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Health Care 2024: MELINA DAVIS

The board of the Medical Society of Virginia (MSV), a trade organization that represents more than 30,000 physicians, physician assistants, residents and medical students, brought Davis on as its executive vice president in 2014 and made her its CEO four years later. 

During the Virginia General Assembly’s 2020 session, Davis and MSV advocated for lawmakers to pass a law allowing doctors and physician assistants to seek mental health care and help for career fatigue without fearing repercussions to their medical licenses. Then-Gov. Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurosurgeon, signed a law creating the SafeHaven program in March 2020. In 2021, the law was expanded to include other health care professionals.

Today, MSV, partnering with VITAL WorkLife, manages SafeHaven, which offers clinicians resources such as  peer coaching and counseling to help with career fatigue and mental health issues.

Before coming to MSV, Davis was CEO and president of the American Lung Association of the Atlantic Coast. She also founded PlanG Holdings, a consumer platform that allows people to donate to charitable causes.

Davis has a degree in international studies from the of South Carolina and an MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Professional Services 2024: ALISON ROGISH

In December 2021, Rogish became the first woman to lead Big Four global accounting firm Deloitte’s Central Virginia market. Rogish joined Deloitte in 1998, specializing in human capital services for clients in the financial services industry. She became a relationship leader for several clients in the Washington, D.C., metro area in 2005. In 2015, she was promoted to managing director of client relationships.

A graduate of Cornell and Columbia universities, Rogish is a women’s leadership advocate and co-sponsors several gender equity initiatives at Deloitte, including Within Reach, a research series analyzing the rise of women in leadership positions. She founded and is an executive sponsor of DC Spark, a networking organization for female executives in the Washington, D.C., metro area. Rogish has also served on the board of directors for Greater Richmond SCAN and YWCA Richmond.

For fiscal 2023, Deloitte reported record revenues of $64.9 billion, a 14.9% increase over the previous fiscal year.

In the pipeline

As Andre Marshall was speaking to a reporter about cybersecurity in late July, one of the biggest technology failures in recent memory was unfolding in real time.

A worldwide Microsoft Windows outage on July 19 brought airports, banks, subways — and even the Marshall household — to a standstill.

‘s vice president for research, innovation and economic impact, Marshall says that his wife, a trial lawyer in Washington, D.C., couldn’t access information for her cases.

“I don’t even know how she’s getting through her trials today because her computer didn’t work and everything is on the computer,” Marshall said at the time.

The massive outage, traced to a failed software update by security firm CrowdStrike, underscored the need for better cybersecurity measures for government and businesses. Simply put, the United States lacks enough skilled cybersecurity workers to protect computer systems from attacks, hacking or even simple software malfunctions.

Virginia has more than 53,000 cybersecurity job openings, the most of any state, according to industry analyst CyberSeek, and is a key partner in the state’s efforts to fill the technology .

George Mason recently received nearly $200,00 from the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology for a two-year program to improve cybersecurity . Professor Nirup Menon and instructor Brian Ngac in the Costello of Business’ information systems and operations management division will partner with Mobius Consulting and Institute for Defense Analyses to create 12-week projects that aim to give students hands-on experience as they train for cybersecurity careers.

The program is just the latest cybersecurity initiative at George Mason, which is part of the , a partnership of Virginia colleges and universities, industries, local governments, offices and other organizations that operate with a shared mission of improving cybersecurity research and , with an emphasis on the maritime, defense and transportation industries. CCI divides the commonwealth into four regional nodes, with George Mason as lead institution for the Northern Virginia node, a region that has a “voracious appetite for computing talent,” Marshall says, primarily because of the large number of federal government contractors there.

Talent scouts

CCI distributes about $17 million statewide to fund cyber training and research, but that amount is hardly enough to meet the needs of an industry that has a shortfall of nearly 470,000 employees nationally, according to CyberSeek.

“$17 million a year is not enough to establish anyone as a global leader, even though that’s our goal, to help Virginia become a global leader in cybersecurity,” says Liza Wilson Durant, George Mason’s associate provost for strategic initiatives and community engagement and director of CCI’s Northern Virginia node.

Durant says that Virginia’s cybersecurity workforce shortfall averages between 50,000 and 60,000 openings per month, and that the need is expanding as cybersecurity measures adapt to ever-evolving technologies, with many new jobs now requiring experience with artificial intelligence.

“We don’t have enough cyber talent, and now we don’t have enough AI talent,” Durant says. “The technical needs are accelerating in new areas.”

That’s why George Mason is investing heavily in training cybersecurity workers, she says.

“When I talk to my industry partners and say, ‘How do you want me to invest my resources? Research, workforce or entrepreneurship?’ Ten out of 10 times, our industry partners will say, ‘Get me more workforce,’” Durant says, “so I’ve made some big bets on talent.”

George Mason offers 23 separate degree programs that include a cybersecurity focus, Durant says, many of them in the university’s Department of Cyber Security Engineering. Mason also helps students get practical experience by connecting them with internships at firms that have cybersecurity needs.

Dylan Knoff, a 20-year-old computer science major and junior, interned this summer with nonprofit technology research and development company Battelle, gaining experience in reverse engineering software programs to uncover vulnerabilities in security protection. Knoff is also president of the university’s Competitive Cyber club, a group of more than 500 students that competes in cyber contests, from quiz show-style games to digital capture-the-flag sports. In February, the George Mason team beat more than 20 other Virginia college teams in the Commonwealth Cyber Fusion Cup cybersecurity competition.

The games are fun, but have real-world applications, Knoff says. He began competing in cybersecurity contests as a high school student in Florida, and he says that the games’ competitive nature hones fast-paced, critical-thinking skills required in the cybersecurity workplace. Plus, industry professionals often attend the cyber games to give talks and seek talent.

“I’m really passionate about these competitions. Employers enjoy them,” he says, adding that, “I really want to do cybersecurity. It’s not just about stopping bad guys. Cybersecurity is also about protecting confidentiality of critical systems in general. It’s not just cyber protection. It’s about [ensuring protective] redundancy and cyber resiliency. … It’s super vast and requires intimate knowledge.”

It’s also a field where Knoff is confident he will find a good-paying job. “It’s low supply and high demand,” he says.

That’s why George Mason and other CCI institutions run summer camps and hack-a-thons for public school students, as well as training programs for teachers, as part of an enormous effort to get more young people interested in cybersecurity studies.

“We know that if the kids haven’t decided to do a STEM field by middle school, they probably won’t choose it at all,” Durant says.

Many roles to fill

Because the demand for cyber workers is so high right now, the industry can’t wait for middle school students to grow up, go to college and join the workforce. George Mason is looking for more immediate results from its “traineeship” program geared toward older workers in other fields who might consider switching careers — “like a reporter who’s excited about cybersecurity who wants to change his job or an accountant or someone who studied psychology or a transitioning military person or a stay-at-home mom, who was an engineer 20 years ago and wants to come back,” Durant says, describing the types of workers who enroll in the program. It includes 19 weeks of combined training and work experience, with participants getting paid $19,200 for their work —$7,200 for seven weeks of coursework and $12,000 for a 12-week placement with an employer.

“We train them full time for seven weeks in cybersecurity,” Durant says. “At the end of that seven weeks of what you could call a ‘boot camp,’ … we place them for 12 weeks with industry partners, and they go to work.”

Last year, the program attracted more than 400 applications for just 20 positions, she says. Just under half of the participants were women, an underrepresented demographic in the cybersecurity industry. This year, about 300 people applied for 23 openings in June. In the future, more career-switching adults will need to join the ranks of cybersecurity professionals, Durant believes.

“Degrees alone will not meet the demand in the region,” Durant says. “We have to look at alternative pathways to skill people.”

The NIST grant creates a partnership with Mobius Consulting, a woman-owned, Alexandria-based defense industry consultant, and the Institute for Defense Analyses that will create a similar intensive program geared toward people who might not have previously considered cybersecurity as a career. The workshops aim to develop a more diverse workforce by including Trinity Washington University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C., as a partner.

Menon, one of the professors who received the grant, echoed Durant’s assertion that the industry will need to look beyond computer science majors for reinforcements in the cybersecurity field. To that end, he and collaborator Ngac will host workshops for college and high school students who haven’t previously considered working in tech industries.

“We’re looking for students who are not just engineers working in areas like hardcore ethical hacking, but those who can fill all kinds of roles,” Menon said. “We need people who can be creative and who can imagine threat scenarios, so we will provide workshops for non-tech students, high school students, liberal arts students. … We want them engaged. They don’t have to be in math or science; they just need to be creative.”

Changing with the times

George Mason junior Dylan Knoff, a 20-year-old computer science major, wants to go into cybersecurity, a field that’s in short supply of skilled workers. Photo by Will Schermerhorn

A major catalyst in boosting George Mason’s cybersecurity programs was Amazon.com’s decision to locate its new HQ2 East Coast headquarters in nearby County. The state incentives that brought Amazon to Northern Virginia included $375 million to George Mason and Virginia Tech to increase the number of tech-related master’s degrees.

“That investment was a game changer,” says Marshall.

Later this year, George Mason will begin opening its new, $258 million, 345,000-square-foot Fuse at Mason Square building, which will house the university’s digital innovation institute, computer labs, high-tech classrooms and office space.

“We’re going to have companies there; we’re going to have government there,” Marshall says, adding that the university’s School of Computing will move into the building in 2025.

Creating new companies is a priority, Marshall says. His office spearheaded a cybersecurity business incubator and accelerator program that supports startup companies and entrepreneurs. The initiative, led by Gisele Stolz, director of entrepreneurship and innovation programs, earned CCI’s Impact Award and has helped launch about two dozen cybersecurity companies the past four years, Marshall says.

The George Mason-anchored Northern Virginia CCI node generated an estimated $101.6 million in economic impact in Northern Virginia for 2023, supporting an estimated 462 jobs and generating $3.3 million in state and local tax revenues, according to a report from the research institute RTI International.

George Mason was founded as a branch of the University of Virginia in 1949 and became an independent university in 1972. Because it is relatively young compared with other Virginia universities, Marshall says, it has grown and modernized alongside the region, which has become a government contracting and technology hub for the nation.

“We’ve grown according to the contemporary needs of our region,” Marshall says. “That’s really important in understanding how Mason is addressing the pipeline needs in computing, in technology and in cybersecurity. We’re not stuck in traditional ways of doing things, so we have an outsized impact on computer and information science, because that’s what in the past 50 years society has needed.”   

George Mason At a glance

Founded
Originally formed in 1949 as an extension of the University of Virginia, George Mason University became an independent institution in 1972.

Campuses
George Mason’s footprint covers 848 acres in Northern Virginia. In addition to its Fairfax campus, this includes the Mason Square campus in Arlington, the Science and Technology campus in Manassas, and the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation in Front Royal. 

The Fairfax Campus, with a residential student population of about 6,000, is home to seven colleges, including the first College of Public Health in Virginia, as well as the university’s 22 men’s and women’s Division I athletics teams. 

Located in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, Mason Square is home to the Antonin Scalia Law School, the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, the Schar School of Policy and Government and courses in the College of Engineering and Computing, the Donald G. Costello College of Business and the College of Visual and Performing Arts. In 2024, George Mason will open its new Fuse at Mason Square building, a collaborative hub uniting scholars, students, researchers, policymakers and business developers. 

George Mason’s SciTech Campus serves more than 4,000 students in five innovative facilities specially designed for classrooms, laboratories, libraries, recreation, the arts and other uses. And the Mason Korea campus in Songdo, South Korea, celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2024.

Enrollment*
40,185

Student profile**

Female: 51%

Male: 49%

In-state: 78%

Minority: 50%

Academic programs
George Mason offers more than 200 degree programs, including 69 undergraduate degree programs, 92 master’s degree programs, 39 doctoral degree programs and a juris doctorate.

Faculty
1,716 full-time

Tuition, fees, housing and dining

In-state tuition and fees: $14,220 

Out-of-state tuition and fees: $38,688 

Room and board: $14,090 

*Includes 664 students at Mason Korea, fall 2023
**U.S. campuses only, fall 2023

Danville whitewater channel plans float forward

Future Olympian kayakers may one day practice their playboating in the Dan River while tourists marvel from shore.

In the Virginia budget approved in May, lawmakers included $3 million for the City of to develop the Channel, which is being designed to lure both recreational paddlers and water rescue trainees.

The creation of the whitewater channel is part of a public-private effort to revitalize the area surrounding White Mill, a former textiles operation and a reminder of Danville’s legacy as a textiles powerhouse.

In addition to an $88 million effort by the city’s industrial development authority and Wisconsin’s The Alexandria Co. to redevelop the mill as a multiuse project, the city is also building a four-acre riverfront park slated to open in early 2025, according to Bill Sgrinia, director of Danville Parks and Recreation.

To get the state money, Danville must raise $6 million in funding. City officials will likely hold off identifying fund sources until a design for the project is completed, according to Sgrinia. He estimates the project will end up costing between $18 million and $20 million.

In 2022, Danville officials hired North Carolina’s Site Collaborative, a landscape architecture firm, which subcontracted with former Olympic canoeist and engineer Scott Shipley, president of Colorado’s S20 Design, to design the whitewater channel. The project was funded through a $979,690 grant from the Danville Regional Foundation.

About 60% of the design process for the whitewater channel has been completed, according to Sgrinia. He thinks another major chunk will be finished by the first quarter of 2025 and estimates work to build the whitewater channel could begin in two or three years.

Right now, the plan is for the channel to incorporate an industrial canal that runs in front of the historic White Mill. “It’s a unique opportunity,” Shipley says, noting that using the existing canal will allow the channel to be entirely gravity-fed.

Being able to rely on natural water flow to create rapids will distinguish the park from other whitewater channels that rely on artificial pumps, which also increases operational costs.

Whitewater channels can be a tremendous economic boon for cities, generating tourism and helping cities brand them-selves as outdoor recreation meccas, Shipley says.

The attraction won’t just draw paddlers either, according to Sgrinia.

“People will just come because it’s really cool to see what people are doing on it,” he says. 

Real Estate 2024: KIM ROY

In 2017, Roy was appointed the first nonfamily member to lead the then-80-year-old company. Interested in building from a young age, she graduated from Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in construction. Roy joined Hitt in 1999 as an assistant project manager.

Founded in 1937, Hitt has more than 1,600 employees in 14 U.S. office locations. The company reported $5.6 billion in 2023 revenue and ranked No. 26 on Engineering News-Record’s list of the top 400 general contractors this year, down from No. 18 last year.

Hitt’s recent projects include the restoration and renovation of the Omni Homestead Resort’s interiors and an 11,000-square-foot office for BlackSky in Seattle. In November 2023, Hitt announced plans for a new headquarters that will have six stories and 270,000 square feet, expected to be complete in late 2026.

Roy is also president of Hitt Contracting Foundation, a nonprofit she helped launch focusing on the company’s philanthropic initiatives.

Education 2024: DONNA PRICE HENRY

Henry is the ‘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 positions at Florida Gulf Coast , including as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Henry is a trustee for the Southwest Virginia Center. In 2020, she received the Virginia Network for Women in Higher Education’s Outstanding Woman Leader in Virginia Higher Education award.

Henry holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

WHAT I WAS LIKE IN HIGH SCHOOL: I was very active in clubs and organizations. I was in the rifle squad of our marching band. I was class secretary. I enjoyed studying, particularly biology.

INTERESTING PLACE I’VE TRAVELED: Sevilla, Spain. I studied there as an undergraduate student. I lived with a family and was immersed in a new culture for the first time in my life.

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 serving in management roles in Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Switzerland.

As managing director, Friedrich provides oversight and guidance on corporate and strategic plans for the nine product segments under Liebherr USA. As divisional director for construction equipment, he manages a team of sales, service, training and product management staff.

A graduate of the Fontys Venlo of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, Friedrich’s 20 years in the heavy equipment industry have mostly been spent within the Liebherr footprint.

Out of a worldwide workforce of about 50,000, Liebherr employs more than 600 people in the United States. A $60 million expansion of its Newport News facilities was completed in 2020.

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 nearly half of the AdvanSix Hopewell workforce striking; according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, there were more than 60 Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act violations during the previous eight years. The strike was resolved, but in summer 2023, a hazmat team was dispatched to the Hopewell plant to address a liquid ammonia leak.

Earlier this year, the company applied to the state to renew its five-year Title V permit, which outlines pollution control regulations that apply to the facility.

In late March, AdvanSix received a Patriot Award from the Department of Defense’s Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve recognizing its commitment to National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve employees.

Girvin’s term on the Hopewell Water Renewal Commission ends Oct. 31. His bachelor’s degree is in mechanical engineering from the of Virginia, and his MBA from William & Mary.

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 Manufacturing Co., which was run by Gottwald’s late grandfather, Floyd Gottwald.

NewMarket acquired the parent company of American Pacific Corp. (AMPAC) for approximately $700 million in January. NewMarket employs around 2,000 people worldwide, with about 1,000 working in the United States.

Gottwald, a Richmond native, was among notable opponents of a proposed Richmond casino that voters rejected for the second time in November 2023. The father of five Eagle Scouts, Gottwald served in the U.S. Army Reserve in the 1980s. He completed his bachelor’s degree at Virginia Military Institute and his MBA at Harvard Business School.

He serves as a member of the Founding & Emeriti Board of Trustees for Virginia Commonwealth ‘s of Engineering Foundation and on the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors, appointed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Gottwald also chairs the VMI Jackson-Hope Board of Overseers.

Manufacturing 2024: KOEN KNIPPENBERG

In June, Knippenberg began his new role as Volvo’s senior vice president in North America for Group Truck Operations (GTO), a position in which he oversees four vehicle assembly plants: Volvo’s New River Valley plant in Dublin; two Mack Trucks factories in Roanoke County and Pennsylvania; and a heavy-duty truck plant under construction in Mexico. Scheduled to open in 2026, the Mexican plant will supplement U.S. production.

A Belgium native, Knippenberg previously served as vice president and general manager of the New River Valley Volvo Trucks plant since 2022. The company’s largest truck manufacturing facility, the 1.6 million-square-foot assembly plant produces all Volvo trucks sold in North America and employs about 3,600 people. The plant began manufacturing the company’s redesigned flagship VNL long-haul truck cabs in June.

Before that, he was vice president for the company’s plant in Ghent, Belgium, as well as managing director for Volvo Group Belgium for five years. Knippenberg also was director of operations for Volvo Trucks North America at the New River Valley plant.

Knippenberg holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Belgium’s Katholieke Hogeschool Sint-Lieven.