Donald Mills.

Donald Mills founded Mills Marine and Ship Repair, a Suffolk, Virginia-based marine services company providing ship repair, maintenance, and modification services to commercial and government maritime customers including the U.S.

Navy, Coast Guard, and commercial shipping operators. Under his leadership, the company has grown into one of the most respected minority-owned ship repair contractors on the Mid-Atlantic coast, serving vessels at ports across the region. He was named the 2025 SBA Virginia Small Business Person of the Year. His work sits at the intersection of maritime infrastructure, defense contracting, and Hampton Roads regional industrial capacity - categories that have become increasingly strategically important as the U.S. has prioritized maritime industrial base revitalization. Ship repair is trade-skill-intensive, capital-intensive, and deeply local to the ports where it operates, and Mills Marine is the kind of business that quietly holds together the logistics backbone of U.S. commercial and military maritime operations. Mills has built it as a Black-owned contractor in a region where such ownership was historically rare at this scale.