NOVA College Board Announces New Chair, Vice Chair and New Member

Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) is pleased to announce that U.S. Ambassador Joseph Huggins (Ret.) will serve as the College’s new board chair and Margaret Chung, principal of Arlington Career Center will serve as vice chair. Both have been appointed for a two-year term, which expires on June 30, 2025. Buddy Rizer formerly served as Chair of the NOVA Educational Board Foundation will go onto serve as a new member of the College Board.

Amb. Huggins, who has served as a member of the college board in the prior year representing the City of Fairfax, will succeed outgoing Board Chair Zuzana Steen. Chung who has served since September 2021, represented Arlington County. She is taking over Vice Chair duties from Ron Gill, who represented the City of Manassas Park.

“I am truly honored to serve the NOVA community as chair of the College Board,” said Huggins. “The importance of education cannot be overstated. It is key to giving individuals and families a chance to move away from poverty and into a new life offering opportunity and hope. During my term as chair, it is my strong desire is to bring that hope to many others.”

About Board Chair, Amb. Huggins (Ret.):
Throughout his long and distinguished career, Ambassador Huggins has held high-profile diplomatic assignments across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He served in mid- and senior-level positions in the former Soviet Union, Kenya, Guinea, Togo and Jordan. In Washington, his work focused on Africa, South Asia and the Middle East

Ambassador Huggins previously served as executive director for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, where he worked closely with the assistant secretary of state for Africa to formulate policy and resource requirements for 48 U.S. Embassies in Africa. In his last overseas assignment, from November 2002 to July 2005, he served as ambassador to the Republic of Botswana and the secretary of state’s special representative to the Southern Africa Development Community. 

After 30 years, he retired from U.S. Foreign Service in 2006. He then founded the Huggins Group, a consulting firm providing intelligence research and strategic advice to American companies interested in trade and investment opportunities in Africa and the Middle East. In 2009, he served on President-elect Obama’s Transition Team.

About NOVA College Board Vice Chair Margaret Chung:
Margaret Chung is the principal of the Arlington Career Center (ACC), the Career and Technical Education (CTE) hub of Arlington Public Schools (APS) in Arlington, Va. She served as a public-school educator in Virginia and Arizona for the past 29 years as a secondary mathematics teacher, instructional coach and advocate for refugee students as the director of Asian Pacific American student services for Tucson Unified School District. She served as the mathematics supervisor for APS before becoming principal of Arlington Career Center in 2014.

As principal of ACC, she oversees 30 CTE programs, four full-time academic programs and the Teen Parenting Program. In 2016, she led a team to develop Arlington Tech, an innovative early college, STEM, project- and work-based learning program to meet the rapidly changing demands of the global workforce. In partnership with Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), the Arlington Career Center offers over 50 dual enrollment CTE and academic courses through which students earn both high school and college credits. In the graduating class of 2021, ACC’s 100 graduates earned over 1,900 dual enrollment college credits.

About New Board Member, Buddy Rizer:
Buddy Rizer is the executive director for the Department of Economic Development in Loudoun County, Va., named the 2021 Economic Development Organization of the Year by the International Economic Development Council. He leads the agency responsible for encouraging growth and developing relationships with Loudoun’s business community in both the commercial and agriculture-based business sectors.  During his tenure, Rizer and his team have attracted more than $50 billion in new commercial investment and more than 50 thousand new jobs.

In 2007, Rizer helped build Loudoun County’s “Data Center Alley” into the largest concentration of data centers in the world.  He has spoken internationally on the growth of data centers in Virginia, the importance of incentives and the business environment to the industry and the positive impacts data centers have on their communities. 

Prior to his career as an economic developer, Rizer spent more than 30 years as a broadcaster.  Rizer started his radio career at age 15 at WARK/WARX in his hometown of Hagerstown, Md., where he became station manager and morning host before heading to Washington, D.C. For 16 years, Buddy served as program director, music director and on-air host at DC101 (WWDC-FM) in Washington.

No stranger to NOVA, Buddy also served as chair of the NOVA Educational Foundation Board. He is passionate about the community college mission and dedicated to serving students.

The College Board consists of eleven members representing the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park, and the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William. It serves as an advisory body to the College President and ensures that NOVA meets the needs of its service area.

Submitted by:
Hoang Nguyen, Assoc. Director of External Comms., HDNguyen@nvcc.edu