Dick Harshberger is Director Emeritus of Virginia Tech's University Leadership Development Program and former Director of the Pamplin College of Business Management Development Center at Virginia Tech.  He retired from Virginia Tech in 2003.  He has had more than thirty years of continuing education and training experience with major universities in the Eastern United States as well as industrial training experience with Johnson and Johnson at their corporate headquarters in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  He has presented Management and Leadership Development programs throughout the United States and in Europe and Asia.  For many years he served as the primary resource for spokesperson training for the Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Personnel and Training.

While Dick is a "Doc" and a tenured Associate Professor, he has not been the average faculty member.  In the process of financing his own education, he worked as a butcher's apprentice, stock boy, ditch digger, hotel night clerk, welder's helper, apprentice iron worker, chief construction engineer's assistant (running a chain gang), head bartender (at an American Legion post), and professional pall bearer, just to name a few of his many jobs. 

Dr. Harshberger has a wide breadth of training experience in Strategic Planning, Managing Change, Communication, Problem Solving/Decision Making, Team Building, Continuous Improvement Techniques, Motivating Employees and Volunteers, and, of course, Leadership Development.  Dick also is a Senior Partner in Strategic Planning Associates,  a strategic planning consulting firm. He has facilitated over 100 strategic planning retreats for business, industry, government and professional associations.

Dick spent an academic year in Turkey as a Visiting Professor of Management at Bosphorus University, and in recent years taught  the capstone course for the Executive MBA program at Isik University in Istanbul..  He is in demand as a speaker and has appeared before some nine hundred different audiences in the Eastern United States, Europe, and Asia.

In addition to being an elected member of the Radford City Council, He is also a member of the Radford Heritage Foundation Board, the Radford Chamber of Commerce Board, the Fairview District Home Board, the New River Community Partner's Board, the Agency on Aging Advisory Board and is a member of the Board and Executive Committee of Radford Bridges.  He is a member of the Radford Noon Rotary Club.

Dick received his Bachelor's in Economics from the University of Pittsburgh, his Master's in Theatre Arts from Villanova University and his Doctorate in Higher Education Administration from N.C. State University.