reported a net loss of $83.5 million in fiscal 2023, after reporting a net income of $117.1 million in 2022. 

In a letter to shareholders about 2023 numbers, Atal, explained that when he was named CEO in March 2023, his goal was to stabilize performance and drive the turnaround. Atal’s plan for a return to profitability revolves around managing expenses, optimizing investments and maximizing cash collected per dollar invested. 

In 2023, PRA Group closed a call center in Danville, eliminating 123 jobs.

Previously, Atal worked for Citigroup for nearly three decades, and he was president and founder of Atal Advisers, a consulting firm. He has degrees from St. Stephen’s College in Delhi, India, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

HOW I CHOSE MY CAREER: I came to the U.S. for what was intended to be an 18-month assignment, but while here I received a cold call from a recruiter to join Citi and, years later, another cold call invited me to join PRA Group’s board. The best outcomes are often due to random chance.

With nearly three decades under his belt at Deloitte, Blank was promoted in January from head of the Big Four global accounting firm’s Greater Washington market to a national role as U.S. tax chief strategy officer.

In his new job, Blank oversees services for national and global tax clients, including specializations such as tax planning, tax research and analysis, mergers and acquisitions. Blank previously served on the Deloitte U.S. Board Council and its U.S. Board Risk Committee.

Blank serves on the boards of the Wolf Trap Foundation, the Greater Washington Board of Trade, United Way of the National Capital Area, the District of Columbia College Access Program and Black Bear Youth Hockey Foundation. He’s also an alumnus of Leadership Greater Washington. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from the University of Florida.

For fiscal year 2023, Deloitte reported record revenues of $64.9 billion, a 14.9% increase over fiscal year 2022.

Desch joined Iridium as CEO in 2006, took the company public in 2009 and subsequently replaced its first-generation network with new satellites that are expected to last into the mid-to-late 2030s. Iridium has been inventing new services and finding new partners since.

In April, the global satellite communications company acquired Reston-based Satelles, a provider of satellite-based time and location services that assist GPS and global navigation satellite systems. Iridium, which posted 2023 revenues of $790.7 million, owned 20% of Satelles and anticipated paying $115 million for the other 80%.

After celebrating its 25th anniversary in November 2023, Iridium is planning for continued growth. Company leaders expect Satelles’ positioning, navigation and timing service, known as Satellite Time and Location (STL), to generate more than $100 million in service revenue annually by 2030, plus additional revenue from equipment and engineering.

Desch graduated from Ohio State University and has an MBA from the University of Chicago. He has served on the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee since 2011 and on the board of directors for Unisys since 2019. He  recently was named to Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 list for the 10th consecutive year.

Sever, a longtime Hershey employee, was named plant manager of the candymaker’s Stuarts Draft manufacturing facility in 2022. He had previously been site operations leader at the facility, which produces nut-based candies like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Almond Joy. The plant, which opened in 1982, is the second largest of Hershey’s seven manufacturing sites.

Sever’s 20-year career with the Fortune 500 company has taken him to China and included time as a plant manager in Hershey’s Lancaster, Pennsylvania, facility. In 2018, Sever became vice president of U.S. operations for educational travel company WorldStrides and started a small-batch confection company, Wild Blue Chocolate, with his wife, Jessie. He then held management roles at food and beverage companies Danone and Kerry’s locations in Virginia before coming back to Hershey.

Sever managed the plant during a failed attempt by workers at unionization in March 2022. The vote was followed by allegations of retaliation against a union sympathizer, which Hershey settled out of court. The plant’s union organizers intended to hold a new election but decided in January to delay due to doubts about the potential for success.