Since starting with the company as an entry-level engineer and working his way up to his current role, Bortell has had a career with Timmons Group that’s spanned three decades. As chairman
and CEO, he sets the strategic direction for the approximately 1,160-person firm and oversees its four operating divisions. Timmons’s fiscal 2024 revenue totaled $226 million.

Bortell received his MBA from Averett University and his bachelor’s in civil engineering from Virginia Tech. Under Bortell’s leadership, Timmons Group landed on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing privately held companies from 2016 through 2021.

In September 2024, Timmons acquired Dutton + Associates, a Chesterfield firm specializing in integrating historic properties into modern development projects.

In March, the company moved 400 employees into its new Chesterfield County headquarters from its Richmond base. Timmons also opened a Roanoke office in March, its 20th location in five states and Washington, D.C. In April, Timmons was ranked No. 125 on Engineering News- Record’s Top 500 Design Firms, up 10 spots from 2024.

Bortell serves on Feed More’s board and TowneBank’s Richmond region board.

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With more than 25 years of experience directing commercial real estate operations, Thomas is executive managing director and market leader for Colliers Virginia.

At Colliers Virginia, he oversees all brokerage operations, recruitment, retention and business development in Richmond, Hampton Roads and Charlottesville, including about 60 brokers. Thomas

joined Colliers from Henrico County’s Commonwealth Commercial Partners. Previously, Thomas was managing partner for GVA Advantis, overseeing regional brokerage operations.

In January 2023, the same month Thomas joined the real estate brokerage, Colliers became the leasing and management company for City Center at Oyster Point in Newport News, a high-density, mixed-use development.

Thomas is a Richmond native and a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, and he serves on the RVA757 Connects board of directors and Greater Richmond Association for Commercial Real Estate’s board.

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Working from home, Ballard and his sister, Brenda, founded S.B. Ballard Construction by completing small projects for the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority and minor renovations for their neighbors.

Over the course of the past 40 years, Ballard has served as a project manager, superintendent, estimator, carpenter and laborer. As CEO of S.B. Ballard Construction, he oversees all construction operations and corporate functions, including strategic planning, project management, estimating, business development, corporate communications, safety and quality. In 2023, Jason Armstrong succeeded Ballard as president.

In January, the company finished Aviva Pembroke, a Virginia Beach senior living community with more than 150 residential units, as well as a spa, aquatic center and fitness center.

Also in January, the developers of the forthcoming $750 million Norfolk casino announced their construction team; Ballard Construction and Mississippi’s Yates Construction, which built Rivers Casino Portsmouth, are teaming up again. Construction began in February.

Ballard is a member of the Associated General Contractors of America, the American Concrete Institute and the American Society of Concrete Contractors.Return to the full list of this category’s recipients.

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In 2022, Gilbane Building tapped Reed to lead its Richmond business unit. One of the construction company’s youngest vice presidents, she has managed over $1 billion in contracts so far during her career.

In 2024, the Richmond Flying Squirrels selected Gilbane Building, along with Prestige Construction Group, to build the new stadium the Double-A team will lease. Now under construction and set to be completed in spring 2026, CarMax Park will be the centerpiece of the city’s $2.4 billion Diamond District mixed-use project and is projected to cost at least $110 million.

Gilbane has managed construction for multiple notable projects in Central Virginia, including the 415,000-square-foot Virginia General Assembly office building and the University of Virginia’s School of Data Science building.

Reed has helped Gilbane reach out to the community through the ACE Mentor Program of America, a free after-school program designed to attract high school students into pursuing careers in architecture, construction and engineering. She’s also a mentor in the Women in Construction Conference.

A registered architect, Reed graduated from Penn State — where she was a two- time All-American in rugby — with a bachelor’s degree in architecture.

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Bredow has worked for NVR since 2004 and, after holding several executive positions in accounting and administration, became president of NVR Mortgage in 2019. In 2022, he was appointed president and CEO of NVR, which operates in two business segments that include homebuilding and mortgage banking.

Founded in 1980, the Fortune 500 company is one of the nation’s largest homebuilding and mortgage banking companies. NVR reported $10.52 billion in 2024 revenue, an 11% increase from the previous year.

NVR’s homebuilding segment operates under the Ryan Homes, NVHomes and Heartland Homes brands in 36 metro areas across 16 states and Washington, D.C.

Bredow is a graduate of the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business and serves as a member on its board of advisers. Builder magazine ranked NVR No. 4 on its annual Builder 100 lists for 2024 and 2025.

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Van Metre’s late father founded his family real estate development company in 1955, partnering with B.B. Wills to build the first Van Metre Homes in Burke, a Fairfax County suburb.

Beau Van Metre joined the company in 1963. In 2002, he was appointed vice chairman, and he became chairman in 2008.

Today, the company has homebuilding, apartment, commercial, design and build, land development and mortgage divisions, along with golf course holdings. It owns and manages more than 1 million square feet of commercial space, primarily in Northern Virginia.

Van Metre is a trustee for the Van Metre Family Trusts and runs the Van Metre Family Foundation with his sister, Alison Van Metre Paley. It has donated more than $4.4 million to various charities since 2002. In 2014, the company formed the Van Metre Companies Foundation, which has donated more than $4.1 million to nonprofits, including Children’s National Hospital and HomeAid Northern Virginia.

Van Metre is well-known for winning the 1976 Newport Bermuda Race with his father, sailing Running Tide, the 60-foot yacht that he reacquired in 2018 and restored. He also won the 2022 New York Yacht Club Regatta.

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A St. Louis native, Boston joined real estate investment trust Dynex Capital in 2008 as executive vice president and chief investment officer. Four years later, he was promoted to president and given a seat on the board. He took the role of CEO in 2014. In 2023, Dynex board members appointed Boston their chairman, and Smriti L. Popenoe, also Dynex’s president, became the firm’s new co-CEO in 2024.

Dynex reported more than $8.18 billion in total assets at the end of 2024, up from $6.36 billion in 2023. In July, the company announced its portfolio was at $14 billion, more than 50% growth since June 2024.

Boston launched his career as a corporate banker with Chemical Bank and later traded mortgage securities. He served in a senior leadership role in the investment division of Freddie Mac for almost seven years.

The first person in his family to graduate from college, Boston majored in economics at Dartmouth College and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago. He serves on the board of directors for Salzburg Global, a worldwide leadership organization.

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A childhood passion for taking things apart, putting them back together and figuring out how they worked led Clark to Virginia Military Institute for a degree in mechanical engineering. Clark started as a mechanical engineer at Newport News Shipbuilding and served as an Air Force officer for five years. He earned an MBA at William & Mary.

Clark joined Baskervill, one of the state’s most prominent design firms, more than 25 years ago and was named president in 2004. Since then, his focus has been on growing the company by uncovering employees’ strengths — design, technical, project management or relationship building — so they can best serve the company and find a clear path to leadership roles.

Recent projects include Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches’ $5.8 million expansion in Richmond and the forthcoming Shockoe Project, a museum and outdoor space to memorialize enslaved Richmonders designed by Baskervill’s principal and board chair, Burt Pinnock.

Baskervill received a 2025 Merit Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism for its work on the project.

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First joining Thalhimer as an associate broker in 1995, Warfield now leads the real estate firm’s seven offices and 450 associates in Virginia. In 2016, he became Thalhimer’s fourth CEO since its 1913 foun ing. He has been chairman of Thalhimer’s board since 2017.

As of June 1, Eric Robison succeeded Warfield as company president, after having led T alhimer’s capital markets team. Warfield retains his chairman and CEO titles.

Thalhimer Realty Partners, one of the company’s subsidiaries, is now the sole principal of the team developing the commercial and residential portions of Richmond’s $2.44 billion Diamond District project, which are being built around the new CarMax Park baseball stadium for the Richmond Flying Sq irrels.

In 2024, Thalhimer completed more than 1,800 transactions with a total volume of mo e than $1.96 billion.

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Bowman Consulting Group, founded in 1995 as a five-person company, followed Bowman’s 15-year stint at Urban Engineering. The publicly traded engineering services firm has about 2,400 employees with 100 offices nationwide, nine of them in Virginia.

In 2024, Bowman, who remains CEO, was succeeded as president by Michael Bruen, the firm’s former chief operating officer. Bruen resigned in October 2024 and retired in January; the company hasn’t named a successor. Bowman was succeeded as board chairman in May by James Laurito, former chief technology officer of Fortis.

Bowman Consulting Group has been on a buying spree since going public in 2021, acquiring more than 30 companies. In February, it purchased UP Engineering in Texas.

Bowman Consulting Group climbed to No. 72 this year on Engineering News-Record’s Top 500 Design Firms list and debuted at No. 137 on the outlet’s Top 150 Global Design Firms list last year. Bowman also ranked No. 4 in May on Zweig Group’s Hot Firms List of the fastest-growing architecture, engineering, environmental, planning, construction and related professional services firms. The company reported $426.6 million in gross contract revenue for 2024, up 23.2% from the previous year.

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