For the record July 2025

Central Virginia

The Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront kicked off its inaugural show June 7 with some blasts from MTV days past. Rick Springfield cruised into the new Richmond venue as headliner on the “I Want My ‘80s Tour” with opening acts John Cafferty, Wang Chung, and John Waite. A partnership between Charlottesville-based Red Light Management and Live Nation, the roughly 7,500-seat venue celebrated its grand opening June 4 with a performance by students from St. Andrew’s School in Oregon Hill. (Richmond Times-Dispatch; news release)

Molina Healthcare, a Fortune 500 company that manages health care services for Medicaid and Medicare recipients, is closing its Henrico County office and laying off 268 workers. California-based Molina notified the state that it would lay off all staffers there by July 14. The Henrico office’s closing is due to the nonrenewal of Molina’s state contract as one of Virginia Medicaid’s managed care organizations, the company’s letter to Virginia Works stated. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches announced in May it would invest $5.8 million to expand to a new facility in Richmond, with plans to add 166 jobs. Established in 2016, Nightingale sells products in more than 5,000 chain and independent grocery stores, including Whole Foods Market, Kroger and Harris Teeter. It has doubled in size year-over-year and has outgrown its current production facility. The cold treat maker’s new 29,000-square-foot location will serve as both a production facility and Nightingale’s corporate headquarters. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Glen Allen-based Fortune 500 health care logistics and supply company Owens & Minor backed out of a $1.36 billion deal to buy Rotech Healthcare Holdings, a Florida home-based care business. Owens & Minor and Rotech Healthcare Holdings mutually agreed to terminate the deal June 3, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that also noted Owens & Minor paid a termination fee of $80 million in cash. News of the failed deal follows a February announcement that Owens & Minor was “actively engaged” in discussions to sell its products and health care services segment. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Despite filing for bankruptcy in March, Plenty Unlimited will be able to finish construction of its vertical indoor farm facility in Chesterfield County. In May, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher M. Lopez approved a restructuring plan for San Francisco-based Plenty and its subsidiaries that will let it complete its vertical farm facility on 120 acres in Chesterfield’s Meadowville Technology Park. Plenty opened the first strawberry farm on its Chesterfield campus in September 2024. Construction is expected to begin in August on four remaining farms at its Chesterfield campus. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Virginia Commonwealth University Health System Authority is looking to build a hospital off Route 10 in Chesterfield. VCU Health sent a
June 2 letter to the Virginia Department of Health indicating its intent to submit a certificate of public need application. The acute care, 66-bed hospital would be located at 7220 Beach Road on 56 acres. The proposed hospital site is located next to VCU Health’s $90 million outpatient surgery center that broke ground in May. Located at 9820 Iron Bridge Road on an 8-acre parcel, the surgery center is expected to open in 2027. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

PEOPLE

Jennifer Schofield became the new park manager and vice president of in-park revenue for Kings Dominion on May 31. She succeeds Bridgette
C. Bywater as leader of the Doswell amusement park owned by Six Flags Entertainment. Schofield has 34 years of experience in the theme park industry and was most recently vice president of retail at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Ohio. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Eastern Virginia

The DeLong Co., a Wisconsin agriculture company, broke ground on May 29 on a $26 million agricultural export facility in Portsmouth that will be used to prepare whole grains and feedstuffs for shipment. The facility will have a storage capacity of 15,000 metric tons and will be located at the former CSX intermodal site, located at 1 Harper Ave. DeLong says it will be the first facility of its kind on the East Coast to receive unit trains and that it is expected to handle 15,000 to 20,000 containers yearly. The site is expected to be operational in early 2026. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget would put 672 civil servants at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton out of work. Trump’s proposal would slash NASA’s funding from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion, a roughly 25% decrease. If approved by Congress, the White House’s suggested budget would cut the civilian workforce by about 32% across the entire agency, according to a technical supplement released in June. For FY 2025, NASA Langley has a civilian workforce that’s estimated to be 1,730 employees. The proposed budget would dial that back to 1,058 workers in FY 2026. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Newport News Shipbuilding announced on May 30 that it would furlough 471 shipbuilders for up to five months, with the furlough taking effect on June 2. Although it is not a job termination, furloughed employees will not be paid for the time they’re out of work. A spokesperson said the furlough was done “to increase accountability and efficiency, and to improve overall performance in meeting our current and future commitments to the U.S. Navy.” NNS said it would continue to evaluate its business needs to determine whether continued furlough is warranted. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Texas-based financial services company USAA announced on June 12 that it has purchased a larger office space in Chesapeake and will add more than 500 employees in the area over the next two years. USAA’s new Chesapeake office at 1341 Crossways Blvd. will span nearly 200,000 square feet and feature a claims technical training center with vehicles on-site for hands-on learning, a cafeteria and other dining options, a fitness center and a market. The current Chesapeake location has only 81,478 rentable square feet. USAA plans to begin working in the new space in March 2026.
(VirginiaBusiness.com)

PEOPLE

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, commonly known as Jefferson Lab, announced in May that Jens Dilling was appointed as its next director, effective June 30. He succeeds Kimberly Sawyer, who held the role since August 2024. Dilling most recently was the associate laboratory director for neutron sciences at Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), leading research at the High Flux Isotope Reactor and the Spallation Neutron Source. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Virginia Beach officials confirmed that the city’s new economic development director, Christian Green, resigned June 11 after serving less than four months in the post. Green’s resignation marks the second time in a row Virginia Beach’s economic development director has departed after a short tenure. Deputy City Manager Amanda Jarratt is once again serving in the interim role. Virginia Beach City Council Member Barbara Henley said the city will likely undertake a national search for a new economic development director. The city says Green elected to resign from his position “due to pressing family matters.” (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Northern Virginia

The June 12 crash of a London-bound Air India plane that killed more than 240 people was the first fatal crash of a Boeing 787, a widebody, twin-engine plane known as the Dreamliner. But it’s the latest in a string of troubles for Arlington County-based Boeing, most of them tied to the 737 Max, a different plane. (See below.) The Boeing 787 struck a medical college hostel, killing at least five people and injuring about 50 more, when the plane came down shortly after takeoff in Ahmedabad. Many more victims were expected to be found during a search of the site. Only one of the plane’s 242 passengers survived; he was hospitalized with burns and other injuries. (Associated Press)

McLean-based Fortune 500 management consulting business Booz Allen Hamilton will lay off 7% of its 35,800-employee workforce, or about 2,500 employees, mainly in its civil division, Chairman, CEO and President Horacio Rozanski said during a May earnings call. Noting a recent “slowdown” in the federal government’s civil procurement and spending, Rozanski said that five of Booz Allen’s major civil technology contracts’ run rates were reduced in April. Meanwhile, a major Veterans Affairs tech contract ended in the last fiscal year. The loss of the VA contract and the reduction in run rates for the other five contracts are expected to lower Booz Allen’s consolidated top line by 6% in fiscal 2026, Rozanski said. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly, 75, a nine-term Democrat representing Virginia’s 11th District, died May 21. In April, Connolly stepped back as ranking Democratic member of the House’s Oversight Committee after announcing that his esophageal cancer had returned and that this would be his last term in Congress. He represented the City of Fairfax and most of Fairfax County. Before being elected to Congress in 2008, he served on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors from 1995 to 2009. A special election for the congressional seat will be held Sept. 9. (VirginiaBusiness.com; The Washington Post)

In late May, the Justice Department reached a deal with Boeing that took criminal prosecution off the table for allegedly misleading regulators about the 737 Max jetliner before the two fatal planes crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019. Boeing agreed to pay or invest more than $1.1 billion, including an additional $445 million for crash victims’ families, removing the risk of a criminal conviction that would have jeopardized the company’s status as a federal contractor. (Associated Press)

Reston-based federal contractor Leidos acquired Kudu Dynamics, a Chantilly-based tech company that builds AI-powered cybersecurity tools for defense customers, in an all-cash $300 million deal that closed May 23. The transaction marked Leidos’ first acquisition in more than two years
and its first since Thomas A. Bell became the Fortune 500 defense, aerospace and IT firm’s CEO. Founded in 2013, Kudu, which has 170 employees, will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary in Leidos’ national security sector and will continue to be led by its founder and CEO, Mike Frantzen. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Government contractor Technomics will invest $5.38 million to expand its Arlington County headquarters, adding 25,200 square feet of office space and creating 248 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced June 11. Eastablished in 1984, Technomics opened its Arlington hqadquarters in 2000 and specializes in providing data and analytics-driven support services for United States and international government clients. The contractor, which has 300 employees has expanded its Arlington office three times since 2022. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Arlington County to secure the latest expansion project for Virginia. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Roanoke/ Lynchburg/ New River Valley

Carilion Clinic is ending its agreement to provide nurses for the Roanoke city school system to instead focus on improving access to pediatric services across its region. The partnership between Carilion and the school system started in 2011. Now, as the next fiscal year begins, school officials will need to find a new school nursing option. The $2.7 million contract for the current year involves 31 nurses and one administrative position and there is a nurse for each elementary and middle school and two for the high schools, according to school system documents. (Roanoke Rambler)

Amherst County-based Old Dominion Job Corps Center will lay off 130 workers by June 30, due to President Donald Trump’s administration ordering the closures of contractor-run Job Corps centers across the nation. Old Dominion, in compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, notified the state June 3 of plans to lay off the employees due to the closure. The Job Corps program provides students ages 16-24 with education, vocational training and job placement assistance. Blue Ridge Job Corps Center in Smyth County is also slated for closure. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

City councilman Peter Volosin’s application to rent out his two-bedroom basement in south Roanoke was vehemently opposed by his neighbors and narrowly denied by a partial composition of Roanoke’s Board of Zoning Appeals June 11. The citizen board voted 3-2, with two members absent, on the application by Volosin and husband Malcolm Quigley, who requested to rent their basement out on Airbnb. More than 400 people from the south Roanoke area had signed a petition opposing the homestay, one speaker told the board. The couple could rent the property out for stays of 30 days or more as a by-right use. (The Roanoke Times)

Virginia Tech is adding a new level of drone defense research with $5 million from the U.S. Army. The award will create the Counter UAS Research and Testing Center, with the unmanned aircraft experts at the Virginia Tech National Security Institute and the Virginia Tech Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership leading the way. The goal is to help the Department of Defense and law enforcement deal with threats from both novice drone users and bad actors, according to the release. The new research and testing center will feature an outdoor test bed employing sensors. (Cardinal News)

PEOPLE

BWX Technologies, a Lynchburg-based nuclear components and fuel supplier manufacturer, appointed Gonzalo Cajade as chief human resources officer, effective June 1. He succeeded Robert L. Duffy in leading human resources, according to BWXT’s May 29 announcement. Duffy will continue with the company as chief administrative officer and as an executive adviser to the CEO. Cajade has over 20 years of global human resources leadership experience, most recently being executive vice president and chief people officer at Terrepower, where he led efforts focused on company growth and mergers and acquisitions. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

In May, Laura Treanor was named the fifth president of Roanoke’s Virginia Western Community College, succeeding Robert Sandel, the school’s leader since 2001. Her tenure began July 1. Previously, Treanor worked as provost, senior vice president for instructional services and dean of faculty at Vincennes University in Indiana. At Baker College in Michigan, Treanor also held several roles, including system associate vice president for institutional effectiveness. Treanor, who earned a doctorate in education at Virginia Tech, was selected from 61 candidates. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Shenandoah Valley

A new Virginia law that took effect on July 1 will change how Clarke County planners review subdivision plats and site development plans. In localities with more than 5,000 residents, the law shifts the responsibility for reviewing these matters from planning commissions to local government employees or designated agents. Clarke is one of the few localities impacted by the legislation, as most Virginia localities already have given an employee the responsibility of conducting reviews. Planning Director Brandon Stidham said compliance will require the county to pass significant amendments to the county’s zoning and subdivision ordinances. (The Winchester Star)

Fulks Run Grocery, a beloved community store in Rockingham County, celebrated its 75th anniversary in June with a daylong event featuring games and music. Navy veteran Garnett Turner founded the business in 1949, initially as a small country store. About 10 years later, he created the Turner Hams country ham business, which today sells hams nationally. The family-run business has been passed down through generations and is currently run by Chad Ritchie. He says that after all those years, the business is still sticking true to its family’s recipe from the early 1900s. (Daily News-Record)

NextEra Energy Transmission held an open house in May to solicit feedback on preliminary routes for the proposed 105-mile MidAtlantic Resiliency Link, a 500-kilovolt transmission line that will cut through northern Frederick County. Regional electrical grid operator PJM Interconnection is spearheading the proposal, which is meant to satisfy the region’s future energy demands. Data centers currently consume massive amounts of energy in Northern Virginia. NextEra aims to file applications this fall with the Virginia State Corporation Commission and other state regulators. If approved, early construction activities would begin in 2029 with lines in service by 2031. (The Winchester Star)

The Rockingham County Board of Supervisors on May 28 unanimously approved a special use permit for the Virginia Poultry Growers Cooperative to expand its grain facility in Linville. Located at 3955 Virginia Poultry Drive, the facility opened in 2008 and has served as a central location for county farmers to buy and sell their grain. But president John King said time and a changing economic landscape prompted a need for upgrades. He said that the co-op has grown more than 40% since its founding and continues to expand. The upgraded facility will be over 200 feet tall when completed. (Daily News-Record)

Winchester-based Shenandoah University and Middletown-based Laurel Ridge Community College signed a memorandum of understanding on
May 20 to create a guaranteed admissions program, enabling Laurel Ridge students to co‑enroll in up to three Shenandoah courses at community college tuition. The courses each carry three or four credit hours. The program allows early access to SU’s academics and student benefits like intramural sports, clubs, organizations and academic support services. Students who achieve their Laurel Ridge associate degree within three years, successfully complete co-enrolled courses and meet GPA requirements are guaranteed admission to Shenandoah to pursue their bachelor’s degree. (News release)

Denver-based Tract Capital wants to build a data center campus called Meadow Brook Technology Park in Frederick County. The center would be located on more than 600 acres of what is now farmland just south of Stephens City. The land is owned by Jason McDonald of Springwood Farms. During an open forum at Laurel Ridge Community College, some area residents raised concerns, feeling the rural location wasn’t suitable for a data center and fearing it would devalue homes. Others acknowledged the center could be the source of tax revenue. The project requires both a rezoning and a comprehensive plan amendment. (The Northern Virginia Daily)

Southwest Virginia

The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded Brownfields grants to LENOWISCO Planning District Commission and the Town of Pennington Gap, U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment, announced in May. The commission received a $1.2 million Brownfield Assessment grant to support an assessment of local brownfields. LENOWISCO Planning District Commission serves the Counties of Lee, Wise and Scott and the City of Norton. Additionally, Pennington Gap received a $276,563 Brownfield Cleanup grant. (News release)

On June 1, Del. C. Todd Gilbert stepped down as Republican minority leader in the Virginia House of Delegates, and House Republicans elected Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott County, to succeed him. If the GOP wins a majority of the House’s 100 seats this fall, Kilgore would become speaker. Kilgore has served in the House since 1994 and was previously House majority leader during Gilbert’s term as speaker in 2022-24. A Shenandoah County attorney, Gilbert is in contention to become the next U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

News that China and the U.S. would significantly ease levies as they attempt to ratchet down trade tensions that have roiled global markets may have been a light at the end of the tunnel for some in the furniture industry, but Doug Bassett, president of Galax-based Vaughan-Bassett Furniture, said in May that ongoing uncertainty around trade has had a positive impact on the company’s business because it lacks much direct exposure to China in its supply chain. At the April High Point Market, Bassett said uncertainty around tariffs led many buyers to lean on the company as a source of stability amid a chaotic business environment. (BridgeTower Media)

In June, the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority announced the award of a grant worth up to $200,000 to the Mountain Empire Community College Foundation from the Coalfield Workforce Development and Training Fund for workforce development and training. The grant will fund VCEDA region resident scholarships, tuition, training instructional costs, retraining costs and customized workforce training for area businesses. VCEDA has provided more than $1.2 million in total workforce development and training funding assistance to Mountain Empire’s foundation since 2018. (News release)

Almost million in state funding will help pay for workforce housing projects across the state, with about $8.6 million going to Southwest and Southside Virginia. Blacksburg, Bristol, Danville, South Boston, Washington County and Wytheville are six of the 10 Virginia localities that are slated to receive funding, each for a specific housing project. The awards are expected to create 740 workforce housing units in Virginia and leverage more than $254 million in private investment, according to the governor’s office. This funding is going through the Workforce Housing Investment Program, an initiative administered by Virginia Housing to increase the supply of this housing type. (Cardinal News)

PEOPLE

Clinton R. Hayes started July 1 as the next president of Southwest Virginia Community College, which is based in Cedar Bluff and serves the counties of Buchanan, Dickenson, Russell and Tazewell. Hayes comes from Kentucky’s Somerset Community College, where he was provost and senior vice president of academic affairs. He holds a doctorate in education at University of the Cumberlands and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Eastern Kentucky University. Tommy Wright, SWCC’s previous president, left in 2024 to become the Virginia Community College System’s senior vice chancellor for finance and operations. (VirginiaBusiness.com)