byline: Virginia Business

Shannon has overseen this division of UVA Health since October 2021, starting as an interim chief executive and then as permanent CEO. UVA Community Health includes three Northern Virginia hospitals — Prince William Medical Center, Haymarket Medical Center and Culpeper Medical Center — as well as an integrated network of medical practices, cancer care and outpatient services. The university health system acquired Novant Health UVA Health in 2021, after running the system as a joint venture.

Shannon has more than three decades of health care experience, and was a partner at Grant Thornton, where he helped lead the transition to integrate UVA Community Health into UVA Health. In 2023, the health system brought in $4.02 billion in revenue, nearly twice the revenue from 2022, $2.1 billion.

In May, UVA Health Prince William Medical Center announced the completion of a two-year renovation to one of its two cardiac catheterization labs.

IF I HAD A TIME MACHINE, I’D MEET: My great grandfather, who was quite a character — he was a cowboy, blacksmith, miner, inventor and storyteller.

INTERESTING PLACE I’VE TRAVELED: I recently traveled to Peru and found the varied landscapes, friendly people and history fascinating.

While a student at George Washington University in 1974, Kettler got his start in real estate by remodeling apartments. A third-generation builder and the product of a long line of real estate developers, he left school to focus on work. After discovering a passion for community development, he founded real estate development company Kettler in 1977.

With a mission to build planned communities with access to transit and infrastructure, his company has developed more than 30,000 multifamily units, 10 million square feet of commercial space and more than 75,000 homes in 40 master-planned communities, as well as numerous mixed-use communities in the Washington, D.C., area.

In March, the Leesburg Town Council approved the town’s first data center project, a 33-acre, 54-megawatt proposal from Kettler and partner Springfield East.

On the advice of the late Fairfax developer John “Til” Hazel Jr., Kettler, then in his early 20s, bought up as much land in the county as he could. His first big development was Sully Station in Centreville, a 3,000-home community. Over the years, Kettler has been involved with developing major Northern Virginia projects such as Tysons Corner Center, The Boro and One Loudoun.

Van Metre’s late father founded his family real estate development company in 1955, partnering with B.B. Wills to build the first Van Metre Homes in Burke, a Fairfax County suburb.

Beau Van Metre joined the company in 1963. In 2002, he was appointed vice chairman, and he became chairman in 2008.

Today, the company has homebuilding, apartment, commercial, design and build, land development and mortgage divisions, along with golf course holdings. It owns and manages more than 1 million square feet of commercial space, primarily in Northern Virginia.

Van Metre is a trustee for the Van Metre Family Trusts and runs the Van Metre Family Foundation with his sister, Alison Van Metre Paley. It has donated more than $4.4 million to various charities since 2002. In 2014, the company formed the Van Metre Companies Foundation, which has donated more than $2.8 million to nonprofits, including Children’s National Hospital and HomeAid Northern Virginia.

Van Metre is well-known for winning the 1976 Newport Bermuda Race with his father, sailing Running Tide, the 60-foot yacht that he reacquired in 2018 and restored. He also won the 2022 New York Yacht Club Regatta.

With 26 years in transportation, Brich oversees VDOT’s almost 58,000 miles of road, 21,000 bridges and other structures, six tunnels and three ferry systems. Appointed in 2018, he manages approximately 7,700 VDOT employees and an $8 billion annual budget for the nation’s third largest transportation agency.

April 17 was a monumental day in the history of the $3.9 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion project when Mary the tunnel boring machine broke through the headwall to complete the first bored tunnel in Virginia. The project is expected to be completed in February 2027 — a year past its original schedule, but six months sooner than predicted earlier this year.

VDOT broke ground on the new I-64 Gap Widening Project in November 2023.  The $756 million project will widen 29 miles of roadway in New Kent and James City counties from two lanes to three lanes in each direction. The overall project, divided into three independent sections of I-64, has an expected completion date of spring 2028.

A Hampton Roads native and graduate of Old Dominion University and the University of Virginia, Brich serves on the Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board.

University of Virginia basketball legend Sampson already has made his stamp on state history. After winning three Naismith Awards as the National Player of the Year, the 7-foot-4 Sampson graduated from U.Va. in 1983 and played for the Houston Rockets through 1987. The Harrisonburg native won the NBA Rookie of the Year award in the 1983-84 season, but knee and back problems started to plague him after the 1987-88 season. Along with the Rockets, Sampson played for the Golden State Warriors, the Sacramento Kings and the Washington Bullets, and he served stints as coach for James Madison University, the Richmond Rhythm and the Phoenix Suns.

Now the NBA Hall of Famer is branching out. In February, he launched The Sampson Group, which provides business advisory services, including strategic planning, financial analysis, market research and risk management. The company also offers venture guidance for startups and established firms, as well as marketing, branding and speaking engagements.

With a combined annual economic impact of more than $105 billion, agriculture and forestry are Virginia’s largest private industries. Lohr’s office and its three agencies oversee these industries while also working to preserve farmland and forestland, promote access to safe and healthy food and support rural economic development.

Virginia’s secretary of agriculture and forestry since January 2022, Lohr previously served as a three-term state delegate, as commissioner of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and as chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. He also worked as knowledge center director for agricultural lender Farm Credit of the Virginias.

Lohr and his two children own and operate Valley Pike Farm in Broadway, which has been in the Lohr family for five generations. He holds a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education from Virginia Tech and previously taught middle school agriscience in Shenandoah County for two years.

In an April guest column in The Virginian-Pilot, Lohr wrote that “Virginia is strategically positioned to become a leading hub for indoor agriculture,” noting the commonwealth’s wealth of universities, collaborative programs, research and skilled workforce.

In 1994, Morris co-founded Capital One Financial with Richard Fairbank, who remains the credit card giant’s chairman and CEO. Morris served as Capital One’s president and chief operating officer until 2004, when he decided it was time for something new.

In 2007, Morris partnered with Frank Rotman to launch QED Investors, a fintech venture capital platform. Today, the company has almost 225 portfolio companies, including 28 unicorns. Investments include Credit Karma, Klarna and SoFi Technologies. QED Investors has about $4 billion under management, and in March, the company opened a London office. 

Morris has been named to Forbes’ annual Midas List, which recognizes the top venture capitalists in the world, for the last four years. Even so, in a post Morris published on LinkedIn last summer, he acknowledged he suffers from a bit of imposter syndrome. “I still feel like I have something to prove,” he wrote. “I call it the monster of my own ambition.”

Although Morris grew up in England mostly, he is “at least” half Welsh. An avid cyclist, Morris has four children and four grandchildren.

Since beginning her career in 1987 at Newport News Shipbuilding in the nuclear engineering division, Boykin steadily rose through the ranks, becoming its first female president in 2017. Newport News Shipbuilding is a division of Fortune 500 military contractor Huntington Ingalls Industries and is the state’s top industrial employer, with about 25,000 workers.

NNS is the lone manufacturer of nuclear-powered Ford-class aircraft carriers for the Navy; it is also building 10 submarines for the service under a $22.2 billion-plus deal that was the military branch’s largest-ever shipbuilding contract, from which NNS is set to receive $9.8 billion. The shipbuilder reported 2023 revenues of $6.1 billion.

NNS is expanding its footprint with an eight-acre satellite campus at Fairwinds Landing in Norfolk. In October 2023, NNS became the lead industry sponsor of Old Dominion University’s program to graduate more engineers. In July, the Navy announced it would build a $120 million parking garage at NNS.

Boykin holds a bachelor’s degree in marine engineering from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and a master’s in engineering management from George Washington University. She is a founding member of two organizations aimed at empowering girls and women: Old Dominion University’s Women’s Initiative Network and USMMA’s First 10 Forward.

After previously serving as its president and chief operating officer, Warden in 2019 was named CEO of Northrop Grumman, the world’s third largest aerospace and defense company. No. 38 on Forbes’ 2023 list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, Warden previously worked for General Dynamics and Veridian before joining Northrop Grumman in 2008.

Ranked No. 382 on the Fortune Global 500 this year, Northrop Grumman reported $39.3 billion in sales in 2023, an increase of 7% from the previous year. The company employs some 95,000 workers, including 6,800 in Virginia.

In February, Northrop Grumman broke ground on a $200 million-plus electronics facility in Waynesboro that’s expected to create 300 jobs. And in July, the company finalized a deal to co-produce ammo in Ukraine, making it the first American company to make weapons within the besieged country’s borders since Russia invaded in 2022.

A James Madison University alumna and former board of visitors member, Warden also holds an MBA from George Washington University. In January, Warden became chair of the Greater Washington Partnership. She also serves on Merck’s board and is board chair of global nonprofit Catalyst. In 2022, she received Columbia Business School’s Deming Cup for Operational Excellence.

While the Toys for Tots program is closely associated with Christmas, the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation has expanded its efforts and now provides year-round support for children in need, including children affected by natural disasters, kids in the foster care system and Native American children. In 2023, the organization distributed 25.5 million toys, books and games to 10.3 million children. The charity spends an astounding 97% of its budget on programs and only 3% on support functions such as fundraising.

Laster took the helm of the foundation in 2020 after serving as executive vice president. He was in the Marine Corps for 38 years, reaching the rank of lieutenant general and serving as chief of war plans on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He retired from the service in 2018. The Marine Corps presented Laster with the Leftwich Trophy for outstanding leadership in 1989.

The Texas native is a graduate of the New Mexico Military Institute, Southwest Texas State University and the National War College. He is a senior fellow with the National Defense University.