Virginia Commonwealth University’s Business Student Compass Fund traces back to the six years Rich Reinecke (B.S. ’96) spent as a student at VCU, working to pay his own way through school. For Reinecke, co-founder and president of the Richmond firm Fahrenheit Advisors, the fund represents far more than financial support.
Reinecke established the Compass Fund earlier this year with his wife, Heather, as a retention grant at the VCU School of Business, to close the financial gap that might otherwise stand between a student and finishing their degree. He also serves as vice chair of the VCU School of Business Foundation Board.
“These students are exactly what I was,” Reinecke said. “I always expected that college would be my next step after high school, and while my family supported that idea, we did not have the financial means to make it work in a traditional way. And, I did not have a clear understanding of what it would take.”
The scale of the problem, Reinecke says, is what keeps him engaged.
“It’s just astonishing to me that we’ve got several hundred students at the end of a semester that end up in an account hold,” he said. “It could be $100 that is holding a student back from being able to enroll in the next semester. It’s the difference between them continuing to finish their degree, or saying, ‘I’m just going to take a semester off and build up this financial cushion so I can come back.’ Yet ultimately, they often never do.”
It’s a gap Reinecke sees in two parts, and the financial half is why he insists the fund isn’t simply tied to grades.
“Using GPA as the only opportunity to determine who should qualify does not capture the real intent of the Compass Fund,” he said. “I wasn’t performing at a high GPA because I had to go to work every day, all day long. What you have to have is the intestinal fortitude to work hard and do your absolute best. Beyond academics, it was developing this work ethic and the determination to succeed that allowed me to be in this position.”
Heather watched her husband navigate those same pressures while he was still in school.
“There would be times that the semester would start, and he’s like, I’m waiting for this grant to hit, so he could get his books,” she said. “I love that the [Compass Fund] is not solely tied to a student’s academic success, because there is something to be said about just the grit of being the student that is able to juggle it all when they shouldn’t have to juggle it at all.”
The other half of the gap, Reinecke says, is knowing how to build professional relationships, a skill he now teaches directly through the school’s mentoring programing and engaging with students in and out of the classroom. At a networking event, he introduced two mentees to Brian Brown, Ph.D., dean of the School of Business, and watched the intimidation drain out of the moment.
“Everyone in the room is just a human like you,” Reinecke tells students. Building those relationships early, he said, “puts you in a position to win when you never knew you were playing the game.”
It was during those same VCU years that Reinecke, a Pell-eligible student, waited tables to help cover tuition and turned a temporary placement at what was then Crestar Bank into full-time work, shifting his classes to evenings to make it fit. It was also then that he met Heather, then a junior at Virginia Tech, whose parents’ example convinced him he might build something of his own one day.
“I am like the prototype VCU kid,” Reinecke said. “Pell eligible, worked my way through school.”
A few years after they married, he got the chance to become a partner in a new recruiting firm, only for the deal to collapse weeks after Heather announced she was pregnant with twins. He rebuilt, launching his own firm in 2001 and running it until the 2008 recession forced him to pivot. A call from Richmond entrepreneur Karen Adams led him to Keith Middleton, a corporate finance executive also looking for his next step, and the two spent their first hour and a half together over chicken wings talking about values rather than the business itself, before launching Fahrenheit Advisors in January 2010 with one full-time employee. The firm now employs roughly 150 people and was acquired in late 2024 by the national firm Smith + Howard.
This spring, Richmond’s business community recognized that same path, inducting Reinecke into the Junior Achievement of Central Virginia’s Greater Richmond Business Hall of Fame alongside past honorees that include Maggie Walker.
“My goal has never been focused on gaining recognition. So, I was surprised, blown away frankly, when I got the call informing me that I had been selected by these amazing business leaders to be included in the Business Hall of Fame. It is particularly rewarding when you are recognized and you didn’t even know you were part of the conversation.”
Reinecke hopes that students who benefit from the Compass Fund will one day look back on their own journey the way he now looks back on his.
“I was supported in so many ways throughout my college career. The support and relationships I developed then not only got me through college, but also were the foundation of my early career success”
“It’s imperative on those of us that have come through the program and have had some semblance of success to now set other folks up so that they can have that same opportunity. I hope that happens a lot. That’s the plan.”
To learn more about the Business Student Compass Fund or to make a gift, visit business.vcu.edu/give or contact the VCU School of Business Foundation.