Fans of Ole Miss Rebel Baseball this season will notice 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 Athletics Foundation’s campaign to support capital projects for every Ole Miss sport. CHAMPIONS. NOW. is 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, Mississippi, native who earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Ole Miss.
“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,” he continued. “As we become more entrenched here, we want to give back more to the university.”
Landes is president and managing partner of RiverLand Roofing.
As a GAF Master Elite contractor, GAF Master Select Contractor and a GAF Premium Coating Systems Contractor, RiverLand Roofing covers homes and businesses. Licensed and certified in Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama, the company’s mission is to provide qualified, uncompromising roofing workmanship and customer service through constant research and development and employee education.
Scott Abraham Landes earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Ole Miss in 1985. Together, the couple started RiverLand in 2012 and have built the firm into what it is today. They have three children: Carson Boucek, a graduate of the UM School of Business Administration (2021), Taylor Boucek and William M. Landes III.
Carson Boucek works at RiverLand in the business operations, project profitability and technology spaces and credits his time at the university for preparing him to have a positive influence on the company.
“Dedicated to achieving a position of leadership within the roofing industry, RiverLand strives to maintain the highest level of professionalism, integrity, honesty and fairness in our relationships with our clients, suppliers and professional associates,” Boucek said.
Landes credits the University of Mississippi 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. These gifts make a huge impact toward constructing and improving their facilities.”
After graduating from Ole Miss in 1990, Billy Landes started his career selling IBM typewriters in Southeast Georgia. As the IBM personal computer became popular, he was hired as a selling general manager for GE Capital IT Solutions, the world’s largest global systems integration company. He was responsible for $100 million combined P&L’s covering Memphis, Tennessee; Little Rock, Arkansas; Jackson, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Dallas, Texas.
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 662-915-7159.
By Bill Dabney/UM Foundation