Irvin H. Davis

Irvin Davis was born on July 18,1929 in Rosemary, NC, now Roanoke Rapids, to Raymond Henry Davis and Ruth Panton Davis. He attended the Norfolk, Virginia school system, graduating from Maury High School in June 1947. Having been awarded an NROTC scholarship, one of only two awarded in the area, he attended the University of Virginia, graduating in 1951. After a tour in the Navy, he worked for two years with the Proctor and Gamble Company, then went to work with the Atlantic Refining Company and was transferred to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he met his wife, Mary Boyd, a senior at Sweet Briar College. During this period, he relocated to the Pure Oil Company and transferred to Richmond, Virginia. When Pure Oil was taken over by Union Oil Company, rather than move to California, he joined the Koger Company of Jacksonville, Florida, a developer of suburban office parks. He opened and ran the Tidewater Executive Center in Norfolk, later to be renamed the Koger Center. During his tenure, the Koger Company formed a limited partnership and a real estate investment trust, one of the first in the country and New York Stock Exchange listed. In 1985 he was transferred to Jacksonville and made President and CEO of the Koger Company. In 1998 he retired from the company, becoming Vice Chairman, having refused the Chairmanship. Under his leadership, stocks rose from $4 a share to $22 a share. Mr. Davis is survived by his true companion, best friend and loving wife of 65 years, Mary Davis. His proudest accomplishments and true legacy are his three children, Diane Davis Day, Caroline Davis Cardwell and Philip Raymond Davis, his eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.