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Law 2024: CALVIN W. ‘WOODY’ FOWLER JR.
In March, Williams Mullen tapped Fowler to serve a fourth three-year term as the president, CEO and chairman of the state’s third largest law firm. Under Fowler’s tenure, Williams Mullen, which has 437 employees, has enjoyed nine consecutive years of increased revenue and profits that increased by an average of 11.2%[...]
Hospitality | Tourism 2024: NICK PATEL
Born in West Bromwich, England, Patel relocated to the United States in 1982. He earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1992, but his entrepreneurial spirit led him in a different direction. He opened a Sleep Inn in Richmond in 1996 with his parents’ support, and Kalyan Hospit[...]
Arts | Entertainment | Sports 2024: DWAYNE ‘THE ROCK’ JOHNSON
Known as “The Rock,” Johnson shot to fame as a professional wrestler and is now one of the nation’s most popular and prolific movie and TV actors. He’s also been a relatively quiet resident of Virginia for several years, he acknowledged on social media posts in 2019. Johnson owns a horse farm in Orange County [&h[...]
Government | Politics 2024: LARRY SABATO
Virginia’s most notable political pundit, Sabato is the founding director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, which celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, breaking ground on a $10 million expansion. Widely quoted by national media, Sabato’s Crystal Ball newsletter, which handicaps political[...]
Real Estate 2024: RYAN T. McLAUGHLIN
Head of one of the country’s largest regional Realtor associations, McLaughlin came to NVAR in 2015 after serving the Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors in Pennsylvania for more than a decade. This year, McLaughlin was named to T3 Sixty’s 11th annual Swanepoel Power 200 rankings of the nation’s top real estate exec[...]
Manufacturing 2024: ANDY GIRVIN
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 near[...]
Manufacturing 2024: KAI FRIEDRICH
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 ser[...]
Manufacturing 2024: THOMAS E. ‘TEDDY’ GOTTWALD
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 Man[...]
Federal Contractors | Technology 2024: REX D. GEVEDEN
Headquartered in Lynchburg, BWX Technologies manufactures nuclear reactors, fuel and components for the Navy, develops and manufactures microreactors for national security and space applications, and provides nuclear technical services at contractor-operated government labs and facilities. Geveden joined BWXT in 2015 as its chie[...]
Banking | Finance 2024: HANS VonKRUGER
In July, VonKruger joined two fellow members of Bank of America’s Native American Professional Network, along with a few other coworkers, at the Indigenous Voices of the Americas reception in Washington, D.C. “I am so grateful to work for an organization that celebrates cultural experiences,” he wrote on LinkedIn. �[...]
Federal Contractors | Technology 2024: D. JAMES BIDZOS
A native of Greece, Bidzos is an internet and cybersecurity pioneer and an early advocate for encrypted commercial software. Verisign, a company he founded in 1995 as a spinoff of RSA Data Security, is the world’s largest internet domain name registration and infrastructure provider. Any address with a .com or .net domain [...]
Education 2024: DONNA PRICE HENRY
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 pos[...]
