Donnie Martin ’13 most recently served as a Peay teaching fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at VMI and is now the current holder of the Wachtmeister Chair in Science and Engineering.
Following graduation from the Institute as a distinguished graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil and environmental engineering, Martin began working in the Southwestern Virginia region as an engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation.

In 2020, Martin moved to Lexington when his wife, Maj. Rebekah Martin, P.E., Ph.D., joined VMI as a member of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering faculty, and she continues to teach in that department. Martin would then draw his time at VDOT to a close and begin graduate school in 2021 at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, where Jose Gomez ’79 was his advisor. Following the completion of his Master of Engineering degree in 2022, Martin began his Peay teaching fellowship at VMI.

During his cadetship, Martin served in the Virginia National Guard, enlisting in 2010. His time in the National Guard led to a rewarding career, which gave Martin experience in both the infantry and special operations. Martin is currently assigned to the West Virginia National Guard and recently returned from a deployment to the Middle East serving with a multinational counterterrorism task force.

As a cadet, Martin was thankful to be a scholar in the Institute Honors Program. Throughout his career, Martin has seen how this program equipped him tremendously to step into complex environments and problem sets and thrive. He was also involved with VMI Timber Framing. He said it has been an absolute gift to be able to continue that involvement with Professor Emeritus W. Grigg Mullen ’76 and bring back cadet involvement in the design and construction of the fall and spring community timber frame projects.