byline: Virginia Business

Serving as CEO since 2016 and chairman since 2017, Bechtel is the fifth generation to lead his family-owned global engineering, construction and project management company. Ranked the nation’s second largest construction company by Engineering News-Record, Bechtel Corp. has completed more than 25,000 projects in 160 countries since its 1898 founding.

The firm’s portfolio includes massive infrastructure and industrial projects across the world, including the Ankara-Gerede highway in Turkey and Crossrail’s Elizabeth Line railway in England. In February, Intel announced it was slowing construction on the $20 billion semiconductor manufacturing facility Bechtel Corp. is building near Columbus, Ohio.

The Bechtel-built Cutlass Solar 2 project in Fort Bend, Texas, was recently completed ahead of the 13-month delivery schedule, generating enough energy to power 40,000 homes. Next up is construction of the Oriana Solar facility for Sabanci Climate Technologies in Victoria County, Texas, which is expected to produce enough energy to power more than 34,000 homes.

Bechtel sits on the board of the Business Roundtable and chairs its infrastructure committee.

In 2020, Graul joined Branch Group, an employee-owned heavy-highway and building contractor. He had nearly 40 years of industry experience, most recently with Centreville-based Parsons Corp., where he was president of construction and a senior executive for alternative project delivery.

Founded in 1963, Branch has more than 1,000 employee-owners and reported over $500 million in revenue for fiscal 2023. The acquisition of Burnsville, North Carolina-based Young & McQueen in June strengthened Branch’s position in western North Carolina.

Roads & Bridges magazine selected the Branch-affiliated I-95 Express Lanes Fredericksburg Extension project as one of its Top 10 Roads of 2023. It increased capacity by 66% on one of the busiest and most congested highways in the United States, according to the publication.

A University of Nebraska civil engineering graduate, Graul completed the senior executive program at London Business School. He has been inducted into the National Academy of Construction.

Graul serves as a vice chair of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association board and sits on the Roanoke Valley Habitat for Humanity board.

Before becoming CEO in 2022, Schall joined AvalonBay as president in 2021. He’s also a member of the publicly traded real estate investment trust’s board of directors.

AvalonBay acquires, develops and manages multifamily communities around the country, primarily focusing on metropolitan areas in New England, the mid-Atlantic, the Pacific Northwest and California. The company reported over $2.76 billion in 2023 revenue and more than $20.67 billion in total assets. As of March 31, it owned or held direct or indirect ownership interest in 299 apartment communities, of which 17 were under development, in 12 states and Washington, D.C.

Prior to joining AvalonBay Communities, Schall was CEO and president of Seritage Growth Properties, a spinoff of Sears Holdings, and before that, chief operating officer of Rouse Properties, where he oversaw the operations of 35 regional malls across 21 states. Schall received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College.

Culbreth joined American Woodmark in 2014 as its senior vice president and chief financial officer. He was promoted to president and CEO and joined its board of directors in 2020.

American Woodmark’s cabinet brands include its namesake, as well as Shenandoah Cabinetry, Timberlake Cabinetry and Waypoint Living Spaces. It has more than 8,800 employees.

The company, which bills itself as one of the largest bathroom cabinet suppliers on the East Coast, held a ribbon-cutting for its expansion at the Richmond County Industrial Park facility in North Carolina in May.  In February 2023, the company hosted a groundbreaking for a 275,000-square-foot warehouse.

American Woodmark in March launched a new brand, 1951 Cabinetry. Inspired by the company’s 70-year heritage, it will be sold directly to distributors.

With his MBA from Washington University in St. Louis and a bachelor’s degree in finance from Virginia Tech, Culbreth worked for Shell Oil and held executive positions at Robert Bosch and Newell Brands before joining American Woodmark. He serves on the finance department advisory board for Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business and sits on Flexsteel Industries’ board of directors.

It’s little wonder Goodwyn’s classmates at Southampton High School handed him the “most likely to succeed” superlative. Quarterback of the high school football team, Goodwyn was also president of the student body and valedictorian.

Goodwyn headed to Harvard, where he played football and ran track. An economics major, Goodwyn graduated magna cum laude.

After earning his law degree at the University of Virginia in 1986, Goodwyn worked in private practice in Norfolk. In 1995, he became the first Black judge appointed to the Chesapeake General District Court.

Goodwyn stayed in that role for two years, then served as a judge of the Chesapeake Circuit Court for a decade. He once told a reporter he liked being a judge because it allowed him to be active in the community.

In 2007, Gov. Tim Kaine appointed Goodwyn to the Virginia Supreme Court. In 2021, fellow justices tapped Goodwyn to be chief justice, making him the second Black chief justice in Virginia’s history. 

In January, Goodwyn swore in Del. Don. L. Scott Jr., D-Portsmouth, to be the first Black speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates.

Following its mission to promote the health of its Shenandoah Valley community, Augusta Health, which Mannix has led since 2008, opened a new community clinic at its main campus in Fishersville in July.

Designed for those who do not have a primary care provider or need to be seen quickly, the clinic is staffed by medical residents who are supervised by physicians.

Mannix oversees more than 2,450 employees who work at the independent, community-owned hospital, at family practices and at other outpatient facilities. 

After beginning her career as a surgical intensive care nurse at the University of Rochester’s Strong Memorial Hospital, Mannix moved to health care management. She spent nearly two decades working for the Pennsylvania-based Guthrie Clinic, leaving in 2007 as president and chief operating officer of the Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital.

A member of the boards of the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association and the Shenandoah Valley Partnership, Mannix also is a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Mannix received her undergraduate and master’s degrees in nursing, as well as an MBA, from Binghamton University in New York.

In April, Hughes joined Deltek as its president and CEO, leading a team of more than 4,000 people across the globe — including about 500 in Virginia. Mike Corkery, Deltek’s former leader, moved to an operating executive role at its Florida-based parent company, Roper Technologies.

In August 2023, Deltek, a Herndon-based software company, completed its acquisition of Replicon, a provider of unified time tracking solutions. That same month, Deltek announced that Dean Tilsley would become the company’s new chief financial officer.

With more than 20 years of experience in enterprise software, Hughes previously served as chief customer and strategy officer at UKG, led the global services organization at Kronos, and led mergers and acquisitions teams at Blackbaud and Merrill Lynch.

Hughes served in the U.S. Navy as a submarine officer and holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. He serves on the boards of Higher Logic and the Northern Virginia Technology Council.

Smith, the third generation of his family to lead the precast concrete company, became CEO in 2018 and board chairman in 2022. His grandfather, David G. Smith, started the company in 1960 as Smith-Cattleguard, a nod to the company’s concrete cattleguard innovation.

The publicly traded company now has manufacturing facilities in North and South Carolina, as well as subsidiaries Concrete Safety Systems, which rents concrete highway barriers, and Easi-Set Worldwide, which licenses Smith-Midland products. In January, Smith-Midland announced that it had begun construction to double the size of its plant in Reidsville, North Carolina. The nearly $2 million project will expand the facility to 30,000 square feet, including the addition of a 20-ton crane, and help the company grow its market share in the Southeast.

Smith previously served as vice president of sales for Smith-Midland in Virginia and managing director of Easi-Set Industries. He has also served as vice president of Smith-Midland in Delaware since 1990 and as a director since 1994. He was named president and chief operating officer in 2008.

Smith serves on Bridgewater College’s board of trustees and is past board chairman of National Precast Concrete Association.

In 2023, long-time Democratic Sen. Dick Saslaw’s announcement that he would retire from office after a half-century in the General Assembly left a power vacuum within his caucus. After Democrats narrowly hung onto control of the Senate in November, Surovell edged out Hampton Sen. Mamie Locke for the majority leader post in a contest that aired both racial and regional tensions within the party.

A trial lawyer, Surovell first won election to the House of Delegates in 2009 before winning his Senate seat in 2015, representing parts of Fairfax County, and before redistricting, parts of Prince William and Stafford counties. Since then, he has risen through the party ranks, becoming vice chair of his caucus in 2019.

Surovell is especially active in the areas of criminal justice reform and environmental issues and was a chief sponsor of 2021 legislation that abolished the death penalty in Virginia. He currently chairs the Senate Courts of Justice Committee and serves on the Commerce and Labor, Finance and Appropriations, Rehabilitation and Social Services, and Rules committees.