Though Virginia Tech is a five hour drive from Hampton Roads, business leaders from that region are expected to play a significant role in a critical, $1 billion fundraising campaign for the state's most comprehensive research university.

Numerous volunteer leaders within The Campaign for Virginia Tech: Invent the Future, either live within the 757 area code or head businesses there, reflecting the strong relationship between Virginia Tech and the region. The university has a satellite facility in Virginia Beach. In fall 2006, 13 percent of the university’s overall in-state undergraduate population hailed from Hampton Roads.

Virginia Tech launched the public phase of its largest fundraising campaign to date on Oct. 20 at its main campus in Blacksburg, but regional events are planned Nov. 7 in Newport News and Nov. 8 in Norfolk.

Participating in those events will be John Lawson ‘75, president and CEO of Newport News-based W.M. Jordan Company Inc., one of the southeast’s largest building contractors, who is a co-chair of the national steering committee for the campaign and has personally committed more than $10 million toward it.

John Failes ‘67, founding director and vice chairman of TowneBank, is chairman of the regional campaign committee for the Hampton Roads area.

Other members of Virginia Tech’s campaign committees who either live or work in the Hampton Roads region include:

  • Bobby Freeman ’75, president of Tower Park Corp. (Newport News)
  • Jerry Gough ’69, a retired lawyer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (Williamsburg)
  • Chip Hornsby ’78, group CEO and an executive director for Wolseley (Newport News)
  • Bert Poole ’77, managing partner and CEO for Huff, Poole & Mahoney P.C. (Virginia Beach)
  • Skip Schuelke ’69, president and CEO of Schuelke Biomedical Inc. (Virginia Beach)
  • John Stegeman, ’84, president and CEO of Ferguson Enterprises Inc. (Newport News)

In addition, Jim Hatch ’72 of White Stone, former corporate controller for Wachovia, is serving on the campaign’s national committee and its regional committee for Hampton Roads.

The quiet phase of The Campaign for Virginia Tech: Invent the Future began in 2003 and had generated $581 million by Oct. 20, the day the public phase was launched. Virginia Tech’s previous campaign ended in 1998 after raising $337 million.

With a total goal of $1 billion, The Campaign for Virginia Tech: Invent the Future marks a new era in private fundraising for the most comprehensive university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The campaign’s funding priorities target five goals: academic excellence, the undergraduate experience, research facilities, Virginia Tech and the community, and the President’s Discovery Fund, a pool of unrestricted funds.

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