LIVING LEGENDS
JOHN GRISHAM NOVELIST, PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE, ALBEMARLE COUNTY
He’s known for his bestselling legal thrillers, but Grisham also spends winters courtside at University of Virginia and University of North Carolina basketball games. When the pandemic shut down college basketball in 2020 just before March Madness, Grisham did what writers do. “I missed last year’s NCAA playoffs so much that I channeled my energies into writing ‘Sooley,’ my first shot at basketball fiction,” he wrote. The novel follows the story of a basketball player from Sudan and is loosely based on former
U.Va. player Mamadi Diakite, a Guinea native who now plays for the Milwaukee Bucks. Grisham’s own backstory is well known. Aſter realizing he didn’t have the right stuff to play baseball, he went to law school. He was working as a lawyer in a small Mississippi town when he wrote “A Time to Kill” in 1987. It was barely noticed at the time, but his 1991 second novel, "The Firm," launched him onto bestseller lists, where he’s remained. Grisham lives in Albemarle County, where he built six Little League baseball fields on his property. He’s a member of The Innocence Project board, as well as the Charlottesville-based Focused Ultrasound Foundation, which raises awareness of the noninvasive therapeutic technology.
DORCAS T. HELFANT-BROWNING MANAGING PARTNER AND PRINCIPAL BROKER, COLDWELL BANKER NOW, VIRGINIA BEACH
Helfant-Browning was the first woman to become president of the National Association of
Realtors in 1992. She used her influence to join with other real estate brokers to urge President George H.W. Bush to support tax reforms that would help commercial real estate investors. She also led the association’s efforts to lobby states to enact laws requiring sellers to disclose flaws that affect a property’s value and safety. The Chesapeake native started her real estate career in 1967 as a new mom, and in 1974, she began her own firm, which became an affiliate
of Coldwell Banker aſter 15 years. In addition to being part of the NAR board beginning in 1983, she was named to the advisory council of Fannie Mae in 1993. An active community volunteer with ties to the Boy Scouts and Tidewater Community College, Helfant-Browning was on the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce board and was recognized as Hampton Roads Woman of the Year in 1990. She currently serves on the board of Virginia FREE, a nonpartisan group of individuals, corporations and trade associations that advances the interests of free enterprise in Virginia politics.
MICHAEL ‘MIKE’ J.
QUILLEN CHAIRMAN, GO VIRGINIA REGION 1 COUNCIL, BRISTOL
VINCENT J. MASTRACCO JR. PARTNER AND CO-CHAIR, REAL ESTATE STRATEGIES GROUP, KAUFMAN & CANOLES PC, NORFOLK
Mastracco is one of the top securities and corporate finance attorneys in the Hampton Roads region, as well as a mentor to many area lawyers. A Norfolk native who graduated from the University of Virginia, Mastracco studied
law at the University of Richmond and New York University before returning to his hometown to practice. He’s been at Kaufman & Canoles for more than 55 years, having joined Leroy T. Canoles Jr. as the firm’s second lawyer. Today, the firm has approximately 100 attorneys. Specializing in finances, mergers and acquisitions, Mastracco has played a significant role in projects such as Hilton Norfolk The Main, the Midtown Tunnel and Chesapeake’s Jordan Bridge. As former chair of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership’s board of directors, he was instru- mental in bringing
Amazon.com Inc.’s HQ2 to Arlington in 2018. In addition to his continued service on VEDP’s board, Mastracco has served on the Sentara Foundation and Eastern Virginia Medical School Foundation boards, as well as the Hampton Roads Business Roundtable. He is also a member of the Community Leadership
Partners with the Hampton Roads Community Foundation, as well as the Virginia Wesleyan University board.
A former coal magnate, Quillen serves as chairman of GO Virginia’s most economically challenged region in the state’s far southwest corner, also referred to as the Coalfields. In addition to his work on the public-private GO Virginia Region 1 Council, in which Quillen leads efforts to diversify the Southwest economy, he also is chair of the Southwest Virginia Energy Research Authority, a group focused on renewable energy development. The Virginia Tech alum was trained as a civil engineer and embarked on a career in mining. In 2002, he founded Alpha Natural Resources, which became one of the country’s largest coal suppliers, serving as its first CEO. Quillen retired as Alpha’s chairman of the board in 2012, aſter it had become a Fortune 500 company with 13,000 employees. From 2010 to 2018, Quillen served
on Virginia Tech’s board of visitors, including as rector for two years. During that time, Tech solidified its partnership with Carilion Clinic to expand biomedical research in Roanoke. Quillen has served in leader- ship roles for many of Tech’s founda- tions, boards and associations, and he is one of the school’s most generous donors. He received the university’s highest honor, the William H. Ruffner Medal, in 2020.
24
VIRGINIA 500
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196
