REED SMITH ADDS DENNIS TREACY AS SENIOR COUNSEL IN VIRGINIA
Longtime Smithfield Foods Executive Joins Government Relations Group
September 17, 2018, Richmond, VA – Reed Smith LLP today announced the addition of Dennis H. Treacy as Senior Counsel in its Government Relations and Administrative Law Group in Richmond. He recently retired from his positions as Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer of Smithfield Foods, Inc. and concluded serving as president of its philanthropic arm, the Smithfield Foundation. Treacy is the immediate past board chair of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce and the current Rector of Virginia Tech’s Board of Visitors. Prior to joining Smithfield, he served as director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
“Dennis is a longtime client and well-known leader in the state’s business and civic community,” said Edward Mullen, Managing Partner of Reed Smith’s Richmond office. “He is a widely recognized thought leader in the corporate world and the environmental sector, having served on many statewide and national boards and commissions, including the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), the National Academies of Sciences Sustainability Roundtable, Virginia Humanities, the Farm, Ranchers and Rural Communities advisory committee to U. S. EPA (FRRCC), the Rice Center for Environmental Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Museum of Natural History. We welcome him to the firm and anticipate our clients will benefit tremendously from his experience, legal acumen and support.”
At the Smithfield Foundation, Treacy oversaw educational scholarships provided to the children and grandchildren of full-time and retired employees of Smithfield as well as the Foundation’s educational partnerships, food security programs, environmental projects, animal well-being initiatives, university research, and other local initiatives. Prior to assuming leadership of the Smithfield Foundation, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer for Smithfield Foods, where he directed many areas within the company, including government affairs, corporate communications, environmental programs, sustainability initiatives, and the legal department.
“Joining Reed Smith and the many lawyers there whom I know quite well provides a great opportunity to apply decades of combined corporate in-house and government experience,” said Treacy. “Reed Smith is a great firm and I look forward to helping clients work through the myriad of business and regulatory challenges they face on a daily basis.”
Treacy currently chairs VIRGINIAforever, an environmental organization with members from businesses and natural resource and environmental groups. He also is a member of the Chesapeake Bay Commission. Treacy has received numerous awards from a wide variety of environmental interests in Virginia. He earned an undergraduate degree in Forestry and Wildlife at Virginia Tech in 1978 and a J.D. from Lewis & Clark Law School in 1983, which in 2010 named him a Distinguished Environmental Law Graduate.
Prior to joining Smithfield Foods in 2002, Treacy was director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. He served as Assistant Attorney General in the natural resources section of the Virginia Attorney General’s office from 1990 to 1995, representing the DEQ and the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. He was an area manager for government affairs for Browning-Ferris Industries for Delaware, Maryland and Virginia from 1996 to 1998.
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