Landes Gift Names University of Mississippi Baseball Stadium Entrance

Athletics foundation honors alumni with lasting family tribute

by Bill Dabney

Fans of Ole Miss Rebel baseball no doubt have noticed new signage proclaiming Entrance 1 of Oxford-University Stadium as the Billy and Scott Landes Family Gate.

The naming honors the Landes family’s recent $250,000 gift in support of CHAMPIONS. NOW., the Ole Miss Athletic Foundation’s campaign to support capital projects for every Ole Miss sport as part of Now & Ever: The Campaign for Ole Miss.

“My wife, Scott, and I decided after moving from Clarksdale to Oxford that we wanted to get more involved with Ole Miss and thought it would be a good time to give something to athletics,” said Landes, a Vicksburg native who earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Mississippi.

“We also opened a showroom in Oxford and, because of our new local presence, we wanted to show our support for Ole Miss and, more specifically, the athletics program. As we become more entrenched here, we want to give back more to the university.”

Landes is president and managing partner of RiverLand Roofing, which is licensed and certified in Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama.

Scott Abraham Landes earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Ole Miss in 1985. The couple started RiverLand together in 2012. They have three children: Carson Boucek, a 2021 graduate of the UM School of Business Administration, Taylor Boucek and William M. Landes III.

Billy Landes credits the university for providing a foundation for success.

“Ole Miss is near and dear to all of our hearts, and we are where we are today because of our experiences at Ole Miss,” he said. “With our gift, we wanted to show our appreciation for that success by giving back.”

Vy Quach, assistant director of development, expressed gratitude for the support.

“I’m thrilled that Billy and Scott stepped up to join others in giving to athletics and are getting their family involved,” Quach said. “I work to help all the sports achieve their fundraising goals, so I know how important these major private gifts are to the student-athletes, head coaches and staff.”

After graduating from Ole Miss in 1990, Billy Landes started his career selling IBM typewriters in southeast Georgia. As the personal computer became popular, GE Capital IT Solutions hired him as a selling general manager. He was responsible for $100 million combined P&L’s covering Jackson, New Orleans and Dallas, as well as Memphis, Tennessee, and Little Rock, Arkansas.

In his six years with the company, he became one of the top general managers in an 11-state region and received GE Capital’s Circle of Excellence Award.

Leaving GE Capital in 1998, Landes went on to accrue 20-plus years of business experience driving and managing technology solutions, revenue expansion and P&L management in Fortune 50 and rapid-growth technology businesses.

“I was part of the merger and acquisitions team. I helped reshape and manage firms, dealt with sales, marketing, delivery, legal and human resources, the whole gamut,” he said.

When he retired from that career path in 2008, a friend introduced him to the roofing business, which he soon realized was a fragmented industry.

“There were very few professionals running a roofing firm. Instead, there were a lot of what we call ‘Chuck in a Truck’ roofers,” Landes said. “In the industry today, you’ve got a commercial segment and a residential segment. The commercial guys don’t like doing shingles; the shingle guys don’t like doing flat roofs.

“But we’ve built our company to service clients with both steep- and low-slope roofs. We are a unique animal because we do it all.”

The family hopes their gift to Ole Miss athletics will inspire others to provide similar support.

To make a gift to the Ole Miss Athletics Foundation, visit CHAMPIONS. NOW. or contact Bennett Van Cleve at ben@givetoathletics.com or 662-915-2073.