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Economic Development 2025: RIZER, BUDDY
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, LOUDOUN COUNTY
Virginia Business //September 2, 2025//
Buddy Rizer, Loudoun County Economic Development Department executive director, photographed at a QTS data center in Loudoun County.
Buddy Rizer, Loudoun County Economic Development Department executive director, photographed at a QTS data center in Loudoun County.
Economic Development 2025: RIZER, BUDDY
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, LOUDOUN COUNTY
Virginia Business //September 2, 2025//
After a career as a radio DJ, Rizer reinvented himself as an economic developer. He has headed Loudoun County’s economic development for 18 years and is best known for helping build the county’s Ashburn area into Data Center Alley, marketed as the world’s largest concentration of data centers.
Loudoun collects nearly $1 billion dollars in local tax revenue from the data center industry annually, amounting to a third of the county’s overall budget. And the county has landed about $30.5 billion in new commercial investment over the last five years, much of it from data centers.
Rizer serves on the Northern Virginia Technology Council board and the GO Virginia Region 7 Council.
A Towson University alum, he has a master’s in business and economics from Longwood University. This year, he received the National Eagle Scout Association Outstanding Eagle Scout Award (NOESA), recognizing his career and civic contributions.
BOOK I’D RECOMMEND: I just finished “The Thinking Machine,” by Stephen Witt. It’s the fascinating story of Jensen Huang and Nvidia. As a plus, Loudoun County and Data Center Alley got a mention in the book!
Return to the full list of Economic Development recipients.
