Frank Batten, Jr.

Mr. Frank Batten was appointed to the Board of Visitors February 9, 2002, and was reappointed to a second four-year term on July 1, 2005.  He served as Rector of the Board from 2002-2004, and currently serves as Vice Chair of the Academic & Research Advancement Committee and as a member of the Institutional Advancement Committee.  Mr. Batten is chairman and CEO of Landmark Communications, Inc., which is based in Norfolk, Virginia.

Landmark is a diversified media company that owns The Weather Channel, weather.com, Weather Services International, CBS television stations in Nashville and Las Vegas, and daily newspapers in Norfolk and Roanoke, Virginia, and in Greensboro, North Carolina.  Landmark also owns Dominion Enterprises, which produces classified advertising publications, Internet advertising sites and web-based services.

From 1995 to 1997, Mr. Batten was executive vice president of Landmark, with responsibility for corporate development and new ventures.  From 1991 to 1995, he was president and publisher of The Virginian-Pilot, the daily newspaper in Norfolk.  During 1990 and 1991, he served as marketing director and then as vice-president and associate publisher of the newspaper.  From 1986 to 1989, Mr. Batten was general manager and then publisher of The News-Enterprise in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.  Before that, he was a reporter for The Associated Press in London, England, for 18 months.  His first position was at The Roanoke Times & World-News, where he worked as a reporter for two years and as an advertising salesman for one year.

Mr. Batten was educated at Dartmouth College, where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1980.  He received an M.B.A. in 1984 from the Colgate Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia.

Mr. Batten and his wife Aimee reside in Norfolk, Virginia.