A month after Virginia Tech President Tim Sands announced his intention to step down from his position, the Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council has inducted him into its Hall of Fame.
Sands is widely credited for solidifying the university’s connection to the Roanoke region’s burgeoning biomedical sector. Beyond the Roanoke and New River valleys, he was instrumental in bringing Amazon’s corporate headquarters project, HQ2, to Arlington, where its neighbors include the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus, which Sands spearheaded.
During RBTC’s annual TechNite event, on Thursday at Hotel Roanoke, council co-chair Eddie Amos told the audience that Sands’ 12 years as Virginia Tech’s president have tracked with the region’s growth in healthcare, biotech, advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, defense, data infrastructure and applied research, and with a more connected regional innovation economy tied to upticks in entrepreneurship and startup culture.
“But perhaps the most important contribution is culturally,” said Amos, a fellow RBTC Hall of Fame member. “This leader helps shift the conversation in our region from ‘What can one institution accomplish?’ to ‘What can we build together?’
“That’s the mindset that matters, because innovation ecosystems are not built overnight. They are built through long-lasting trust, long-term investments and collaboration.”
Sands said he was grateful to the people in the RBTC’s technology and life sciences “ecosystem” who were part of the past dozen years’ growth. That includes a $3.4 billion annual economic impact in Blacksburg and the New River Valley region, unsurprising for a main campus that’s more than 150 years old. In the Roanoke region, however, the university’s $475 million impact is more than double that of 2017, he said.
The Roanoke numbers are due to expansion at Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion, which Sands championed. Sands also led the establishment of the Roanoke-based Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine as an academic college at the university.
“The really exciting news is I really believe you just scratch the surface of the potential,” Sands told the audience of about 500. “Just imagine. Take a moment to imagine where we will be a decade from now. … I look forward to seeing Virginia Tech and the region continue to grow together in the future.”
The other TechNite honorees were:
- Entrepreneur of the year: co-winners Narro Trucks Inc. and biotech innovator Webster Santos, a professor at Virginia Tech.
- Innovator of the year: Eli Vlaisavljevich, professor at Virginia Tech and founder of Helix Acoustics.
- Large leading tech company: co-winners Carilion Clinic and Novonesis.
- Small leading tech company: Tight Technologies.
- Regional leadership award: Don Halliwill, Carilion Clinic executive vice president and chief financial officer.
- Rising Star: Jenny Munson of Cairina.
- STEM-H educator in higher ed: Leah Thomas of Virginia Western Community College.
- STEM-H educator in K-12: Jason Suhr of Roanoke County Public Schools.
- Ruby Award (leadership): co-winners Angela Joyner, vice president for economic development and corporate education at Radford University, and Roanoke County Schools Superintendent Ken Nicely.
- Hart of the Entrepreneur: CJ Page of QlutchQMS.
