VT-ARC welcomes Justice (ret.) Elizabeth A. McClanahan to the Board of Directors. Elizabeth McClanahan has 35 years of legal experience, 19 years in the private sector representing energy companies, and 16 years serving in the judiciary on the appellate benches of Virginia. McClanahan recently took over as CEO of the Virginia Tech Foundation. The foundation manages the university’s endowment, has an extensive real estate portfolio, and encourages economic development by fostering connections between Virginia Tech and numerous partners. Elizabeth served on the Court of Appeals of Virginia and the Supreme Court of Virginia for a combined 16 years. Prior to being appointed to the bench, McClanahan served as the Chief Deputy Attorney General for Virginia, responsible for managing the daily legal operations of the Virginia Office of the Attorney General. Elizabeth McClanahan also served as President and Dean of the Appalachian School of Law. She has served as an adjunct professor of finance and senior advisor to the dean in Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business, the Williamson Fellow at the College of William and Mary Law School and taught at the Wake Forest School of Business and Accountancy. She chaired the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and has also served on the Board of Visitors for the College of William and Mary as vice-rector and the Board of Trustees for Emory & Henry College. McClanahan earned her bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary and her law degree from the University of Dayton School of Law. She is admitted to the bar in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

Lance R. Collins in 2020 was named the inaugural vice president and executive director of the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus planned in Alexandria, VA. Prior to that he served as the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering at Cornell University from 2010-2020 and the S. C. Thomas Sze Director of the Sibley School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from 2005-2010. In 2011, he was part of the team that successfully bid to partner with New York City to build Cornell Tech, which opened its Roosevelt Island campus in 2017. In his role as dean, Collins accelerated the college’s efforts in diversity, overseeing the increase in the proportion of underrepresented minority students from 8 to 19 percent, and the percentage of undergraduate women from 33 to 50 percent, more than twice the national average. For those efforts, he received the inaugural Mosaic Medal of Distinction from Cornell Mosaic and the Edward Bouchet Legacy Award from the Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. Collins graduated from Princeton in 1981 with honors and holds a M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, all in chemical engineering.

Mr. Dewey Houck served as a senior technical fellow for Boeing’s defense, space and security segment. Houck lead an organization of 2,900 employees that focused on work in areas such as security, information management, cybersecurity, satellite and ground operations for the Defense Department, intelligence agencies Fortune 1000 companies and other organizations. Prior to this role, he served as vice president of Boeing’s intelligence systems business and oversaw the deployment of information sharing technologies and development of information management components for intelligence planning and analysis.

Houck has also served as chief technology officer for the mission systems area within the information solutions organization and was responsible for technology strategy development, research planning and integration of intellectual property into other Boeing programs. He has also served as VP for technology development for Autometric, which Boeing acquired in 2000.

In that role, he administered all research and product development activities such as geospatial, photogrammetric and visualization initiatives. He was appointed to the board of directors of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance in October 2011.

Houck holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees in civil engineering with a specialization in photogrammetry and geodesy from Virginia Tech.

Kenneth E. Miller served as Vice President for Finance at Virginia Tech until Spring of 2024. Miller brought more than 32 years of dedicated service to the university, unparalleled institutional knowledge, and deep financial management and accounting operations experience. In the role of vice president for finance, Miller played a highly visible role as a strategic business partner to the senior leadership of the university, while engaging frequently with the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors. Miller was responsible for providing primary support to leadership in identifying, obtaining, and allocating the resources needed to achieve the university’s mission and long-term objectives of Virginia Tech’s strategic plan. Miller also provided oversight for the university’s accounting processes and maintained financial relationships with the commonwealth and regulatory relationships with the state and federal governments. He was tasked with enhancing effective business practices throughout the university, including the implementation of transformative new financial and business information systems to provide electronic, paperless services for faculty, staff, and students. Miller was previously assistant vice president for finance and university controller 2011-2019, and university controller from 2001-11. Mr. Miller received a bachelor’s in accounting from Virginia Tech and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Kevin Pitts, Dean of the College of Science, came to Virginia Tech from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he was a professor of physics, and vice provost for undergraduate education. In 2021, he was named chief research officer at Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory, where scientists collaborate to solve the mysteries of matter, energy, space, and time. Kevin has been involved in research at Fermilab since the early 1990s, when he worked extensively on a team that discovered something called “the top quark,” a finding central to today’s understanding of particle physics.

Dr. Pitts led UIUC’s NSF-funded Redshirt Consortium, a program aimed at improving the ability of academically talented students who are PELL eligible, Underrepresented Minority, or women to enroll and graduate in STEM fields. He also served in the national chair-line of the American Physics Society’s Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics. His career achievements and honors are significant, including: a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the American Physical Society, U.S. Department of Energy Outstanding Junior Investigator, and a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award. Dr. Pitts went to Anderson University, and obtained his master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Oregon.

Amy Stoakley Sebring is Virginia Tech’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. In that role, she is responsible for the leadership and coordination of the university’s operational enterprises, including finance; audit, risk and compliance; facilities, information technology, human resources, and public safety.

Amy joined Virginia Tech in November 2022 bringing over 25 years of experience in higher education administration and state budget and policy work. Prior to Virginia Tech, Amy most recently served as the chief operating officer at William & Mary after being recruited to the university in 2016 as its chief financial officer. Between 2005-2016, Amy worked at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), where she served as senior associate dean for finance and administration at VCU’s School of Medicine as well as the executive director of MCV Physicians.

Prior to her higher education positions, Amy held a variety of roles with the Commonwealth of Virginia, working as a legislative analyst for the Senate Finance Committee, as the finance policy director for the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, and as a budget analyst for the Department of Planning and Budget. Amy began her career in education policy with the Education Commission of the States.

Amy received a bachelor’s degree from Duke University, a Master of Public Policy from William & Mary, and a post-baccalaureate certificate in accounting from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is married with two adult children.

Dwight Shelton served Virginia Tech in a variety of key administrative capacities for over 40 years. He officially retired in November 2019 from his post as the university’s vice president for finance and chief financial officer. As vice president for finance and chief financial officer, Shelton was responsible for the financial operations of Virginia Tech, including overseeing both the internal and external budgeting activities; working with state officials and finance officers at other state universities on the strategic directions for higher education and the related funding, finance, and administrative policies; providing leadership for the university’s accounting, business, and procurement operations; and representing the university in its operating and financial relationships with its key related corporations. Shelton has also provided leadership of some major information systems implementation efforts, including the university’s first automated accounting system.

In support of higher education across Virginia, Shelton has served on numerous committees and task forces at the state level. He is a former president of FOCUS, a state-level organization for accounting officers, and he served as chair of the Council of State-Supported Business Officers, representing all of Virginia’s public institutions. Shelton received his bachelor’s degree in accounting and an MBA, both from Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business.

Sonu is the founder of 1901 Group, a Leidos Company, and corporate leader responsible for the overall direction of 1901 Group and the well-being of the entire 1901 Group team. After childhood in Blacksburg, Virginia, and an engineering degree from Virginia Tech, Sonu knew that there was tremendous untapped talent in rural areas such as Southwest Virginia. So in 2009 he founded 1901 Group based on three major components: 1– establishing an Enterprise Operations/Development Center in Blacksburg, 2 – leveraging technology, automation, and processes in a common platform to increase quality and consistency in IT management, and 3 – utilizing consumption models for IT as opposed to standard labor hour billings. Since then, 1901 Group has grown to employ over 700 people and become a leader in public sector managed services, cloud migration/operations, software development, and cyber engineering. In January of 2021 Leidos acquired 1901 Group and now 1901 Group is a subsidiary of Leidos. Sonu sits on the Virginia Tech APEX Center for Entrepreneurship Board and the Virginia Tech Pamplin Advisory Council.

G. Don Taylor has served in a variety of capacities at Virginia Tech; Head of the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Interim Dean of the College of Engineering, Vice Provost for Learning Systems Innovation and Effectiveness, Interim Vice President for Research and Innovation, and Executive Vice Provost. He currently serves as Special Assistant to the Provost and is the Charles O. Gordon Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering. He came to Virginia Tech from the University of Louisville where he held the Mary Lee and George F. Duthie Endowed Chair in Engineering Logistics and was a co-founder of the Center for Engineering Logistics and Distribution (CELDi). He has also previously held the rank of Full Professor at the University of Arkansas where he was the Director of The Logistics Institute (TLI), and has held visiting positions at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and at Aston University in England. He has industrial experience in both military and consumer electronics; the former at Texas Instruments in Lewisville, TX and the latter at Digital Equipment Corporation in Enfield, CT. Throughout his career, Prof. Taylor’s research has focused on the simulation and optimization of complex systems and the logistics of material flow and freight transportation. His research has led to more than 200 technical publications including 10 edited books. Prof. Taylor has made hundreds of formal presentations at conferences or seminars in more than 20 countries and is a frequent keynote or plenary session speaker. He holds BS and MS degrees in Industrial Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington, and a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of Massachusetts. He is a Fellow and a Past-President of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) and is currently the inaugural Chairperson of the Board of IISE Solutions, Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of IISE. He is a recipient of the prestigious Frank and Lillian Gilbreth Industrial Engineering Award, a Fellow and past member of the Board of the World Academy of Productivity Science and is a registered Professional Engineer.

Renee Wynn is an independent board member with over 30 years of leadership experience in environmental policy, global information technology and cybersecurity operations, supply chain, risk management, and ESG. Renee has extensive knowledge about guiding government agencies through complex digital transformations. She led programs at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and served as the CIO at an iconic agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). As CIO, Renee managed a $2 billion IT portfolio serving more than 65,000 employees and contractors and established NASA’s first-ever IT strategic plan that aligned with its space and aeronautic program goals. She led NASA’s transformation to a more centralized services model that improved overall service quality; partnered with procurement to modify processes to include cyber and digital supply chain risk reviews and save $50 million per year in software costs; and established a cybersecurity program which included complex space systems that reduced risks across 150 metrics. Renee reinvigorated an international Space Agency CIO Council to share best practices and strengthen cybersecurity between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the space agencies for Japan, Germany, France, and Canada.

Renee was recognized by Federal Computer Week (FCW) with their President’s Award in 2020 and their Fed 100 Award in 2019. She was named to Washington Exec’s “2019 Top 25 Execs to Watch” list. Renee earned a Bachelor of Art degree in Economics from DePauw University in Greencastle, IN.