Virginia Hardesty
Virginia is a graduate of East Carteret High School in Beaufort, North Carolina. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics Education from North Carolina A&T State University in 1979. She graduated third in her class and first in the Mathematics Department. In her collegiate years she served as Teacher's Assistant, Math Tutor, President of Alpha Chi Mathematics Honor Society, and played Volleyball. She completed two summer internships with Equitable Life Insurance as part of their Actuarial Science Summer Program. During those summers she resided at Columbia University and New York University.
After graduation, Virginia worked at Western Electric as a Telecommunication Business Forecaster. She used her math abilities to create statistical models that forecasted life and sales of telecommunication products. In 1984, she obtained a Masters in Business Administration from Wake Forest University. She had a successful career with AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Western Electric. She held positions of Business Forecaster, Manufacturing Requirements Planning (MRP) Manager, Production Control Manager, Procurement Manager, and Manager Minority & Women's Business Enterprises.
In 1998, she left the corporate world to join with her husband in the expansion of their business, Forsyth Seafood Market & Grill, as they opened their second location. Her husband, the late Charlie Hardesty, and she had started the business in 1984 and had diligently and successfully grown the business to the best seafood location in North Carolina and the east coast. Virginia was a key partner from the early days of selling shrimp off the back of a truck to handling the books and the planning aspects of the business. The full time commitment to the business has been a wonderful opportunity for entrepreneurship that has expanded many of the gifts and talents that were honed in the corporate world. Virginia has held many board positions including Goler CDC, SG Atkins CDC, & most recently serves on the board for Piedmont Federal Savings Bank.