Bennett adopted the love of trucking from his late father, a professional truck driver, and has advocated for the trucking industry for more than 40 years.

The nation’s trucking industry has been hit hard in recent years by driver shortages, supply chain woes and high diesel prices. At the federal level last year, the VTA supported the Veterans Improvement Commercial Driver License Act to eliminate a two-year waiting period for new CDL training facilities to accept GI Bill benefits. It passed the U.S. Senate in 2023 and the House of Representatives in September 2024, becoming law on Oct. 1, 2024.

Earlier this year, Bennett expressed hope that President Donald Trump would lift regulations on the trucking industry.

In 2019, Bennett was recognized by the American Trucking Associations for his 30 years of service to the ATA federation as president and CEO of the VTA.

A University of Richmond graduate who grew up in Burkeville, Bennett worked for the Virginia State Crime Commission from 1982 to 1984 as a research analyst and legislative coordinator before joining VTA’s predecessor organization. As a teen, he drove a tractor on his uncle’s tobacco fields.

Return to the full list of this category’s recipients.

Crutchfield has been chairman and CEO of Colonna’s Shipyard — one of the nation’s largest private shipyards — since January 2024, succeeding Tom Godfrey, who retired at the end of 2023 after leading the company for decades.

Founded in 1875 and headquartered in Norfolk, Colonna’s provides ship repair, marine and industrial machining, and steel fabrication. Celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, Colonna’s today employs more than 700 people and operates three dry docks and a 1,000-metric-ton travel lift. It also supplies on-site welding services and has expanded its reach to San Diego and Kentucky.

Before becoming CEO, Crutchfield served as chief operating officer and vice president of industrial operations.

He has a bachelor’s degree in international trade and development from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from Regent University. Crutchfield serves on the boards of the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce. He’s also a member of the St. Mary’s Home for Disabled Children Home and Foundation boards.

Return to the full list of this category’s recipients.

The Virginia Port Authority runs the Port of Virginia, which is one of the state’s chief economic drivers.

Annually, port-related business and activity account for more than 565,000 jobs, more than $124.1 billion in total spending and $5.8 billion in state and local tax revenues.

Meanwhile, Edwards and other port leaders have stayed focused on finishing the $1.4 billion dredging and widening project in the port’s channels, easing the path for enormous freighters arriving in Hampton Roads.

The widening phase was completed last year, and the deepening phase is expected to be finished by the end of this year.

In March, the port wrapped up a $220 million improvement project that upgraded 72 acres of Portsmouth Marine Terminal and 1,500 feet of wharf, providing an offshore wind staging port. The project will support Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project, which calls for the construction of 176 wind turbines 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach by 2026.

Edwards joined the port in 2021 after serving as CEO of TraPac, Global Container Terminals and Ports America. He’s an ex officio member of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership’s board.

Return to the full list of this category’s recipients.

At age 16, Kuhn founded JK Moving Services, now North America’s largest independently owned and operated moving company, with $225.5 million in fiscal 2024 revenue. It employs more than 1,300 workers.

The company has moved presidents and their families in and out of the White House since George H.W. Bush’s administration, including moving the Trumps to Mar-a-Lago and back.

One of Loudoun County’s biggest landholders, Kuhn is a major investor in data centers through his company JK Land Holdings, which in February 2024 acquired 108 acres in Ashburn primed for data centers. While two data centers are planned for the property, the conservationist earlier this year

donated 10 of those acres to the Loudoun Freedom Center, giving the center more control over the land surrounding the African American Burial Ground for the Enslaved at Belmont.

Kuhn also founded JK Community Farm, a 150-acre nonprofit farm that donates its produce to area hunger relief organizations.

TRAIT I ADMIRE: Moxie. People that have the know-how and a fearless resolve to lead, raise the bar and embrace challenges with enthusiasm and determination change the world.

Return to the full list of this category’s recipients.

Layne, a former state secretary of finance and secretary of transportation under two governors, has worked at Sentara, a 34,000-employee regional health system, since July 2021, overseeing several teams, including legislative affairs, real estate, construction, supply chain, security, compliance, internal audit and privacy.

He also chairs the Virginia Port Authority board, which oversees the Port of Virginia, one of the state’s economic drivers. Port-related business and activity account for more than $124.1 billion in total spending and $5.8 billion in state and local tax revenues annually. His five-year term runs through June 2026.

Among others, Layne is also a member of the TowneBank corporate board and a member of An Achievable Dream’s endowment board.

A native of Hampton Roads and graduate of the University of Richmond, Layne earned his MBA from Old Dominion University. In 2024, Layne received UR’s Spider Athletics Alumni Achievement Award. He was a member of the university’s baseball team before graduating in 1979.

FIRST JOB: Selling cotton candy at the Hampton Coliseum as a youth

MOST VALUED POSSESSION: My great grandfather’s Bible

STREAMING SHOW I’VE ENJOYED: “MobLand”

Return to the full list of this category’s recipients.

McDaniel is Hilldrup’s fourth president since the moving, storage and logistics since the moving, storage and logistics company was founded in 1903. The McDaniel family has owned the company since 1940.

McDaniel also previously chaired the board for UniGroup, the Missouri- based parent company of United Van Lines and Mayflower Transit.

Hilldrup now generates annual revenues exceeding $135 million. The company has 10 branches on the East Coast, 600 employees and 1.5 million square feet of storage space. In 2024, it moved more than 18,800 families.

In April, Hilldrup added a third warehouse to its Orlando, Florida, operations, bringing the company’s total warehousing capacity there to 400,000 square feet.

Hilldrup is the only agent in the UniGroup system to have received United Van Lines’ customer choice award 28 times. Nonprofit Move For Hunger named Hilldrup its 2024 Mover of the Year for helping provide food donations to people in need.

A University of Virginia graduate, McDaniel sits on the Stafford Hospital Foundation board.

FIRST JOB: Working for Hilldrup — specifically, picking up nails in the lot and getting paid 1 cent per nail.

HOW I DEFINE SUCCESS: Winning. There’s a reason people, businesses and sports teams keep score

Return to the full list of this category’s recipients.

Memory started with Transurban, an Australian transportation company operating express toll lanes in Northern Virginia, in November 2023 after serving as executive director of the Public Highway Authority in Denver.

He oversees 155 employees and the company’s toll lanes on the Capital Beltway and i terstates 95 and 395, as well as the A25 Bridge in Montreal. Transurban’s North American fiscal 20 4 revenue totaled $349 million. Before working in Denver, Memory was chief operating officer at the North Carolina Department of Transportation and executive director of the North Carolina Turnpike Authority In November 2024, Transurban opened the estimated $69.7 million 95 Express Lanes Opitz Boulevard ramp in Woodbridge. Later this year, it plans to open an additional 2.5 miles of 495 Beltway express lanes.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Memory serves on the board of the Pentagon Memorial Fund, which raises money to support the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial. He’s also a member of boards for the Greater Washington Board of Trade and the Eno Center for Transportation.

ADVICE FOR NEW COLLEGE GRADS: Be agile. Raise your hand when opportunities arise. And be patient.

Return to the full list of this category’s recipients.

Founder of The Miller Group, the developer for Fairwinds Landing, Miller is guiding the development of the 111-acre project at Norfolk Southern’s Lambert’s Point Docks in Norfolk.

The $500 million development will transform the former docks into a marine logistics center supporting the growth of offshore wind, shipbuilding and intermodal transportation.

The project, a joint venture including The Miller Group, Balicore Construction and Fairlead, could create more than 200 local construction and engineering jobs. In 2023, Newport News Shipbuilding started production at a satellite campus at Fairwinds Landing. The Dominion Monitoring & Coordination Center, an offshore wind energy monitoring and coordination center, is expected to be completed at the site in September.

In July, Miller stepped down as CEO of Fairlead after 40 years of leading the engineering and manufacturing company and its earlier iteration, Earl Industries. Fairlead President Fred Pasquine became president and CEO. The majority owner of the company, Miller transitioned to Fairlead’s executive chairman.

Miller is a 1977 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

Return to the full list of this category’s recipients.

In 2023, Hall tasked Bob McGonigal, TFI International executive vice president, with helping turn around TFI’s U.S. less-than-truckload operation. Montreal-based TFI purchased TForce, which had lost revenue in the past few years, from UPS in 2021 for $800 million.

TFI reported its 2024 net income was $422.5 million, down from $504.9 million in 2023. Alain Bédard, TFI’s chairman, president and CEO, described TForce as “a big rock in my shoe” to analysts after the earnings report’s release. FleetOwner reported earlier this year TForce was struggling with poor service levels and was churning too many customers.

After the first quarter of 2025, however, Bédard praised Hall and two other TForce executives. The business is growing in small to medium-sized accounts while cutting back on larger accounts where it was losing money. It’s also revamping its IT systems and shifting from railroad to road shipments.

Hall previously served as regional director of operations in Greenville, South Carolina, as well as regional vice president in Los Angeles.

A Virginia Commonwealth University graduate, Hall began his career in trucking after he graduated from high school, working at Overnite, which UPS purchased in 2005.

Return to the full list of this category’s recipients.