Posted: April 27, 2011

By Ed Power, publisher

This first-ever special "Power Issue" of Inside Business is not named after me.

To be sure, having your last name as "Power" is not without its interesting moments. Just a few weeks ago, while I was taking a colleague to lunch, the waitress returned with my credit card and the check and proclaimed in earshot of several tables: "I just love your name!" This happens to me all the time. From retail clerks to wait staff to service people, I am often complimented on my name and asked, "So, are you powerful?"

To which I always respond with a laugh: "Not really."

But at Inside Business, we think the question itself, asked in a more serious context, is a deeply fascinating one. The notion of "power" in society, who has it, how they got it and how they use it, is as fundamental to the direction of life as genetics. Power used in noble pursuits can make a society soar; power used

selfishly, for purposes of greed or repression, can doom a people.

Abraham Lincoln observed: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

And one need only look to the past few years to cite any number of politicians, Wall Street bankers, professional athletes and others who have proved over and over again the negative, even disastrous outcome of Lincoln's dictum.

Of course, at the opposite end of the character spectrum, there are those who have used their power to stimulate great, positive change in society. You might call them the acolytes of the Martin Luther King Jr. school of power, which preaches, as King himself did: "I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good."

When we at Inside Business set out to compile our first-ever list of the 75 most powerful people in Hampton Roads, it was this latter philosophy we embraced, albeit with a business-centric mindset. Certainly, we have many people on our list who have fostered selfless good works in the community, the "moral" dimension in Dr. King's perspective. But we also considered power, in its all-encompassing definition, as a dynamic that can be used to influence many outcomes in the community - development of profitable businesses, successful political campaigns, beneficent human welfare, the very shape of the Hampton Roads cultural landscape and architectural skyline. These are the people with the influence - the "power" - to have made, and to keep making, Hampton Roads the place that it is, and the place that it continues to become.

In compiling this list, we did not seek out a panel of judges or use some sort of metrics-driven methodology. Rather, the editorial staff at Inside Business initially put together a list that numbered nearly 150 people - and then we started debating. Yes, we looked for diversity - geographic, gender, race. But as for our ultimate selections, we made a determined effort to stay true to the overarching criteria for inclusion on the list - the ability to have influence over others and reach a desired outcome beneficial and lasting to Hampton Roads.

Once we had our list, we set out to rank the 75, but quickly determined that after the first 25 it just became too difficult to make distinctions over why someone might be number 32 versus 42. The resumes and achievements just became too close at that point, and too open to individual bias. So for those names from 26 to 75, we listed them alphabetically. And, we discovered that we had some names that clearly had had substantial, recent impact in the community but who had stepped back some from the public scene. Or, there were others who seemed on the verge of such impact, but didn't yet seem to fit with the top 75. So we created two smaller lists of distinction - "Emeritus" and "Up And Coming."

One inevitably asks, in going through such a process, how these 75 people got there. What made them powerful? When you look at such a list evolve, as we did, several themes emerge: Many have money, or have the ability to influence how money is distributed from institutions such as government or foundations. All of them have achieved some role in the community that confers visible status. They might be CEOs, presidents of important institutions, popularly elected politicians or high-level community activists pursuing a vision. But all of them clearly have an extraordinary ability to embrace an initiative, and doggedly pursue it to fruition.

You may not agree with every name on our list, or with our rankings of the top 25. But we hope you will find all these people worthy of your attention, your discussion of their impact, and of your study for the examples they have set for their peers and for younger generations in the business community.

That leads me to the man who sits atop our list of 75 - Joshua P. Darden. No doubt just "Josh" to the other 74.

Joshua Darden is a consummate example of Dr. King's definition of power gone right. And in his life one sees all of the themes we encountered when evaluating people for our list. Certainly, Darden has had the good fortune to put money behind his passion for positive change. His family is legendary in Virginia, and Darden took over his family's successful auto dealership and ran it even more successfully before selling it so he could devote all his time to community work. As for titles, Darden's resume is humbling: He served as rector of the University of Virginia, and spearheaded what has to be one of the most successful university endowment campaigns in the history of American higher education; he founded the Civic Leadership Institute, an annual class of rising young Hampton Roads influencers, that has created a cadre of hundreds of the region's best and brightest; he founded the ACCESS college scholarship program, which annually helps aspiring college students find the most effective pathway to college admissions and scholarships. And the list goes on and on and on.

When I try to visualize an image of how Josh Darden implements his power, I think of a man who daily picks up the phone, who dials up any number of other people who have power of one kind or another, and who gets those people to help him advance worthy causes. While I don't know this for a fact, my suspicion is that no one has ever said "no" to Josh Darden. For one, his requests are always too compelling, too much woven into the public good to deny; there's simply nowhere for one to hide. And secondly, to use common business parlance, Josh Darden always has his own "skin in the game." He's already committed his own money, time and reputation to the enterprise. People instinctively know that they are following a winning strategy. And that is when power gives rise to its most ennobling manifestation in an individual - leadership.

Joshua Darden accomplishes all this under a guiding-light philosophy that is as worthy as Dr. King's: "If you don't worry about who is getting the credit, it's amazing what you can accomplish in life."

Which brings me to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Her definition of power was this: "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

And no doubt the people on our "Power List" exemplify that philosophy in all that they do.

And I, too, can attest it's a philosophy worth following. Particularly when your claim to "Power" is printed on your credit card.

- This information was compiled through research and interviews by members of the Inside Business staff. Involved in the effort were Publisher Ed Power, Editor Carol Lichti, Senior Staff Writer Philip Newswanger and staff writers Bill Cresenzo, Danielle Walker, Lakeshia Artis and Mary Flachsenhaar.