Richmond native William E. ("Ping") Betts, Jr., lettered in varsity football at Virginia Tech and graduated first in his architectural engineering class in 1932. As an undergraduate, he was elected to Phi Kappa Phi and Tau Beta Pi and was a member of the German Club and the Monogram Club.



After earning his M.S. in structural engineering at Tech in 1933, Mr. Betts became a Registered Architect in 1934. In 1938 in Lynchburg, Virginia, he and his friend A.P. Montague, Jr., founded Montague-Betts Company, a structural steel fabricator of several major construction projects including New York's World Trade Center. Mr. Betts became Chairman of the company in 1956 and has remained in the position since that time.



During World War II, Mr. Betts was an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, attaining the rank of Captain while serving in the European Theater. He was among the troops that landed on Omaha Beach during the Allied invasion of Europe at Normandy, France, and was awarded both the Bronze Star and the Croix de Guerre.



He has served as a director on several professional boards including those of the American Institute of Steel Construction, Virginia-Carolinas Fabricators Association, National Association of Manufacturers, United States Business and Industrial Council, Central Virginia Industries, and United Virginia Bank/Crestar.



Mr. Betts has been an active civic leader, serving on the boards of the Lynchburg Chamber of Commerce, Lynchburg Area Development Corporation, and Bedford County Public Service Authority. He has been the Director of the Lynchburg area United Givers Fund (United Way) and of the Lynchburg Fine Arts Center, was a founder and the first President of the Piedmont Club, and is a life director of the Boonesboro Country Club. A member of St. John's Episcopal Church, he has served on the church's vestry.



In service to education, he is a life trustee of Lynchburg College and of the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges, and a past member of the board of the Virginia Episcopal School and of the President's Committee of Randolph-Macon Woman's College.



Also active on behalf of his alma mater, Mr. Betts is a past Director of the Virginia Tech Educational Foundation and a former member of the university's Alumni Association Board. He is a charter member of the Rowe Fellow Program, and currently is a member of the Ut Prosim Society and the College of Engineering Committee of 100. He also is on the Virginia Tech President's Council Membership Committee for Lynchburg and served on the Lynchburg-Amherst-Nelson Regional Capital Campaign Committee. In 1975, the university recognized his efforts by presenting Mr. Betts with the Virginia Tech Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award, and in 1983 he received the College of Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award. In 1984 Mr. Betts endowed the Montague-Betts Professorship in Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech, a position held since that time by Dr. Thomas Murray, an expert in the field of structural steel research and design.



Mr. Betts and his late wife, Eloise, have two sons, one daughter, nine grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.