2026 VMI Alumni Association Annual Meeting of Its Members

Matt Eads ’93 matriculated at VMI in fall 1989, having previously attended the VMI “pre-strain” summer program. As a cadet, he participated in U.S. Air Force ROTC, performed support tasks for the Honor Court, and was involved in a variety of activities. He served as a cadet representative at New Cadet Recruiting events. He graduated from VMI with a degree in French and from Georgia Tech with a Master of Business Administration degree in 1999.  As an alumnus, Eads continued working at New Cadet Recruiting events. In addition, he served as treasurer for the VMI Alumni Association Atlanta Chapter and has been involved in several alumni activities and initiatives. His proudest role to date was serving as class agent for the Class of ’93, which included planning a class reunion and presenting a donation check to the Superintendent. Eads is nominated to serve as regional director in the southeast for the VMI Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Eads began his professional career in 1993 with Eads & Heald Investment Counsel. His duties began as an entry-level employee, rising through the decades to become an investment portfolio manager, equity analyst, vice president, and eventually co-owner of the company. Eads was a driving force behind the company’s expansion from a single-service firm to a full-service wealth management firm. He was critical in rebranding the company as Eads & Heald Wealth Management. In the nascent days of websites, Eads built the firm’s online presence and made a powerful proprietary retirement calculator functional for web use. Perhaps the most important testament to his career success is the long average tenure of the firm’s client base. He has been a generous supporter of the warrior community, providing donations or pro bono investment expertise to various heroes and causes. Eads remains with his company after 33 years.

Eads was awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, which is the global gold standard for investment management and analysis. As a CFA charter holder, Eads became a member of CFA Institute. Mid-career, Eads was selected as one of Atlanta’s Top 40-under-40 Professionals. He was asked by media outlets to serve as an investment expert for the Atlanta community. More recently, he has been invited to serve as a guest lecturer in the College of Business at the University of North Georgia. He is also an advisor to the student investment club at UNG.

Eads splits his time between Georgia and Florida. He has three adult children from a prior marriage. Through his partner, Amy Cummins, he has a wonderful adoptive family. He is an experienced boater who is competent as the captain of large sailboats in open water or in an inshore fishing boat.

Bland Massie Jr. ’77 graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. As a cadet, he was actively involved in both athletics and cadet life. Massie played baseball during his rat year, lettered in football, and entertained crowds as Moe the Kangaroo during the 1976–77 basketball season. Massie also held several leadership and service roles while at VMI. He served as a corporal; worked at the Marshall Museum for 3 years, serving as head cadet during his 2nd and 1st Class years; served as head cadet on the Hop Escort Committee; participated in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes; and was a KA Beta Commission member. Since graduating, Massie has remained deeply committed to supporting the Institute and its alumni community. He has held numerous leadership roles with the VMI Keydet Club, including president, first and second vice president, and chairman of the Stewardship and Fundraising Committee. As president, he represented the Keydet Club to VMI’s Board of Visitors, Foundation Board and Alumni Association Board. Massie also served for 9 years on the VMI Research Laboratories Board and for 5 years as class agent for the VMI Class of ’77. He is a member of the VMI Friends of the Legislature. He served as president of the VMI Alumni Association Lynchburg Chapter and as a regional director for the VMI Alumni Association Board of Directors for 8 years. During his tenure on the board, he served as a member of the Finance, New Keydet Recruiting, and Communications Committees, and as chairman of the House Committee.

Following graduation from VMI, Massie completed post-baccalaureate science coursework at the University of Georgia before earning his Doctor of Medical Dentistry from the Medical College of Georgia in 1989. In 1990, he established his dental practice in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he continues to serve as both dentist and owner. For more than three decades, Massie has provided comprehensive dental care while managing all aspects of practice operations. In addition to his private practice, Massie serves as the dentist at Westminster Canterbury of Lynchburg. He is a licensed dentist in the Commonwealth of Virginia and maintains ongoing continuing education to remain current with best practices in dentistry.

Massie’s professional affiliations have included membership in the American Dental Association and the Lynchburg Dental Society. In addition to his professional work, he has been active in the community, including service with Historic Sandusky, where he served as both a board member and president. As president, he led a partnership with the University of Lynchburg that secured the site’s 2016 purchase, ensuring its preservation and educational use. He has also volunteered with and mentored dental students through the Free Clinic of Central Virginia and has served as a classroom volunteer for Junior Achievement. Massie is a member of the VMI Institute Society, the Washington Arch Society, and the Marshall Order. In 2023, he received the Bill Paulette ’69 Keydet Club Outstanding Governor Award.

Massie lives in Lynchburg, Virginia, with his wife, Janie, the former Jane Marie Henderson. He has two grown children: a son, Bland III of Savannah, Georgia, and a daughter, Belle, and her husband, Brad, of Atlanta, Georgia.

Whitney Matthews ’07 graduated from VMI with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and German and a minor in English. During her cadetship, Whitney was actively involved in study abroad, spending two summers in Berlin, Germany. She served as a cadet counselor and played women’s club softball for one season. As an alumna, Whitney has remained actively engaged with the VMI community and values the Institute’s enduring role in connecting graduates across generations. She attends numerous events across the Mid-Atlantic region in support of chapter and alumni association activities. Whitney is involved with the Career Networking Committee and attends the Cadet–Alumni Career Networking Forum each year. As the Mid-Atlantic regional director, she works to represent alumni throughout the region and foster strong relationships between graduates and the Institute by supporting alumni chapters, regional programming, and continued engagement with the VMI community. She currently serves on the VMI Alumni Association Board of Directors as the regional director for the Mid-Atlantic Region.

Whitney is also a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and has spent her career working at the intersection of culinary arts, entrepreneurship, and small business development. In 2012, she founded and operated the award-winning food truck SpiceSea Gourmet.  During this time, she also served at several VMI rat send-off events in the Charlottesville, Virginia, area. In 2021, Whitney began working as the chief culinary officer of Taste Supply, a technology-driven e-commerce platform dedicated to connecting consumers with specialty foods produced by small and medium-sized American food makers. In this role, she works directly with independent brands and entrepreneurs to help expand their reach and share their products with a wider audience. Her work focuses on supporting independent food producers and bringing greater visibility to the stories and craftsmanship behind American specialty foods.

Whitney was selected to serve on the VMI Alumni Association Board of Directors in September 2025. She also serves on the Alpha Kappa Board of Directors as the director of alumnae relations. In this role, she works to encourage continued engagement, mentorship, and support among generations of members while helping advance the organization’s long-term community and leadership goals. As a chef, Whitney has won several awards and was featured on the Cooking Channel’s show “Eat St.”

Whitney currently lives in Glen Burnie, Maryland, with her husband, Nathaniel Johnson. Nathaniel is active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard and serves aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Sledge, which is stationed at the Coast Guard Yard.

Waite Rawls ’70 is a member of the Class of 1970. As a cadet, he was the head cheerleader, business manager of the Bomb, and chaired a significant symposium on the military-industrial complex. He was named to Who’s Who and was a distinguished military and academic graduate. Since graduation, his involvement with VMI has been extensive: Chapter president (Charlottesville) and Alumni Association Board of Directors member (1972–75), VMI Foundation Board of Trustees vice president and member (1993–97), and Board of Visitors member (1997–2005), where he chaired the Audit and Finance and Appeals Committees. He was asked by the BOV to serve on its special Commemorations and Memorials Committee (2020–23) as its only outside member. He was asked by Gene Williams ’74 to serve on the board of the College Orientation Workshop in 1986 and has served on that board ever since, and he funded and named a scholarship at VMI in Gene’s name. Rawls is now nominated to serve as a director at large for the VMI Alumni Association Board of Directors.

After graduation, Rawls received a Master of Business Administration and law degree from the University of Virginia and served for 6 years in the Virginia Army National Guard, attaining the rank of first lieutenant. He was active in alumni activities at the Darden School at UVA, serving as Alumni Association president and on its Foundation board. He spent 30 years in New York and Chicago in investment banking roles as senior managing director at Chemical Bank, vice chairman of Continental Bank, and partner at Ferrell Capital Management. During that time, he served in official advisory capacities for the Federal Reserve Bank and the U.S. Treasury. He returned to Virginia in 2004 to become president of the Museum of the Confederacy, merging and renaming it the American Civil War Museum, which is by far the largest and most influential museum in the country for the subject of the Civil War and is especially known for its inclusive treatment of all aspects of the era. He retired in 2020 and now volunteers to lead the effort to build a new history museum in his native Southampton County, Virginia, volunteers for the National Park Service, and is a frequent lecturer.

Rawls has served on numerous boards, chairing several of them. For-profit boards include Continental Bank, Essex Bank, Liberty Brokerage, and Nevander Asset Management (former company of Neville Anderson ’84). Not-for-profit boards include the American Battlefield Trust, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Museum of Science and Industry, and The Camp Foundation. In 1918, he was made an honorary doctor of civil law by Sewanee, the University of the South, for his contributions to the study of American history.

Rawls now lives in Richmond with his wife of 55 years in a house where William Yarbrough, Class of 1867, a New Market cadet, lived 160 years ago.

Roberto H. “Rob” Robinson ’80 is a 1980 graduate of VMI with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. As an alumnus, he has remained active with VMI through service on the VMI Class of 1980 Foundation Board of Directors, membership in the Rockbridge Chapter of the VMI Alumni Association, the VMI Keydet Club, and the VMI Institute Society. He currently serves as the regional director for the Shenandoah and Southwest Virginia Region of the VMI Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Robinson is a 35-year veteran of the rail industry, spending his entire career with Norfolk Southern and its predecessor, Southern Railway. He began in 1982 as an engineering trainee in the Maintenance of Way and Engineering Department and later moved into marketing, working in equipment, coal, distribution services, modal logistics, and industrial products. Robinson retired in 2017 as group vice president of short line marketing and commercial development, managing relationships with 245 short line partners and leading development of new and emerging markets.

He holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Averett University and a certificate in integrated supply chain management from the University of Tennessee. He completed executive programs in advanced transportation management at Northwestern University, Duke University, and the University of Tennessee. His board experience includes service on the Transportation Advisory Board to the commanding general at USTRANSCOM and the Surface Executive Working Group at USTRANSCOM, as well as two terms on the North Cross School Board of Trustees in Roanoke, Virginia.

Robinson has two daughters, Madeline (UVA 2020) and Caitlin (UVA 2025).

Surapong Suwana-adth ’79 graduated from VMI In 1978, completing his studies in an accelerated 3-year program as a scholarship recipient of the Royal Thai Army. During his cadetship, he demonstrated strong academic performance and leadership. As an alumnus, he has remained actively engaged with VMI through sustained alumni service, including serving as the Thailand Alumni Chapter president and supporting international outreach initiatives. He currently serves as the Region XV – Pacific Rim regional director and on the VMI Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Surapong began his professional career in the Royal Thai Armed Forces, where he served in a wide range of leadership positions over several decades. His career included an assignment as military attaché at the Royal Thai Embassy in Washington, D.C., and culminated in his appointment as chief of defense forces of the Royal Thai Armed Forces. Following his military service, he was appointed as a senator in the Kingdom of Thailand, contributing to national policy and governance. He continues to serve in advisory and board-level roles across both public and private sectors, focusing on national security, strategic development, and international cooperation.

Surapong has completed numerous advanced military and executive leadership programs in Thailand and abroad. He has been awarded several distinguished military decorations, including among the highest national honors for exemplary service and leadership. He has also been selected to serve in senior advisory and board positions, reflecting continued trust in his leadership and experience.

Surapong resides in Thailand with his wife, Vanvimol, and their daughter, Mitila. He remains actively engaged in initiatives that strengthen ties between Thailand and the international community, particularly in education, defense cooperation, and leadership development.