Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Summit for entrepreneurs planned for Danville

Two South Boston-based economic development organizations will host a summit for entrepreneurs and business leaders Oct. 19 at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville.

Launched by the SOVA Innovation Hub, a nonprofit working to drive economic transformation with digital skills and entrepreneurship, and RISE Collaborative, a regional initiative driven by a mission to build “a more inclusive and vibrant regional economy,” the inaugural Regional Innovation Summit for Entrepreneurs (RISE) Summit will offer skill-building workshops, speakers and networking.

“The biggest benefit of an event like this is really showing up and meeting your peers and finding out that the challenges of entrepreneurship that can be so lonely are really quite common, and there are so many resources available, not just locally but regionally and across the state,” says Lauren Mathena, director of economic development and community engagement for Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities, who helps with managing both the SOVA Innovation Hub and RISE Collaborative.

The roots of SOVA Innovation Hub date back to 2017 and the launch of Microsoft TechSpark, a program developed to provide greater economic opportunities and job creation in rural and small metropolitan communities. Organizers tapped Southern Virginia as one of seven communities across the country to receive help with needs such as job training, using technology to expand businesses, promoting computer science in schools, and expanding broadband.

Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities, a nonprofit middle-mile broadband provider based in South Boston, and Microsoft TechSpark went on to launch the SOVA Innovation Hub, which opened in downtown South Boston in 2021. The building provides space for coworking, training and includes a Microsoft Experience Center where individuals can try out digital equipment like the HoloLens, a mixed-reality device.

In 2021, leaders at the SOVA Innovation Hub and Longwood University worked together to establish the RISE Collaborative to provide training and networking to grow entrepreneurship and innovation in the counties of Halifax, Charlotte, Mecklenburg, Lunenburg, Brunswick, Buckingham, Prince Edward, Cumberland, Amelia, Nottoway, Patrick, Henry, Pittsylvania and the cities of Martinsville and Danville.

“It’s kind of always been part of the vision to host a large gathering, to bring people together in person,” said Mathena. Since both organizations formed during the pandemic, that goal got put on ice for a bit, but “now is the time,”  Mathena added.

Among the speakers at the RISE Summit, Natalie Hodge Davis, founder and CEO of Rudy’s Girl Media, a multimedia company based in Martinsville, will offer tips for finding small business funding. Jenn Kinne of Farmville’s Letterpress Communications, a provider of boutique marketing strategies specializing in serving rural clients, will talk about topics like how to make the most of budgets for social media advertising. Michael Scales, a business analyst for the Longwood Small Business Development Center, will talk about essential financial skills for entrepreneurs. Robin Allen, president of Birdie’s Pimento Cheese, which is based in South Hill, will speak on product development, scaling and expanding into new markets.

“They have multistate distribution,” Mathena said of Birdie’s, “And so trying to encourage more folks to really think bigger and dream bigger in terms of how they can go, for example, from our farmers market to widespread distribution is part of what RISE Collaborative  is all about.”

The RISE Female Founders Fund for Woman-Owned Businesses, which provides microgrant funding to female entrepreneurs in 15 localities in Southern Virginia, will award a $1,000 grant at the summit. Applications to be considered for funding are due Oct. 11.

Tickets to the summit, which can be found at sovarise.com, are $50 through Sept. 30 and then increase to $65. A limited number of student tickets and scholarships are available.

This story has been updated to correct an error about the SOVA Innovation Hub building. 

Hampden-Sydney College receives $20M pledge

Richmond-based Endeavour Legacy Foundation has pledged $20 million to Hampden-Sydney College, the second largest gift in the college’s history.

The college will use the gift, announced Tuesday, toward renovating its former science center, Gilmer Hall, into an academic facility housing the economics and business, and government and foreign affairs departments. The two departments are currently housed in Morton Hall.

According to a Hampden-Sydney spokesperson, the Endeavour Legacy Foundation gift will cover the construction costs associated with the renovation of Gilmer Hall, work that will start this fall with an anticipated completion of spring 2026. Morton Hall and Johns Auditorium are being considered for future renovation.

“On behalf of a very grateful Hampden-Sydney College community, I thank Endeavour Legacy Foundation for its generous support for our shared vision to make Hampden-Sydney one of the finest and most distinctive colleges in the nation,” Hampden-Sydney College President Larry Stimpert said in a statement.

The Endeavour Legacy Foundation is co-led by Katharine “Kathy” Pauley Hickok, the daughter of the late Stanley F. and Dorothy Pauley. In September 2019, Hampden-Sydney College received a $30 million gift from Stan Pauley. The gift supported the construction of a new science facility, the Pauley Science Center, which opened in August 2022.

Stan Pauley was the chairman and CEO of polyurethane materials producer Carpenter Co. and served on the Hampden-Sydney board of trustees. He died in 2020 at the age of 93. His wife and fellow philanthropist, Dorothy Pauley, died in 2021 at the age of 91.

The family foundation also supported Virginia Commonwealth University and VCU Health, including a $5 million donation in 2005 that named the VCU Health Pauley Heart Center. As of November 2020, the Pauley family had committed more than $28 million to VCU. Dorothy Pauley graduated from the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences in 1974.

Kathy Pauley Hickok serves as president/secretary of the Endeavour Legacy Foundation, and her husband, Eugene “Gene” Hickok, serves as the vice president/director of the foundation, according to its 2022 tax return filing. Gene Hickok served as U.S. deputy secretary of education from 2003 to 2005 under then-President George W. Bush. He graduated from Hampden-Sydney College in 1972 and was director of the college’s financial aid.

A private men’s college in Prince Edward County, Hampden-Sydney College first held classes in 1775. As of fall 2023, the college had 876 students enrolled, according to State Council of Higher Education for Virginia data.

Note: This story has been changed since publication to distinguish between the Endeavour Legacy Foundation and the Pauley Family Foundation. 

Meat processor to build $1.7M Prince Edward facility

A halal meat business, 5 Pillar Meats, will invest more than $1.7 million to build an abattoir and red meat processing facility in Prince Edward County, a project expected to create 12 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Thursday.

The new building, which will be located on a 3-acre site in the Prince Edward County Business Park in Farmville, will be nearly 3,000 square feet. It will provide processing services for Southside Virginia livestock producers, focusing on beef, lamb and goats.

The Prince Edward-based 5 Pillar Meats is an extension of Green Bay-based Abdus-Sabur Farms, which has produced livestock and vegetables since 1982, according to 5 Pillar Meats Chief Operations Officer Sekou Abdus-Sabur. This project will be the company’s first meat processing facility.

5 Pillar Meats will have two sources of meats: animals harvested in the facility and meat purchased from a local wholesale distributor, Abdus-Sabur said in a statement. Animals harvested will be halal, meaning prepared in a way that is sanctioned by Islamic law, unless a customer specifically asks that the meat not be halal.

The company, which will source its livestock from Virginia farms, will offer wholesale and retail cuts processing to restaurants, hotels, grocers and retail consumers, especially those seeking halal meats. The company will also sell fresh cut meats at its small on-site retail store.

“We are happy to have the opportunity to offer this service to small and large producers alike who have had limited access to USDA-inspected processing of their livestock. Now, both will be able to market to the public,” 5 Pillar Meats CEO Qadir Abdus-Sabur said in a statement. “Families, local restaurants, hotels and others can enjoy locally raised, harvested and processed meat/meat products. We look forward to serving our community.”

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services worked with the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission, Prince Edward County and the county’s Industrial Development Authority to secure the project. Youngkin approved a $50,000 grant from the Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund, which the county will match locally. The Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission is granting the project $75,000.

“I thank 5 Pillar Meats for their investment in Farmville and in Southside Virginia livestock producers,” Youngkin said in a statement. “This is the type of project that the AFID grant program was designed for as it creates rural jobs, encourages economic development and promotes agriculture, Virginia’s largest private industry.”

Electra’s hybrid prototype aircraft takes first flight

This story was updated Dec. 1.

A Manassas aircraft manufacturer that’s developing an electric short takeoff and landing (eSTOL) aircraft logged a significant milestone Nov. 19 when it completed its first hybrid-electric flight.

Electra’s EL-2 Goldfinch took off from Manassas Regional Airport and flew 23 minutes, reaching an altitude of 3,200 feet and covered about 30 miles, the company said in a news release.

According to Electra, the company’s two-seat Goldfinch eSTOL is the world’s first aircraft to use blown-lift distributed electric propulsion powered by a hybrid-electric propulsion system. It relies on eight electric motors to increase wing lift and enable short takeoffs and landings on soccer-field-size spaces. It is also quieter than conventional airframes, while emitting fewer pollutants. Its  turbogenerator can also charge the hybrid electric airplane during flight, eliminating the need for special charging infrastructure at every airport.

The Goldfinch was flown by Cody Allee, a former Navy jet fighter pilot who is now chief technology officer and chief test pilot at Maryland-based ABSI Aerospace & Defense, a provider of unmanned aircraft systems training and technology. Electra.aero Vice President and General Manager JP Stewart followed the Goldfinch in a Cessna 185.

Watching the flight was “the realization of a dream,” Stewart said. “The first flight showed that the airplane was stable, that it was controllable, that … the systems work great and are well understood in how we’ve modeled them, and now we start to expand that envelope,” Stewart said.

That expansion will include additional testing of different control inputs, including turning and pitching up and down, as well as flying at different speeds. While much of the first flight stuck largely between about 80 and 90 miles per hour, the aircraft can reach speeds of up to 200 mph; however, the emphasis should be on how slow the aircraft can fly, Stewart said. Unlike a traditional aircraft, it doesn’t require a long runway.

“That’s how you get into these really small spaces. The idea of what we’re pursuing with the short takeoff and landing is that you can start by flying from existing airports, and going airport to airport, because that’s known infrastructure … and you can replace aging airplanes and less efficient airplanes that are doing that mission already,” Stewart said. “Because you can get into these small spaces, as the market develops, you can start to land in vertiports or places that used to be the domain purely of helicopters.”

The Goldfinch flown on Nov. 19 is a prototype for a eSTOL aircraft the company is developing, targeted for commercial use by 2028, that can carry up to nine passengers or 2,500 pounds of cargo. That aircraft is intended to take off and land within distances as short as 150 feet and fly at up to 200 mph with a range of 500 miles, which could open up air travel to more regions while making it more affordable, more environmentally friendly and faster.

“The aim of Electra is to fill a gap in air travel between 50 and 500 miles, where most trips today are made by automobile. The key to saving time is to operate close in, which means getting in and out of small spaces quietly and safely, while still being fast enough to cover long distances,” Electra founder, CEO and Chairman John Langford said in a statement. “Electra will be able to take you from downtown Manhattan not only to [John F. Kennedy International Airport], but to Washington, D.C. It will bring air service to thousands of communities where air travel today is not a practical or affordable option. It also opens vast new opportunities for middle-mile cargo logistics.”

The Nov. 19 flight followed another that took off from the airport on Nov. 11; that all-electric flight was completed to test the aircraft’s electric battery system as a shakedown flight, Stewart said.

Electra has preorders from 30 customers for more than 1,700 aircraft, totaling a $6 billion backlog. In January, the company received an $85 million award from the Air Force to accelerate prototype development, testing and evaluation.

Langford founded Electra in 2020; the company has 40 employees and contractors. Langford previously co-founded Aurora Flight Services, a subsidiary of Arlington County-based Boeing. Langford also participates in the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation’s Advanced Air Mobility Alliance and the company in 2023 received a VIPC Commonwealth Commercialization Fund grant as well as an investment from VIPC’s Virginia Venture Partners. The value of the grant and award were not available.

News of the Goldfinch’s flight follows an announcement that Virginia has joined a collaborative with seven other states to expand the advanced air mobility sector. On Nov. 29, Electra announced that Bristow Group, a Texas based company that provides helicopter offshore energy transportation and search and rescue services globally to governments and the civilian sector, made a deposit for five of its future aircraft, which it will use to expand and diversify its portfolio. Bristow signed a memorandum of understanding with Electra in 2021, preordering up to 50 aircraft.

This story has been corrected since publication.

Hampden-Sydney receives $12M gift from alum’s estate

Hampden-Sydney College announced Tuesday it has received a $12 million gift — the second-largest in the history of the 245-year-old private men’s college — from the estate of a 1937 graduate and his wife.

The estate of M. Blair Dickinson Jr. and Sarah “Lucile” Lawton Dickinson bequeathed the gift to the college, which Blair Dickinson and his father attended. A lifelong educator, Dickinson was a high school principal in Fauquier County and in Florida, and he and his wife taught at American schools in Japan, Germany and Italy. He died in 1984 in Florida, and Lucile Dickinson died in 2019 at the age of 95. His father, Blair Dickinson Sr., was an 1892 Hampden-Sydney graduate who served on the college’s board of trustees, and the family includes many H-SC alumni.

The Dickinsons met as instructors at North Carolina State University just after World War II, in which Blair Dickinson was a naval officer and Lucile Dickinson served as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps in the women’s division of the aviation corps.

“Furthering their lifelong commitment to education, Blair and Lucile Dickinson’s incredible act of devotion and generosity will forever support the college’s mission and its academic program,” President Larry Stimpert said in a statement. “Let us all be humbled by, and grateful for, their lives of service to education and their decision to honor the college in their estate plans. Their generosity secures for them an enduring legacy in the storied history of Hampden-Sydney College.”

Subscribe to Virginia Business.

Get our daily e-newsletter.