Richard Emerson Fogg

Richard Emerson Fogg, 77, of Free Union, Virginia, died Monday, July 9, 2018, at his Albemarle County country home, Sassafras Ridge, surrounded by family and his beloved Chesapeake Bay Retrievers. Born July 22, 1940, he was raised by his mother Alice Welsch and his Uncle Buddy, The Rev. George Welsch in the Episcopal rectory in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. A star athlete at Big Stone Gap High School, he went on to attend the University of Virginia with an athletic grant-in-aid and played tackle for the football Cavaliers. He joined Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and graduated from the McIntire School of Commerce in l962. He married his high school sweetheart Mary Mason Collier while in college. After taking his degree, he served two years in the United States Army as First Lieutenant in air defense artillery before beginning a long and rewarding career with the Price Waterhouse accounting firm. Joining the firm in 1962, after a break for military service, he moved from Washington, DC to Virginia to open the Richmond office which he built into a tax and audit practice for central Virginia. When named Partner in 1974, he was the youngest associate to be named in the firm. In 1988, he transferred to Atlanta as southeast regional tax partner, group tax manager, and Partner-in-Charge of the Atlanta office. In 1991, he became managing partner of the Chesapeake Group in Washington, DC and in 1993 was named as the Associate Vice Tax Chairman for Price Waterhouse. Most recently, he became a Board member and head of the audit committee of Owens and Minor. He has served on numerous Boards and professional organizations including Chairman of the Southern Federal Tax Institute and the annual conference on Federal taxation held at the University of Virginia. Throughout many moves, the Fogg’s raised three sons and supported them both on and off various playing fields throughout their school years. Dick Fogg was a man of many passions with a big personality and energy that could fill a room. He was an avid hunter and enthusiastic fly fisherman taken by the beauty of the west. To that end he arranged for annual fly fishing trips for his sons (and later grandchildren) and himself to his favorite rivers in North Carolina, Southwest Montana and Southeast Idaho in the shadow of the Grand Tetons. He was well-known in the local fly-fishing circles of Dillon, MT both for his fishing prowess and booming personality. He enticed his sons to join him by explaining that he was determined to spend their inheritance with or without them, so they might as well come along. Waterfowl hunting was a large part of his life as well, and he organized annual goose and duck hunting trips to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. An adventurer with a love of the outdoors, he crisscrossed the country multiple times on his BMW motorcycle. He was a voracious reader and lifelong learner. He loved life and he loved people. He was the original networker, assimilating vast stores of facts large and small about colleagues, friends, and neighbors. A consummate raconteur, he shared these stories with one and all calling upon his encyclopedic memory and made friends and deep relationships wherever he went. A generous donor and advocate for his beloved University of Virginia, he was instrumental in the rebuilding of the Virginia Football Alumni Club, serving as the first president and perennial treasurer and building the membership to an impressive number of former players. He is survived and will be terribly missed by Mary Mason Fogg, his wife of fifty-eight years, his brother Kenneth Fogg of Plano, Texas, and his three sons: Richard Emerson Fogg, Jr. and his wife Grace of Charlotte, North Carolina, their children Ryan, Tucker, and Kacie; Robert Gordon Fogg and his wife Dawn of Hampton Cove, Alabama, and their children Coulter and Brenna-Claire; and Hunter Welsch Fogg, his wife Heather, and daughters Trystan and Devon of Richmond, Virginia. A lifelong Episcopalian, he served on the Vestries of All Saints in Richmond, Va. And more recently, St. Paul’s church in Ivy, Va. A memorial service will be held Saturday, July 14, 11:00 AM, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Ivy, Virginia with a reception following. Donations may be made to Hospice of the Piedmont or St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Dick’s name in lieu of flowers.