Marcia Quesenberry, Class of 2006

Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategic Planning & Projects
The University of Virginia's College at Wise

Co-Director
Healthy Appalachia Institute

What is new and exciting with you now or since your LEAD VIRGINIA class year?

My LEAD VIRGINIA experience in 2006 came at an opportune time. That same year, leaders in Southwest Virginia began meeting to discuss how we might leverage our collective resources and talents to address the overwhelming health disparities in our region. As a result, I co-founded and serve as the co-director of the Healthy Appalachia Institute, a compelling and significant initiative that resulted from those discussions (and much hard work by countless people.) My job at UVa-Wise has always included coordinating new ventures that will move UVa-Wise and the region forward, but the Healthy Appalachia Institute has been especially rewarding. In Southwest Virginia, we understand that to thrive we must simultaneously address health, education and economic development, as the opportunities and the challenges are integrated.

How did your LEAD VIRGINIA experience help to shape you as a leader?

Well, there is no way that you can stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier and not realize that it’s important to dream big! (And that my efforts to be more organized are minor compared to the logistics of loading that ship.) But most importantly, LEAD VIRGINIA increased my resolve to be tenacious in my endeavors, to embrace diverse points of view and to better understand the mutual challenges we face as a Commonwealth. The great thing is that LEAD VIRGINIA is still shaping me. From coordinating a few of the alumni events in the region, to co-leading one of the Southwest Virginia regional visits, and to meeting and enjoying the members of each year’s class when they visit, I’m still learning.

Since LEAD VIRGINIA, how have you put social capital to work?

In some ways, social capital theory just formalized many lessons that I learned at my father’s knee. LEAD VIRGINIA provided the theoretical construct and many practical examples about how building and using social capital effectively is important to prosperity. As I mentioned above, the challenges we face in Southwest Virginia are integrated; they do not exist separately. Effective relationships and connections between networks and people across all sectors and interests, and the corresponding good will and confidence in the work that results, are making a difference here.

What is something that LEAD VIRGINIA inspired you to do that you were not doing before your class year?

LEAD VIRGINIA was a reset and recharge experience for me. I challenged myself to make an even bigger difference. I now serve on several new boards and take more seriously my responsibility to serve as a mentor to younger leaders at UVa-Wise and in the region.