Recent Articles from Kira Jenkins
Boeing will move global HQ to Arlington
The Boeing Co., the world’s third-largest defense contractor, is moving its global headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, the company announced May 5. With more than 141,500 employees worldwide and operations in more than 65 countries, the aerospace and defense company will be the largest defense contractor headquartered in Virginia. Boeing already employs 400 people at its […]
Gift of a lifetime
For Dr. Todd Stravitz, February was an opportune time to make the largest gift in the history of Virginia Commonwealth University — a $104 million donation to support liver research. The retired medical director of VCU Health’s Hume-Lee Transplant Center, Stravitz is an heir to the Boar’s Head Provisions Co. Inc. fortune. His mother, Barbara […]
The gift givers
While 2020 represented a significant year for philanthropic shifts toward social and racial justice causes, 2021 and early 2022 have seen a return to traditional giving, with many of Virginia’s largest donations benefiting universities, medical research and the arts. Donations to Virginia institutions — topped by a $104 million gift in February from Dr. […]
Interesting times
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes, according to an apt but apocryphal quote frequently misattributed to Mark Twain. We’re certainly seeing that dynamic writ large in the 2020s, though events don’t seem content with reviving just one era. A deadly pandemic has taken millions of lives across the globe. Inflation and mortgage rates […]
Something phishy
About seven or eight years ago, I was sitting at my desk one morning when I received an urgent text from my then-boss. She was holding a meeting, according to the text, and needed me to purchase $1,000 in electronic gift cards as a giveaway to the attendees as soon as possible. Needless to say, […]
Civica to produce lower-cost insulin
Civica Rx, a nonprofit generic drug-maker with a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant under construction in Petersburg, plans to produce three forms of insulin priced at $30 per vial beginning in early 2024, a project that dovetails with a bill in Congress that would cap consumers’ out-of-pocket insulin costs. Civica’s 140,000-square-foot, $124.5 million Petersburg production facility will [&hel[...]
Rising to the challenges
Last summer, as I was eating dinner at a Norfolk bar with a group of my Lead Virginia classmates from far Southwest Virginia, one of them asked what decision makers in Richmond thought about their region. “Most of them don’t think about it at all,” I replied bluntly and not a little sadly. During my […]
Code red
Although many business sectors focused on moving on from the COVID-19 pandemic once vaccines became broadly available in 2021, Virginia’s health care industry has remained heavily burdened by continuing caseload surges and extreme staffing shortages. In September 2021, Gov. Ralph Northam voiced frustration at a news conference, saying, “It’s getting to the point where we […]
The great rethink
As we enter Year 3 of the COVID-19 pandemic, the overwhelming question has become less, “When will we return to normal?” and more, “What do we want ‘normal’ to look like?” A year ago, as COVID-19 vaccines became more broadly available, many of us thought life in 2022 would be a lot more like 2019. […]
The big crunch
Although the “Great Resignation” is hitting other industries harder, Virginia law firms are experiencing a tight labor market while also seeing increased demand for services. Alison McKee, a past president of the Virginia Bar Association and an attorney at Kaufman & Canoles PC in Virginia Beach, notes that “2021 was the busiest year in a […]