Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 19, 1995 TAG: 9502200054
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
She knew her annual income, already in the $1.2 million to $1.7 million range, would likely soar to $19 million the following year - thanks to the record $1.65 billion sale of her father's factory-floor automation company, The Allen-Bradley Co.
``She said to me, `I'm having difficulty grasping how much money this is,''' recalls Warner Dalhouse, who was then chairman of Dominion Bankshares.
``At the time, Norfolk and Western was still a subsidiary of Norfolk Southern, so I told her, `Put it this way: If you wanted to buy the Norfolk and Western railroad, you could.'''
Enter her lawyer, John Rocovich.
Brash, ambitious and fiercely protective, Rocovich became what every fabulously wealthy heiress needs most: an adviser and a shield.
He was the one who fielded requests for
contributions - dozens of them weekly - relaying proposals to her at their regular Thursday afternoon sessions. Once word got out that Via was about to become the valley's No.1 philanthropist, local fund-raisers entered her name - and Rocovich's phone number - in their Rolodexes.
He was the one who shouted at a newspaper photographer assigned to shoot her picture at the symphony's Polo Cup, threatening to sue him - and the newspaper - if Via's photo appeared.
He was also the one who encouraged her to seize control of her portion of the family's trust funds, through a high-stakes and high-spectacle Milwaukee lawsuit. As he usually does, Rocovich won that battle; he was appointed co-trustee of the partitioned trust, and also split some $11 million in legal fees.
In two depositions taken for the trial, Via was asked to explain her knowledge of her finances, her relationship with Rocovich and her definition of a good trustee.
To Via, a good trustee was someone who showered her with the kind of attention she got from Harvey Peters, an original trustee hand-picked by Via's father in 1945. To honor Peters, Via established Virginia Tech's Parkinson's Disease research center in 1988 and named it for him.
Peters, she told lawyers in 1986, "taught me, trained me, came down very hard sometimes. Whenever I thought it was too bad, I would threaten to buy a mink coat and he would scream on the phone, `You can't afford it.'''
If Via relied on Peters, she was downright dependent on Rocovich, who kept all of her files and who continues to manage her heirs' trusts. Asked by opposing lawyers whether the trust agreement allowed her to invade the principal, she said, ``That, you have to ask Mr. Rocovich.''
Asked whether she kept documentation of her assets, she snapped, ``I don't need to take notes; I have got Mr. Rocovich.''
``She seemed to regard him more highly than even her own sons,'' one Roanoke friend says.
Worried about his safety in the air, Via personally hired a co-pilot to accompany him in his 11-seat Citation II jet, which he flies almost daily, the way most people drive a car.
It's been two years since Via died, and Rocovich, 50, has emerged as a public figure in his own right. He is a member of at least 22 state and regional boards, including the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, the education commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, Central Fidelity Bank of Southwest Virginia and the Virginia Tech Foundation.
A religious and political conservative, he was a key fund-raiser for the $11.5 million addition to Roanoke's First Baptist Church.
Rocovich was Gov. George Allen's top Roanoke Valley campaign contributor, and has personally flown the governor to campaign sites, to meetings in New York and to Virginia Tech football games.
``His connection with the [Allen] administration has helped us a great deal,'' says Bill Shear, chairman of the history museum board. Shear says Rocovich was instrumental in protecting the museum's state funding from the drastic cuts aimed at other Virginia museums.
Allen also appointed Rocovich to his Champion Schools Commission, the committee chartered to improve Virginia's public schools.
``It's a paradox because he serves on all these boards and chairs many of them ... yet one doesn't hear much about him,'' Shear adds.
Rocovich may not have Via's personal wealth, but by controlling the purse strings of her estate and her charitable foundation, his sphere of influence matches - and may even exceed - hers.
Which may explain why many people - including former partners, business associates and even a relative - refuse to speak publicly about him.
Asked to comment on the Via foundation Rocovich oversees, civic leader Bittle Porterfield said, ``I'm afraid lightning will strike me.''
``Stroke him nicely,'' warned another longtime member of the Roanoke bar. ``Rock has in many ways been remarkable in his success, but he's made his fair share of enemies along the way.''
``People don't cross him because he has so much influence in so many places,'' added Joe Anthony, a lawyer who formerly worked in Rocovich's firm. ``Either you love him entirely, or you contend with him.
``Most people contend with him, I'm afraid.''
In a 1989 interview about Marion Via, Rocovich revealed how he sees himself: ``There are two types of attorneys, the wimps and the gladiators.
``I'm the gladiator.''
Rocovich declined to be interviewed for this story, though he did talk to a reporter twice, once in his office to discuss general philanthropy and once to review biographical facts, on his jet phone as he flew 37,000 feet above the Colorado Rockies.
Asked about his role as trustee for the Marion Bradley Via Memorial Foundation, which gave more than $1.28 million to mostly local charities in 1993, he said, ``Make that a firm no comment. I'm eager not to be written about.
``All I do is have a law office.''|
A million's not enough
The story is legendary among Blacksburg High School graduates who went to school with John Rocovich in the early '60s: Rocovich swore he'd be a millionaire by the time he hit 30.
Years later, ``someone at a Tech football game asked him about that,'' recalls an old friend and classmate. ``And he said, `I found out a million wasn't enough.'''
Rocovich grew up under the umbrella of two major influences: Virginia Tech and women. His great-grandfather was in the first graduating class at the college, and his grandfather was a Tech geology professor.
His father, an Army Air Corps pilot, died in World War II, leaving 5-month-old John to be raised by his grandmother, mother and aunt, who also was a war widow.
The women stressed education and a strong work ethic, which helps explains why Rocovich blew through both Tech and the University of Richmond's T.C. Williams School of Law in four years, then topped it off with a post-graduate tax degree from New York University - all by the age of 22.
``He was the original young man in a hurry,'' recalls Tom Brown, a classmate in Blacksburg's Class of '63 and now a Northern Virginia lawyer. ``He was never `Johnny' a day in his life. He was sort of born old and driven.''
Rocovich made a name for himself, both in Roanoke and out, even before Marion Via became his wealthiest client. The first Roanoke lawyer to aggressively market himself as a tax specialist - and the first to incorporate an airplane into his briefcase of tools - Rocovich represented some of Southwest Virginia's wealthiest coal barons in the 1970s, advising them on estate planning, sophisticated tax maneuvers and the creation of trusts.
Lawyer and developer Gilbert Butler, whose first law job was with Rocovich's firm, recalls watching Rocovich awe his coalfield clients: ``We'd be in Grundy or Big Stone Gap with the quaintest guys from just the back reaches of the most remote parts of Virginia, and they're millionaires.
``And to see John Rocovich in his Brooks Brothers suit with his jet airplane ... he'd get on the phone and call his secretary. She'd type everything up and it would be there the next day.
``And these coal guys, they were incredulous! Rocovich was brilliant at marketing himself. Of course, they might be paying him $2,000, where a lawyer in Abingdon would've charged $750, but Rock's [tax work] would be three times thicker - and done the next day, by a guy with a tax degree from NYU.
``These coal operators, they're good old boys, and they're dumb like foxes. It was all part of the shtick.''
But when the bottom fell out of the market, Rocovich fell out of favor. "He was too fast and too flamboyant," one former client says. "We couldn't keep up with him."
``He never had kinfolk rates was the main problem,'' says B.W. McDonald, a coal operator in Paintsville, Ky. And, because he flew everywhere, his expenses were too high. ``I called him `The Flying Attorney,' like `The Flying Nun.'''
IRS auditors "made a full-time effort of going after a lot of Rock's clients," a former associate in his firm says. In fact, many people have heard Rocovich, known for his liberal interpretation of tax laws, brag, "A tax return is simply a first offer to the IRS."
Some coal operators also shied away from the lawyer when they heard he was sued by a California land-development corporation of which he was a board member.
The federal court suit in Los Angeles alleged a conflict of interest because Rocovich also represented Fred and Everette Salyer, who owned California's second-largest farming operation and also leased land from the developers.
According to the suit, Rocovich "masterminded a secret plan for Salyer to take over control of [the developers' company] in order to acquire [the] prime agricultural farmland ... at a bargain price to Salyer.''
``We sued him for securities fraud," recalls an attorney who represented the developer. "It was a surreptitious takeover attempt - and he came very close to taking over our client's company.
``He was very bright, very bright.''
The case was settled during the 1981 trial: The Salyers bought the land they'd been leasing on favorable terms. And the developers got to keep the oil and mineral rights to the land, which eventually produced oil.
Rocovich has been sued at least five times; most involved business deals gone sour and resulted in undisclosed settlements.
``He plays close to the edge," says a former lawyer in the Moss & Rocovich firm. ``Your average lawyer hasn't been sued the way Rocovich has, but your average lawyer doesn't have the charisma to get the type of clients Rocovich gets.
``He has an uncanny ability to sniff out wealthy clients and to advance their causes - and his causes.''
``He has more imagination than the average lawyer,'' adds J.W. ``Bill'' Davis, a Roanoke millionaire whom Rocovich has represented in oil and gas ventures. Before Rocovich became his lawyer, Davis says, ``I never had a lawyer or a bookkeeper or an auditor that I didn't tell him what to do. But Rocovich'll argue with you if he doesn't agree with you.
``Anybody can follow the book. But if a lawyer's just gonna follow the book, I'd just as soon not have him.''
`Every lawyer is jealous'
It's safe to assume that Rocovich met his goal of becoming a millionaire by 30 - several times over.
His annual expenses alone totaled $1 million to $1.5 million in 1993, state financial disclosure statements show. Sources familiar with his client load say most of that is billed to the Via family - reimbursement for the flying he does as a manager of the trusts and foundation, and co-executor of Via's estate.
How Rocovich came to represent the Vias is not clear, though it is a subject of much gossip among the local bar. "Every lawyer in Roanoke is jealous of the guy," lawyer Chip Magee says.
Whatever Via's reason, the two were well-matched: ``Rocovich would be at her beck and call at any time,'' a former colleague says. ``Marion wanted the personal attention, and Rocovich played on it - to both their benefit.
``Marion was not a dumb lady. If she was being used, she didn't mind it.''
Butler says: ``Whoever Marion has given to has always been thanks to John. He's always been keeper of the gate. I'm sure there was a great deal of affection there, and he represented her assiduously.
``But had she worked at Kroger and made $20,000, would their relationship have been different? Probably.''
Several Planned Parenthood supporters believe Via was set to give money to the group when Rocovich, an abortion opponent, talked her out of it. Via's foundation, under Rocovich's guidance, did give $25,000 to the anti-abortion Crisis Pregnancy Center in 1993, though an official there refused to say whether Via had contributed before her death.
``He'll go into graphic details to explain why he's against abortion,'' says Cabell Brand, a longtime Rocovich client and a passionate liberal. Their political differences bother Brand, "but it hasn't mattered up to this point. He's a good lawyer, and he doesn't let politics interfere with his practice of law.''
Despite his conservative leanings, Rocovich supported Democratic Gov. Gerald Baliles, who appointed his doctor wife, Sue Ellen Rocovich, to the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors in 1989. Baliles also appointed Rocovich to the natural history museum board in 1988.
Although Rocovich publicly supported Republican gubernatorial candidate Marshall Coleman in 1989, one GOP fund-raiser said Rocovich hedged his bets by also supporting Democrat Douglas Wilder - which Rocovich denies. After winning, Wilder reappointed Sue Ellen Rocovich and John Rocovich to their respective boards.
"John has friends on both sides of the aisle; he and my brother are close," says Bill Cranwell, chairman of the board for HCMF Corp. and brother of Democratic Del. Richard Cranwell, the House majority leader.
While Richard Cranwell declined to be interviewed, Bill Cranwell spoke highly of Rocovich's drive and reputation. "If I were going to say something that would peg John as close as I could, I'd quote you Ayn Rand's book, 'Atlas Shrugged.' In it she says you can tell a man by the woman that he lives with, and Sue Ellen is a rare and special individual in her own right."
An emergency-room physician at Alleghany Regional Hospital, Sue Ellen Rocovich was a 30-year-old biology professor when she entered the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg.
Rocovich bought a house next to the school and moved his family, commuting to Roanoke daily in his plane. "He may be a single-issue voter [against abortion-rights candidates], but that's the best women's lib story I've ever heard," Cabell Brand says.
High-school sweethearts - he refers to his wife as "Sugar" - the Rocoviches married in 1967. They have two children: Elizabeth, a graduate of North Cross School and Duke University who is in graduate school at the University of Virginia; and Frank, a sixth-grader at North Cross.
Depite his six-day workweek, Rocovich is a highly regarded family man. "His idea of fun is to have three tables full of family at the Shenandoah Club," a relative says.
"He doesn't think twice about being in Chicago at 3 p.m. and then being in Roanoke to see his son's soccer game that evening," adds Ray Smoot, Tech's vice president for finance and a longtime friend.
"Sue Ellen does her best to keep John in line, to puncture his balloon and not let him take himself so seriously," says his high school classmate Tom Brown.
Told that Rocovich interrupts people midsentence - to correct their grammar - Brown said, "If Sue Ellen was standing there, she would have something to say about that."
`A convenient shield'
As keeper of the gate to the Via estate, John Rocovich is unquestionably one of the most influential men in Roanoke. ``Nonprofits can't afford not to ask Rocovich to be on their boards because, if he is, that money is more likely to go there,'' one lawyer says.
Although it's still too early to tell how the foundation's giving patterns will emerge with Via gone and Rocovich at the helm, the 1993 records do reflect changes: Opera Roanoke, one of Via's favorite causes, was not funded. And Blue Ridge Public Television's donation was cut from $100,000 to $10,000.
Virginia Tech - the alma mater of Rocovich and Via's second husband, Charles Via - scored mightily, with a $64,685 donation for its baseball stadium, $200,000 to the College of Engineering foundation, $57,231 to the Hotel Roanoke campaign and $25,000 to the Tech-operated 4-H Center at Smith Mountain Lake.
Rocovich downplays his control over the foundation, noting that the three other trustees - two of them former Allen-Bradley executives - have equal say in deciding who gets what.
But trustee J. Tracy O'Rourke, a CEO of a high-tech company in Palo Alto, Calif., disputed that claim in a telephone interview. ``I don't know much about it; John Rocovich is the key.''
``All we do is manage the money,'' O'Rourke said of the three out-of-town trustees. ``John and the boys make the decisions.''
But the boys - Via's sons, Peter, 53, and Edward, 40 - ``don't do anything without running it by Rocovich,'' a longtime Via family friend says. ``He's a convenient shield.''
Though Marion Via's gifts were usually anonymous, but widely known, Rocovich maintains an even greater shroud of secrecy. In fact, few nonprofit managers even knew the foundation existed, believing the gifts came directly from the Via sons.
``Everyone's so scared because you can lose the money in a heartbeat,'' one local fund-raiser says.
``No one knows the future of it,'' another recipient says. ``What we've done is, internally we've decided it's a major gift to be put toward operating support. But we don't count on it because it could dry up tomorrow.''
John Rocovich won't be quoted about the foundation, the Vias or himself. ``My clients don't like lawyers with a high profile,'' he repeatedly insists.
But Rocovich's public profile is as imposing as his lean, posture-perfect physique. Standing tall in a Brooks Brothers suit by his First Union Tower office window, he enjoys the view of the Hotel Roanoke renovation below - and the role he played in making it happen.
He talks for more than an hour about other projects he's supported: the ``pure Christian charity'' of the Salvation Army, the handicap accessibility of the 4-H Center at Smith Mountain Lake, the number of meals served - 2.5 million - at the Rescue Mission.
``In Roanoke, nobody goes hungry," he says. ``In Roanoke, we can take care of our people.''
Then he recites Jesus' parable about the foolish man who built his house on sand rather than rock. It's Rocovich's way of warning nonprofits to broaden their constituencies and their base of financial support.
``It can be a great weakness to depend on large benefactors,'' he offers.
Although his words have an ominous echo, Rocovich appears relaxed and confident in his knowledge of the future of the Roanoke area's charities.
He is, after all, the keeper of the secrets - and the keeper of the gate.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB