Photos by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Beth Doughty, executive director for the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership, is shown outside her office, located in Franklin Plaza in downtown Roanoke.

Beth Doughty says her father's job transfer from New Jersey to Richmond when she was a high school senior whetted her early interest in business decisions and, ultimately, economic development.

Beth Stolpe's family moved to Richmond from New Jersey when she was a high school senior.

American Tobacco Co. had transferred her father to head the company's customer service department.

Like most any teen would be, she was upset.

But her reluctant relocation helped form who Beth Stolpe became.

"It was both the worst thing to happen to me and the best thing to happen to me," said Beth Stolpe Doughty, now 53.

In 1979, Doughty moved to Roanoke from Washington D.C. to join her husband, a man she'd met while both were students at the University of Virginia, and continue her career in advertising and marketing.

This year, she took a new job and now leads an organization whose performance can affect everyone in the region.

Since March, Doughty has been executive director for the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership -- soon to be known as the Roanoke Regional Partnership.

Previously the president of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce, Doughty's new post marks a return to the partnership.

Overhaul

Why return to an organization she'd left nine years earlier?

Doughty said she parted ways with the partnership in 1999 because she had "come to the conclusion that there was more to economic development than recruiting new businesses."

She said that during her tenure at the chamber it became more of a public policy player -- both locally and in Richmond -- lobbying for a favorable business climate. Doughty also was involved in crafting a Regional Economic Strategy that focused much attention on attracting "knowledge workers."

For the economic development partnership, she was hired this time to lead an ambitious overhaul of the organization, which works to support economic growth in the cities of Roanoke, Salem and Covington, the counties of Alleghany, Botetourt, Craig, Franklin and Roanoke, and the town of Vinton.

A big new focus is quality of life.

The new job will require many of the skills Doughty learned during that senior year in high school and in the decades since.

"I learned to make new friends earlier than my peers in college," she said. "I got exposed to a whole new culture in the South."

Doughty said she wrestled then with how to "find your way around in a new place," an experience she said has helped her connect with business prospects considering a move to the Roanoke Valley.

In addition, Doughty said her father's transfer whetted her early interest in business decisions and, ultimately, economic development.

Critical thinking

Yet her major at the University of Virginia was art history -- a choice Doughty attributes, in part, to the influence of distinguished and controversial art history professor Frederick Hartt, who died in 1991. A scholar of Renaissance art, Hartt held a special interest for Michelangelo.

Doughty said the Italian Renaissance became her favorite period of art history. In April, she visited Florence, home to Michelangelo's David and other masterpieces.

What does art history have to do with economic development?

"I think it's all about critical-thinking skills, which the study of liberal arts helps develop," Doughty said. "And you don't stop learning when you get out of college."

One definition of critical thinking describes it as "purposeful, reflective reasoning and analysis used to form beliefs and guide decision-making."

Road to Roanoke

After graduating from UVa in 1976, Doughty took a job with an advertising agency in Washington, D.C. She ultimately became the agency's creative director.

As Beth Stolpe, she had met Doug Doughty when they were UVa students. Doug Doughty joined The Roanoke Times right out of college. The two married in 1979 and Beth joined her husband in Roanoke. From 1979 to 1990, she worked for John Lambert Associates, a Roanoke public relations and advertising firm.

"Beth has energy and vitality," Lambert said. "She is intelligent, creative, perceptive and considerate."

In 1990, Doughty started her first stint at the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership as director of marketing and research.

Mark Heath, president and chief executive officer for the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp., was then the partnership's executive director and Doughty's boss.

"She made me look good," Heath said recently. "I've been doing this for 30 years and she's the smartest marketing person I've ever worked with."

The 'Lost Colony'

The Roanoke region needs marketing, Doughty said.

"People don't know where Roanoke is. They think we're the 'Lost Colony' [of Roanoke Island, N.C.]. I don't think we have a bad image.

"I think we have no image."

In November, the partnership's board of directors described a sea change for an organization long dedicated to industrial and commercial recruitment of new companies and to expansion of existing businesses.

Recruitment and retention became just one piece of a four-pronged "program of work" for economic development.

A key focus became promoting and advocating for the region's lifestyle attributes, ranging from its ready access to outdoor recreation to its comparative freedom from traffic congestion.

"We have a great quality of life here. Why don't we tell people about it?" Doughty said.

Heath said selling a region is what it's all about in economic development.

"We're salesmen. That's what we do," he said. "Beth has a good gut instinct about what people are looking for and what they need. It doesn't take long for her to win people over."

She's 'direct'

No one can win everyone over.

"I'm sure I have lots of critics," she said. "I try not to focus on that."

Doughty said some might argue her communication style needs a dose of Southern -- a cultural tendency to value gentility over candor.

She said some people undoubtedly believe she is "too direct."

"It's been kind of a problem for me during my career in Roanoke," Doughty said. "And I can be very critical."

Wayne Strickland, executive director of the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission, sees Doughty's frankness as an asset.

"Beth is very focused," he said. "She calls it like she sees it."

Heath agreed.

"I would feel sorry for anyone who takes her lightly," he said.

She has been described also as a supervisor who can be "controlling" and a "micromanager."

In an e-mail, Doughty responded. First, she said she isn't sure what "controlling" really means.

"I know what a micro-manager is," she said. "I've always tried to instill attention to detail in those I work with. In addition to being a fact collector, I'm a perfectionist. They're related somehow.

"I have high expectations for myself and others."

High-tech businessman Victor Iannello was chairman of the partnership's search committee when the organization launched its quest for a new executive director.

At the time, Phil Sparks was executive director. He is now deputy director.

"Actually, I didn't look at it as a demotion," Sparks said. "The partnership was reorganized with a new program of work" -- which he said he fully supports.

New approach

The organization unveiled in November a new strategy designed to boost population growth, attract more entrepreneurs, knowledge workers and young professionals.

Recruitment of new businesses or support for existing businesses remains a priority -- but is not central to the strategy.

One key effort will be to promote and support quality-of-life amenities. For example, Sparks will concentrate now on recruiting high-end retailers, a quest he said has "re-energized" him.

A fundraising campaign last year yielded about $6.7 million to help bolster the strategy.

As economic developers, both Doughty and Sparks have spent much of their careers focused on business recruitment and retention.

In her early 50s, might Doughty be more aligned with a generation years removed from the young professionals the region hopes to attract?

The conventional wisdom suggests they're looking for a hip and happening place and fertile opportunities to meet other singles.

Iannello said he believes Doughty is up-to-date with the latest trends in the economic development arena.

"Most of the other candidates had backgrounds in 'traditional' economic development, [as in] industrial recruitment," he said in an e-mail.

"Although Beth has this in her background, she also seemed to understand better than the other candidates the importance of quality of life in a community to attract and retain the types of individuals that would help drive new business formation and investment."

Iannello said the search committee did not discriminate based on age.

"We were looking for somebody that could provide leadership, vision, and management and had a high energy level," he said.

"Beth had demonstrated all of the above. We never considered her age as a negative factor."