Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 17, 1993 TAG: 9309170056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Robertson & Fitzpatrick - the dynamic duo of the '90s?
Two men, backed by the weight of Virginia Tech and key business leaders, are hoping to meld the parochial interests of nearly a dozen Western Virginia localities into a single, strategic economic vision.
Can they pull it off?
No one's really sure - not even Carilion Health System President Thomas Robertson and Beverly Fitzpatrick Jr., who will become the first director of The New Century Council.
Others, acknowledging the "fuzziness" of a regional vision process, seem more confident, saying the team best qualified for the task is Robertson & Fitzpatrick. For now, they seem to possess the credibility, the trust, the power necessary to focus disparate interests.
"They can divorce themselves from the need for adulation," Roanoke County Supervisor Bob Johnson said Thursday. "Both have the best interests of the Roanoke Valley at heart and want to see things work."
Robertson's power base is formidable: Carilion, Virginia's largest hospital company and the Roanoke Valley's largest employer, operates facilities across Western Virginia. He holds - or has held - key leadership positions in civic and business groups. He led the successful fund-raising campaign for the Hotel Roanoke project, raking in $7 million in seven weeks.
Increasingly, political and business leaders say Robertson - and only Robertson - is the Roanoke Valley's pre-eminent powerbroker. "No question about it," said John Clarke, a managing director of Catawba Capital Management Inc., a Roanoke investment firm.
Why?
"Because he gets things done," Clarke explained. "He's a seven-day-a-week person. He knows what's going on in his company . . . and demands a lot from his people. He doesn't put his mouth into motion before he puts his mind in gear. By his thought, word and action, he is trusted."
Johnson agreed, saying he could not name anyone better equipped to lay claim to the informal title of Roanoke Valley Powerbroker - a title long held by First Union Bank of Virginia Chairman Warner Dalhouse.
"He's earned the right," Johnson said. "He didn't jump on the stage and say, `Hi, I'm Tom Robertson and I'm here to save you.' "
Instead, the quiet, silver-haired executive has maneuvered behind the scenes, shunning public announcements unless necessary. He's uncomfortable talking about his efforts - the vision process and Hotel Roanoke campaign, to name two - or his ability to make them happen.
Fitzpatrick's base is no less formidable, just different.
Dalhouse, a Roanoke native, ran Dominion Bankshares Corp. with the belief that economic growth and vitality for Western Virginia meant good business for the bank. The net effect: a well-funded economic development department headed by Fitzpatrick, who developed strong ties with business and political leaders from Winchester to Marion.
Son of a respected judge, Beverly Sr., Fitzpatrick had long been active in civic affairs, serving, for example, on the board of what was then known as the Roanoke Transportation Museum while still a student at Patrick Henry High School.
The Dominion post - vice president of economic development and legislative affairs - exposed Fitzpatrick to influential leaders around Virginia. It also virtually guaranteed him access to behind-the-scenes industrial recruitment efforts, enhancing his credentials.
Then, in 1988, he ran for Roanoke City Council, winning the most votes and becoming vice mayor. For more than four years, he wore two hats - one Dominion, one Roanoke - often at the same time.
The dual role required Fitzpatrick to balance city interests with regional economic efforts benefiting the bank. The twin hats perched above Fitzpatrick's self-effacing, clean-cut countenance helped cement his credibility with business leaders and, perhaps more importantly, politicians outside Roanoke.
But Dominion's troubles in '92 became Fitzpatrick's, when the bank's new owner, First Union, announced that economic development was best done by senior bankers, not a mid-level executive with little hard banking experience.
On July 1, less than three months ago, Fitzpatrick woke up unemployed. Robertson, aware for months that Fitzpatrick's last day would be June 30, began talking with Fitzpatrick in January about the possibility of heading the vision effort, Fitzpatrick said.
The duo began making plans for an alliance: Fitzpatrick would be named director of The New Century Council - a creature of Tech, nearly a dozen area chambers of commerce and the Roanoke Valley Business Council chaired by Robertson.
The job would require him to gain the confidence of business and political leaders in both valleys - a job made more difficult by Fitzpatrick's City Council post. He decided to resign, taking with him the accrued good will of his efforts for Dominion and City Hall.
"His stock went up when he resigned his position on City Council in terms of credibility and being able to sell this," Johnson said.
"I hate to lose him in the city because I've grown to appreciate him as a politician and respect him as a man," said Fuzzy Minnix, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors. "I think people see he goes out of his way to do what's right."
Fitzpatrick's resignation did not come without a price.
Robertson told members of The New Century Council's steering committee that Fitzpatrick's resignation would be "a loss for the business community in Roanoke . . . because he really does stand for business," said Beth Ifju, president of the Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce, who is on the steering committee.
That may be a good reference for Ifju and others, but it's just a beginning.
Robertson & Fitzpatrick still are an unknown quantity to many New River Valley leaders, some say. "My introduction to Tom Robertson was his face on TV in terms of the Hotel Roanoke project," said Ifju, director of sales and marketing for the Blacksburg Marriott. "That's really the first time I'd ever heard of Tom Robertson."
But she's hearing good reviews, especially from her sources at Virginia Tech.
"People seem to think he's a real up-and-coming force in the Roanoke Valley," she said.
by CNB