Manufacturing 2023: CHARLES ‘CHARLIE’ LUCK IV

The third generation of Lucks to lead the crushed stone company and its real estate subsidiary, Charlie Luck is currently celebrating the company’s 100th anniversary.

Over the years, Luck Cos. has established a footprint that extends throughout Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, with about 950 employees. In February, the company applied to build a 2 million-square-foot data center campus in Ashburn, just west of its Leesburg quarry.

A Virginia Military Institute engineering graduate, Luck followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, who founded Sunnyside Granite in 1923, and his father, Charles S. Luck III, who led Luck Stone until 1999, when his son became president and CEO. In the 1980s, Luck was a professional NASCAR driver who competed in what is now the Xfinity Series, and he still races cars, now as an amateur driver, in the Fanatec GT World Challenge America series.

In 2015, Luck started the InnerWill Leadership Institute as a way for companies and other organizations to train their executives in “values-based leadership,” a philosophy launched at Luck Cos. that aims to create happier, more engaged workplace leaders.