byline: Virginia Business

Since starting his career with the company as an entry-level engineer and working his way up to his current role, Bortell has had a career with Timmons Group that’s spanned over three decades. As chairman and CEO, he sets the strategic direction for the 1,000-plus-person firm, including 700 in Virginia, and oversees its four operating divisions and 18 offices across the U.S.

A registered professional engineer, Bortell received his MBA from Averett University and his bachelor’s in civil engineering from Virginia Tech. Under Bortell’s leadership, Timmons Group landed on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing privately held companies from 2016 through 2021. The company is building a new $50 million headquarters in Chesterfield County that’s expected to be open in the fourth quarter of 2024.

ADVICE TO YOUNG PEOPLE LOOKING TO GET INTO THE INDUSTRY: Take the internship!

DOGS OR CATS: My wife and I enjoy fostering dogs from Richmond Animal League while they search for their forever homes. We also have two dogs of our own that keep us entertained and active.

Costin, a retired 32-year Air Force veteran who went on to serve five years as president of Charleston Southern University, became president of Liberty in July 2023 during a time of turmoil.

The private evangelical university was rocked by the 2020 ouster of former President and Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr., the late founder’s son, and in 2021, 22 former students and employees claimed in a federal lawsuit — now partly settled — that Liberty officials discouraged them from reporting sexual assaults to authorities.

In March, the U.S. Department of Education settled with Liberty over violations of the federal Clery Act, which requires all universities that accept federal financial assistance to publicly report criminal incidents on campus. The $14 million penalty was nearly $10 million more than the second highest Clery Act fine assessed against Michigan State University.

In July, Liberty and Falwell Jr. came to a global agreement, ending three lawsuits stemming from Falwell’s forced resignation, for an undisclosed amount.

A decorated combat veteran who finished his military career as Air Force chief of chaplains, Costin holds five master’s degrees, including two from Liberty, along with a doctor of ministry degree and a Ph.D. in organizational leadership.   

Thompson’s start as an entrepreneur came as a teen, when he purchased and ran his family’s hog farm in Windsor. He now heads the largest minority-owned food and facilities management corporation in the nation, which he founded in 1992 with the purchase of 31 Bob’s Big Boy restaurants.

Thompson Hospitality provides dining services for more than 200 companies, universities and hospitals, representing more than $2 billion in business. The company also owns several restaurant chains, including Milk & Honey, Matchbox and Wiseguy Pizza, running about 70 restaurants. In late 2023, the company launched the Thompson Restaurants division, which is Thompson Hospitality’s fastest-growing business. According to media reports, the division is expected to bring in more than $200 million in 2024.

Thompson graduated from Hampden-Sydney College and University of Virginia’s business school. Attending U.Va. was particularly meaningful, considering that racial segregation prevented his father, Fred Thompson Sr., from attending the school decades earlier.

Thompson is a member of the American Heart Association CEO Roundtable and sits on Performance Food Group’s board of directors.

In February, Thompson bought Wildersmoor House, a 17-acre equestrian estate in Great Falls, for $14.75 million.

In April, Faw, who has worked at Wells Fargo for close to three decades, was named the regional executive for the greater Virginia market, a territory that spans from Virginia Beach to Bristol. She replaced Janet M. Tope, who worked at Wells Fargo for more than 35 years before retiring this spring.   

Faw, who lives in Bedford County, is responsible for 93 branches and oversees more than 700 employees. 

Starting as a bank teller in Bedford, Faw became a district manager in Roanoke in 2009. In that role, she managed 11 retail bank branches for Wells Fargo. Later, Faw moved into the affluent customer sector, where she ultimately became the division’s field director in 2019.

In September 2023, Wells Fargo announced plans to spend $87 million to modernize and expand its Roanoke County customer support center, adding 1,100 jobs in a deal that will make the bank the county’s largest employer.

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo has about $1.73 trillion in consolidated assets and is the nation’s third largest bank, according to June numbers from the Federal Reserve.

Desai joined LTD Hospitality Group in 1998 as the second generation of the family-owned hotel development and management company co-founded by Desai’s father in 1983. As a managing principal, he oversees property management and the profitability of its portfolio

Following in those entrepreneurial footsteps, Desai in 2021 invested in Dallas-based fast food franchise Super Chix Chicken & Custard, opening two locations in Williamsburg and Chesapeake, with plans for eight more locations in Virginia. Additionally, he operates a Your Pie pizza restaurant location in Norfolk. His Super Chix and Your Pie locations were integrated into the LTD management portfolio in July. 

Desai is also CEO of YourSpace Extended Stay Hotels, a startup focused on modern extended stay hotels that “bridge the gap between a thoughtfully designed experience and an affordable stay.” The company broke ground in Chesapeake for the first YourSpace hotel in July, and plans other hotels in Suffolk and Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

Desai has a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting from George Mason University and an MBA from Old Dominion University. He is a board member for Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Virginia.

A 40-year hospitality industry veteran, George founded Crescent Hotels & Resorts in 2001. The company operates more than 100 hotels and resorts in the U.S and Canada. Its hotel portfolio includes Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt brands, along with the Latitudes: Lifestyles by Crescent collection of independent hotels and resorts.

In May, Crescent added the dual-branded AC Hotel by Marriott Symphony Park and Element by Westin Symphony Park in Las Vegas to its portfolio. The five-story development has two hotels connected under one roof, with opening set for late 2025. In July, the company announced an agreement with a Comstock Holding Cos. affiliate to manage the JW Marriott — Virginia’s first — at Reston Station, expected to open in mid-2025.

Before founding Crescent, George served as senior vice president of operations for Destination Hotels & Resorts. Prior to that, he served as chief operating officer for Sunstone Hotels Properties and senior vice president of operations for Interstate Hotels & Resorts, now part of Aimbridge Hospitality. Earlier in his career, George was a general manager for Hilton, Westin and Sheraton hotels.

George serves on the American Hotel and Lodging Association’s board of directors.

In August 2023, Dean opened the doors to a new, 168,000-square-foot building on his company’s manufacturing campus in Caroline County, completing a five-year, $63 million phase three expansion that created more than 500 jobs in Virginia. It’s just the latest development for Dean, who grew the relatively small business that his grandfather started in 1949 as an electrical construction company to employ more than 5,100 across more than 30 offices worldwide. The company reportedly earned $1.3 billion in 2021 revenue.

Dean became CEO of the privately owned design-build systems integration company in 1997. A North Carolina State University alumnus, Dean was inducted into its Electrical and Computer Engineering Hall of Fame in 2015 and serves on the board of the Washington Airports Task Force.

In recent years, M.C. Dean has received a $250 million Pentagon contract and a $98 million Navy contract to develop security systems, and, in January, a potential $116 million Defense Information Systems Agency contract to provide IT support for the U.S. European Command and Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic. In April 2023, M.C. Dean announced it had acquired building automation systems provider International Energy Conservation Systems.

Since joining UVA Health in 2020, Kent, a vascular surgeon who grew up in Nevada, has overseen significant expansion of the integrated health system.

With University of Virginia President Jim Ryan, Kent helped establish the $350 million Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology, which broke ground in late 2023.

Recognizing Kent’s work, members of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors voted in late 2023 to extend his contract as executive vice president for health affairs and CEO for UVA Health through 2030.

As a researcher, Kent has investigated molecular mechanisms underlying vascular disease with a goal of developing new treatments.

WHAT I WAS LIKE IN HIGH SCHOOL: I was a cattle rancher, and no one was thinking I would enter medicine and be a surgeon or be a business leader — myself included.

WHERE I SEE MYSELF IN 10 YEARS: Wherever I am, I hope to be involved in what I expect to be major medical advancements. We are in a time of incredible change and growth. I fully anticipate that we will see new cures and therapies developed over the next 10 years that will completely change the game for all of us.

Levy has held his interim posts for nearly two years since Virginia Commonwealth University leadership pushed Dr. Art Kellermann to resign. Kellermann’s November 2022 exit came shortly before news broke in 2023 that VCU Health had paid approximately $73 million to back out of a $325 million development project that Kellermann warned against.

Levy appeared before the Virginia General Assembly’s investigative body with VCU President Michael Rao in June when it released a study that found the university and Rao have too much influence over the health system’s operations. State analysts recommended that VCU Health change its bylaws to make the health system’s CEO report to the health system’s board and to eliminate its president position, which is filled by the president of VCU.

Levy joined VCU Health in 2015 as chair of its transplant surgery department and director of the VCU Hume-Lee Transplant Center. Previously, Levy was surgical director of transplantation at Baylor All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas.

Levy received his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He also has an MBA from Brandeis University.

Founded in 1972, Kastle Systems is a building and security systems provider that employs 700 people, including more than 100 Virginians.

An investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Ein also is a minority owner of the Washington Commanders as of 2023.

Ein is founder and owner of MDE Sports, which owns the Mubadala Citi DC Open tennis tournament in Washington, D.C., the Washington Justice esports franchise and the Washington City Paper publication. He also started the Washington Kastles, a World TeamTennis team.

In 2023, Ein was tapped by President Joe Biden to serve as chairman of the President’s Export Council, which offers the White House guidance on U.S. trade policies. Before starting his firm, Ein worked for Carlyle Group, Brentwood Associates and Goldman Sachs. He received a bachelor’s from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

In a July interview with The New York Times, he said he is considering selling the Georgetown mansion where the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham lived. Although Ein purchased the property in 2002, he and his family have never lived there.