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byline: Virginia Business

LYNNE HUGHES

Lynne Hughes has seen many, many examples of children who have blossomed and begun to heal following a three-day weekend at Comfort Zone Camp. They may arrive weighed down by a proverbial backpack full of rocks only to leave less burdened, she says. “They’re taller and visibly brighter by the end of the weekend.”

Since 1998, Comfort Zone Camp has helped children and young adults ages 7 to 25 who are grappling with the death of a parent, sibling, primary caregiver or other significant person. The goal is to help them get back to feeling like young people again — something Hughes briefly experienced when she attended summer camp after the death of her parents. Those Comfort Zone has assisted include children of 9/11 victims.

“There weren’t any resources when I was growing up,” she recalls. “It was hard and lonely and something we didn’t talk about.”

Now, Hughes talks about grief a lot. She wrote a book for grieving children and has been profiled in various media outlets and appeared on national TV. Finding her “why” in life has proven to be very rewarding, and Hughes has inspired former campers to become “bright lights of understanding,” be it as staff members, volunteers or through other healing professions.  

But there’s more work to do. Grieving kids must avoid common challenges ranging from dropping out of school to substance abuse to suicide, and campers are encouraged to be surrounded by people who understand their journey. “It’s not a one-and-done type of thing.”

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RONDA SCHRENK

Ronda Schrenk has always loved maps, and that has shaped her career. Geospatial intelligence, or GEOINT, as it’s known in the trade, “is about understanding the world around us — to include all that happens on, above and below the earth’s surface — and working to make sense of that data,” she says. “You could say that I am a lifelong GEOINTer.”

Schrenk spent almost 22 years at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, where she donned several impressive hats, including chief of the Counterterrorism Airborne Analysis Center. Five years ago, she left that federal agency to become vice president of the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation and was named CEO just as COVID hit the educational nonprofit hard. With the help of two women on her executive team, however, the foundation did better than survive — it thrived. “I am especially proud of our robust scholarship program, where we award more than $125,000 annually to college-bound students from the undergrad to doctoral degrees,” Schrenk says.

Perhaps surprisingly, the biggest obstacle Schrenk says she faced in advancing in a male-dominated field was herself: “Me, me and me. Time and time again, I held myself back for a variety of both real and imagined reasons.” She credits a few mentors for helping her eventually find her voice.

“Build a professional network of colleagues, mentors and friends,” she advises those who would follow in her path. “Create close relationships where you can grow and learn and where you can help others advance as well.”

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PAT DAVIS-HAGENS

Pat Davis-Hagens earned a reputation as a change agent after she presided over a successful turnaround at the Mercy Health Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati. When she was tapped for another such transformation, this time in Virginia, Davis-Hagens offered a measured promise to the senior leaders of the Bon Secours Mercy Health system: “I’ll come and give it a try.”

The task that awaited Davis-Hagens as president of the Bon Secours Hampton Roads market became less daunting once she arrived. “I was touched the minute I got here,” she says. Nearly three years into her tenure, Davis-Hagens has implemented successful initiatives from her Cincinnati days, including a program to reduce turnover among registered nurses.

She’s also sought ways to thrive in an “extremely competitive” market that’s undergoing a lot of growth. One such example is the 98,000-square-foot Bon Secours Harbour View Hospital slated to open next year in Suffolk. 

It was her willingness to try something in high school that opened the door to a career in health care. At the suggestion of Sister Mildred at the Catholic high school she attended, Davis-Hagens and a friend started working as nursing assistants at a skilled nursing facility. “That piqued my interest a lot,” she says.

These days, visiting any of the Bon Secours sites is an instant reminder that the nearly 5,000 caregivers she oversees can and do transform the lives of their patients. “I’m most proud of the fact that we’re creating a vision for the Bon Secours Hampton Roads market.”

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ERICA CARTER

Captaining Pennsylvania State University’s women’s swimming and diving team, Erica Carter learned valuable lessons from the “grueling, grinding sport” that have benefited her career at Kimley-Horn.

“Swimming taught me tremendous time management skills, a really strong work ethic and how to achieve goals as a team,” says Carter.

In 24 years, Carter has assumed various leadership roles while helping Kimley-Horn expand into new industries, namely water and wastewater utilities, and build up its natural gas business in Virginia. Carter became the first woman regional leader at Kimley-Horn, and her work leading the Virginia Beach office landed her among Engineering News-Record’s Top 20 Under 40 in the mid-Atlantic list for 2013. She’s also been a driving force behind Lasting Impact for Tomorrow (LIFT), Kimley-Horn’s initiative to recruit, develop and retain women in engineering.

Carter came to Kimley-Horn after completing a master’s degree in environmental engineering, and she reminisces fondly about her early days at work in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she met other recent engineering grads and found a support system of mentors — people who remain part of her personal and professional networks to this day. Better yet, Carter found she could fulfill her career passions without sacrificing a healthy work-life balance, something she’s valued while raising her twin sons, now 13 and “very active.” 

When recruiting, Carter highlights these sorts of attributes — especially to young women — because her goal is that any new hire will stay until they retire. “There are places that exist where you can have it all.”

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KIM SNYDER 

Fewer than one in five C-suite positions in financial services are held by women globally, according to Deloitte. But Kim Snyder, founder and CEO of Roanoke-based banking software company KlariVis, defies the odds. After “many rewarding years in community banking,” a 2015 acquisition by BNC Bancorp displaced her from her job as chief financial officer for Valley Financial Corp. and Valley Bank. But that unexpected change steered her toward founding fintech KlariVis, which provides data analytics tools for community banks. 

Snyder wears many hats at KlariVis, from raising capital to overseeing business operations. 

“Stepping into this leadership position was unique, as it wasn’t an existing role I sought out but one that I created out of necessity,” Snyder says. Plus, “being a woman in fintech and banking requires creativity and resilience. Navigating a traditionally male-dominated industry, I’ve had to carve out a space where women can thrive.”

Outside KlariVis, Snyder shares her expertise as a board member for Verge, formerly known as the Valleys Innovation Council, which brings together local tech companies to identify regional priorities for the industry and generate funding for tech and biotech projects in Roanoke, the New River Valley and Lynchburg. She’s also served as an instructor for the Virginia Bankers Association’s Virginia Bankers School of Bank Management.

“If you’re passionate about fintech and banking, pursue your goals relentlessly,” Snyder says. “The industry needs more women leaders to drive progress and transformation.”

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DANA WESTON GRAVES

Dana Weston Graves will never forget a meeting she had with a vendor who came in and started shaking hands and speaking to a man in the room whom he assumed was the hospital’s president.

“It never occurred to him that the one woman in the room could be the hospital president,” Graves says.

While this experience served as a stark reminder that people still inherently assume men to be leaders, Graves says it’s been refreshing to see — particularly during the past 15 years — more and more women at the helm of hospitals and health systems.

“I’m very grateful to my incredible parents who allowed me to be a messy little girl, which gave me the courage and resiliency that’s required in leadership,” she says. In her community, Graves also serves on the board of YMCA of South Hampton Roads and has been involved with United Way of South Hampton Roads.

She has also been recognized multiple times on Becker’s Hospital Review’s annual list of women hospital presidents and CEOs to know. But recognition for Graves feels “strange,” she says, because she feels she’s doing exactly what she’s supposed to be doing every day.

But “the opportunity to be recognized as a strong African American leader or strong woman leader is meaningful, because it allows someone else to see themselves reflected in leadership.”

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CONNIE NYHOLM

Connie Nyholm had never set foot on a racetrack until 1998, when she and Harvey Siegel decided to resurrect Virginia International Raceway. The duo came to motorsports after successful real estate careers, though their motivations differed; Siegel was a racing enthusiast and competed in vintage racing events all over the country, while Nyholm wanted to live near Martinsville, where she grew up, after spending years in New York.

Soon, Nyholm caught the bug for the sport, and raced vintage cars for about 10 years. “It’s very exciting,” she says. “It’s all about finding that little edge to win.”

Big dreams have fueled the transformation of the raceway from the weed-infested facility she first acquired into one of the premier road courses in the U.S. VIR is now a motorsports resort — complete with two hotels, a motorsports country club, 13,000 square feet of meeting space, a pool and more. And Nyholm dreams it will become the most-recognized road course in the country.

“We’re on the way, we just have big dreams,” she says. “We’ll never run out of things to do.”

While the hundreds of events at the raceway give Nyholm plenty to do, she finds time for sailing and other adventure travel. She’s also passionate about mentorship opportunities, be it fostering the on-site small businesses that operate at VIR, seeing her own team excel or helping to create a welcoming environment in motorsports for other women. And she strives to set a simple example: “If you can see her, you can be her.”

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NICOLE STUART

Top Guard Security President Nicole Stuart has one word to describe being a woman in her industry: lonely. 

“Because the security industry has always been male dominated, it was unquestionably more difficult to be accepted as a leader in the field,” Stuart says. But during the past three decades, she’s seen increases in the number of women in the field — and the amount of respect she’s garnered as a female leader. 

“Quite simply, I made the most of the opportunities that presented themselves,” Stuart says. Since the late 1990s, Stuart has seen her company grow from approximately 150 employees to 1,000, and she now runs one of the largest woman-owned businesses in Virginia.

Stuart also has served on the boards of the YWCA South Hampton Roads and Old Dominion University’s Strome College of Business, and she chaired an American Heart Association fundraising campaign. Over the years, her firm has contributed more than $1 million of value to community nonprofits. She also has her hands full as a mother of five. 

“Being a woman in any underrepresented industry can bring a variety of challenges and pressures that men cannot relate to, such as balancing work and family demands,” Stuart says. “Raising five children in a 24/7 field certainly wasn’t for the faint of heart.”

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CANDICE LING

Although there’s a great sense of responsibility helping the federal government fulfill its mission, Candice Ling has also found government contracting work to be an incredible privilege. Serving as a trusted partner to federal agencies is something that must be earned, she says, and so it’s especially satisfying when she can work together with a team to solve a problem. “We’ve got to be willing to immerse ourselves into the situation and roll up our sleeves,” Ling says.

That’s something Ling has mastered in her nearly six years with Microsoft. She currently leads the company’s federal division after stints as the software giant’s chief operating officer for U.S. regulated industries and its government industry leader in Asia. “You have to learn the challenges and barriers and opportunities where they can adopt technology.”

Ling likewise enjoys the challenge of a new recipe or a rigorous hike in a national park with her family. As a leader, Ling says, she does her best to foster a culture of innovation and collaboration while encouraging a combination of grit and grace — grit to make her team resilient, while extending grace so people (herself included) can learn from their mistakes. 

She brings that spirit of openness to learning to her involvement in employee resource groups and mentorship. Ling believes it’s equally important to share stories of career successes and mistakes — and these conversations often focus on how to best make an impact. “I get mentored by my mentees, as well.” 

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ELIZABETH ANN McCLANAHAN

When Elizabeth Ann McClanahan mentors younger people about how to achieve success, her advice is straightforward: “Showing up is 75% of it.” What she means, beyond the most literal interpretation, is showing up with passion, saying yes to every career opportunity that comes along, and taking the initiative to pursue those opportunities.

McClanahan credits others who have blessed her along the way for the wide range of opportunities in her career that spans law and higher education. After nearly 20 years working in private legal practice, McClanahan became Virginia’s chief deputy attorney general and then went on to serve a combined 16 years on the Court of Appeals and as a justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia. 

Though McClanahan says it was “a great honor” to be a justice, she retired from the bench in 2019 and became president and dean of the Appalachian School of Law. In 2021, she was named CEO of the Virginia Tech Foundation.

Throughout her career, McClanahan says she’s loved seeing young people achieve their dreams. And in her current role, she really enjoys the foundation’s long-term focus on building opportunities to educate generations to come. She’s a passionate supporter of 4-H, which she credits as her biggest influence growing up in Buchanan County, while her parents instilled in her a strong work ethic and appreciation for education.

“Education is what opens the doors for upward mobility for people in the U.S.,” she says.

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