Washington College’s Board of Visitors and Governors has elected three new board members, all of them WC alumni. Rick Wheeler ’86, Valarie A. Sheppard ’86, and Brandon Riker ’10 will fill three vacancies.
Two of the openings require the approval of the Office of the Governor, and the board put forward the names of Sheppard and Wheeler, who await state approval, which is expected.
Wheeler is a vice president for state and local accounts at Oakland Consulting Group, an information technology enterprise in Lanham, Maryland. An international studies major at Washington College, Wheeler was a member of the rowing team, Kappa Alpha Order, the Omicron Delta Kappa Honor Society, and the Student Government Association. He has maintained his connection to the College since graduation as a member of The 1782 Society, and by serving as chair of the President’s Leadership Council and as chair of the 25th reunion committee for the Class of 1986. Over the course of his 30-year career he earned professional certification in project management and has held a variety of leadership positions building and implementing innovative information technology solutions for state, local, federal and international government entities. As a founding partner of Accenture, he served 18 years in leadership, including roles as Managing Director of Government Health Industry, and Managing Director of Global Health and Human Services, the company’s largest public sector industry, where he led market expansion and produced rapid growth.
Sheppard, who majored in psychology at WC, earned her master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Akron and is now Chief of the Executive Services Unit at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security. Though her career has focused on a variety of human resources and human capital organizations, she also taught briefly as an adjunct professor in the College’s Department of Psychology. She’s one of the longest-serving officers of the Alumni Association, having been a member-at-large, vice president, and president of the Alumni Board. She also served as an alumni representative on the Presidential Search Committee.
Riker is executive director of strategic planning for Teucrium Trading, an innovative investment firm he helped found with his parents, who are CFO and CEO. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the College with a degree in economics and a minor in business management, then earned a master of science from the London School of Economics. While at WC, he was a member of the Douglass Cater Society of Junior Fellows, captain of the rowing team, and a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity. A grassroots campaigner and regional field director and organizer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, he is an accomplished veteran of half-dozen major political contests. He jumped right into the political fray in his home state of Vermont in 2015 when he ran for lieutenant governor at only 28 years old.
About Washington College
Founded in 1782, Washington College is the tenth oldest college in the nation and the first chartered under the new Republic. It enrolls approximately 1,450 undergraduates from more than 35 states and a dozen nations. With an emphasis on hands-on, experiential learning in the arts and sciences, and more than 40 multidisciplinary areas of study, the College is home to nationally recognized academic centers in the environment, history, and writing.
