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byline: Gary Robertson

More visibility

The number of women military veterans in Virginia now is about equal to the population of Roanoke.

Nonetheless, the service of many of these women is not noticed — by the public and even by some male veterans.

The Virginia Department of Veterans Services (DVS) is trying to change that while establishing a pipeline of highly skilled veterans and their spouses for the commonwealth’s workforce.

“First of all, we need to recognize that Virginia has over 100,000 female veterans —14 percent of the over 700,000 veterans we have. We are a significant number. So, first, we have to make everyone aware that we’re here,” says Annie Walker, a former Army drill sergeant who heads the Veterans Education Training & Employment section at the DVS.

Nationally, women represent about 8.5 percent of America’s veterans. Among veterans who have served since 9/11, however, women make up 17.4 percent of the total.

The percentage is rising because participation of women in the military overall is growing as they take on increasingly responsible — and dangerous — roles in every branch of the military.

Elected last November, Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, is continuing efforts pursued by his predecessors — Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrat Terry McAuliffe — to make Virginia the nation’s most veteran-friendly state. The state government hopes that, in putting down roots here, many veterans will join the civilian workforce, helping to fill skills gaps in a number of Virginia industries.

Northam, who served as an Army physician for eight years, is well acquainted with the needs of veterans and their families. It was not lost on anyone that, after taking the oath of office in January, he made the DVS his first stop on a tour of state agencies.

‘Yeah, we are veterans’
Evidence of the department’s increasing focus on women veterans is seen in two recent events.

The governor’s office proclaimed March 18-24 as the first Women Veterans Week in Virginia. That observance will become a permanent fixture on the calendar on the third week of March each year.

Also, Northam’s wife, Pam, and the wives of McAuliffe and U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine — Dorothy McAuliffe and Anne Holton — were members of an honorary committee involved in the annual Virginia Women’s Veterans Summit. This year’s event was held June 14 at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center hotel.

One of the people speaking at the conference was Vivian Greentree, a senior vice president with First Data, a credit-card processing company with 24,000 employees serving about 6 million business locations and 4,000 financial institutions in more than 100 countries.

Greentree, who lives in Northern Virginia, is a Navy veteran and a Navy spouse — her husband is still on active duty. She has been credited with increasing the portion of military-affiliated hires at the company from 1 percent to more than 10 percent.

One of her talking points at the summit: Women veterans should become more visible and “own your seat at the table.”

Greentree says women veterans, like their male counterparts, entered the military for patriotic reasons. “I wanted to serve my country,” she says.

Charlie Palumbo, director of transition and employment programs at DVS, says Women Veterans Week and the summit represent building blocks in the creation of a support system for women veterans.

She believes raising the profile of women veterans also is an important part of the global conversation about the place of women in society, especially in leadership roles.

“It just takes a group of women standing up together and saying, ‘Yeah, we are veterans, and we are women,’” she says.

Spouses’ employment
In sharp contrast to men, women veterans tend not to talk about their military experience, Palumbo says.

She speaks from experience. A Navy veteran, she also is the wife of a veteran. “A lot of men are like my husband. You’ll know he’s a veteran within the first 10 minutes of talking with him. But …  he’ll probably tell someone I’m a veteran before I do,” Palumbo says.

She and Walker say that, when they left the military, there were few resources to help women veterans transition into civilian life. “The system was set up for males,” Walker says.

But she adds that, with the support of the governor’s office and the legislature, Virginia has made great strides in recent years helping women veterans make the transition, either through landing a job or seeking more education. Support for veterans, Walker says, is a bipartisan issue for the state legislature.

Besides turning the spotlight on women veterans, the DVS also is looking at the problem of employment and underemployment among military spouses.

A 2016 national report found that the problem could be costing the U.S. economy $710 million to $1 billion annually. The report was based on a study commissioned by the nonprofit Blue Star Families, which supports military families.

Data from a 2010 analysis by the Rand Corp., a nonprofit think tank, as well as 2015 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, puts the military spouse unemployment rate in a range of 12 to 18 percent. The nation’s overall unemployment rate in May was 3.8 percent.

Being a military spouse often means a lot of moving, making it difficult to maintain a career or even find a part-time job, state officials say.

“You have a lot of spouses [with college degrees] who can’t find work, and they’re a huge asset and pipeline to Virginia,” Palumbo says. “Companies are starting to be aware of that. But it’s going to take a lot of educational awareness for both the companies and the spouse.”

Walker adds that, since the state’s goal is to keep more service members in Virginia when they leave the military, the needs of their families must be addressed.

‘Hire Vets Now’
While Virginia ranks 12th among states in overall population, it ranks seventh in its total population of veterans and fourth in the number of working-age veterans. 

The state’s initiatives have included the Military Medics and Corpsmen Program (MMAC), which has created employment and educational opportunities for medically trained veterans.

Thanks to General Assembly action, MMAC, originally a two-year pilot program, was scheduled to become permanent on July 1. The program provides qualified former medics and corpsmen with an avenue to achieve licensure and certification so that they can work for health-care providers. So far, the program has attracted about 40 applicants.

Besides reaching out to health-care providers, the DVS has been developing partnerships with major corporations and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce.

A new program with the chamber called “Hire Vets Now” is designed to match employers with transitioning military personnel who have job skills that companies seek.

Barry DuVal, the president and CEO of the Virginia Chamber, says more than 65 companies signed up for the program this spring. “This is becoming a model in the commonwealth for hiring veterans,” DuVal says.

With the state’s unemployment rate dropping to 3.3 percent in April, DuVal says, “You need everyone possible to fill the jobs that are available.”

He notes that in Virginia about 100,000 jobs are waiting for qualified applicants, especially in fields such as cybersecurity, information technology and health care.

Goal: 60,000 hires
The “Hire Vets Now” effort involves not only chamber members but also companies participating in the state’s Virginia Values Veterans (V3) program. 

DVS began V3 in 2012 when veterans’ unemployment soared following the 2007-09 recession. “The idea was that it was more beneficial and more efficient to train employers how to hire veterans than it was to train a thousand veterans to go look for a job,” says Ross Koenig, V3’s director.

In V3’s first year, the goal was to recruit and train 50 employers, but twice that number joined the program.

Since then, V3 has been on a roll. “We currently have 550 V3-certified organizations and another 650 enrolled organizations that are working toward certification,” Koenig says.

The number of veterans hired as a result of the program has reached 33,000 so far. Northam has set a goal of hiring 60,000 veterans before his term ends in 2022.

One of the recently certified V3 employers is Geico, the giant insurance company.

“The V3 program is going to be an outstanding resource for us,” says Steven Ludwig, the company’s regional military representative in Virginia Beach, who served 28 years in the Navy. “I expect to learn a lot on how we can expand veteran hiring, reduce turnover and apply the knowledge to our nonveteran associates as well.”

Ludwig adds that Geico not only employs veterans but spouses of active-duty military personnel. “They end up being really great hires,” he says.

Visit the Virginia Values Veterans website for a list of V3-certified companies.

AI advancements raise questions

The Three Laws
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
— From the “Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D.” in Isaac Asimov’s “I Robot” 

Published in 1950, Isaac Asimov’s classic science-fiction novel, “I, Robot,” anticipated today’s debate about the future of artificial intelligence, a field involving machines that can learn.

“AI” has become a buzzword as more devices are programmed to assist people and handle repetitive tasks. Sales of virtual digital assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, for example, are expected to reach $15.8 billion by 2021.

At the same time, some observers worry about workers being replaced by machines. Self-driving vehicles, for example, eventually are expected to eliminate the need for cab and truck drivers.

Virginia’s universities are involved in a number of research projects aimed at unlocking the potential of artificial intelligence.

They say it’s already a wild ride, with advances coming at a speed that they could not have imagined a few years ago. Ethical questions are coming quickly, too.

Milos Manic, a Virginia Commonwealth University computer scientist, raised questions about the future of mankind’s relationship with artificial intelligence at the 2018 International Conference on e-Society, e-Learning and e-Technologies (ICSLT 2018) in London earlier this year.

“How do you teach a computer to feel, love, or dream, or forget?“ Manic asked.

“Also, as [we enable] machines to think and learn, how do we ensure morality and ethics in their future decisions? How do we replicate something we do not understand? And ultimately, can AI explain itself and get us to trust it?”

Robotic peacekeepers
In fact, James Bliss, a psychologist at Old Dominion University, is examining the issue of trust between robots and humans.  He is completing work on a project, funded by a nearly $800,000 grant from the Air Force, which involves participants from a variety of countries.

“The U.S. military is interested in the feasibility of employing robotic peacekeepers. However, little is known about how civilian populations will react to such robots,” Bliss says. “The situation may be further complicated if peacekeeping robots are given the power to enforce their will when situations escalate.”

His project uses computer-generated simulations to gauge how people would react when confronted by a security robot. Variations include response to commands given by an unarmed robot, one with a nonlethal device (such as a Taser) or one carrying a firearm.
Bliss says countries differ in their approach to arming autonomous robots, which already are being used in a variety of security situations.

For example, robots used for security in private industry in the U.S. typically  monitor areas passively, Bliss says. But  an airport in China has a security robot armed with a Taser. “It’s really a shifting landscape,” he says.

Bliss adds that, while robots had a presence in industry for years, they now are more widely used, and they’re getting smarter.

As robots learn beyond their initial programming, he says, important questions will have to be resolved. Like humans, robots may make mistakes.

Another Old Dominion researcher, Khan Iftekharuddin, chair of the university’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is working with graduate students on a technology using thought commands to instruct robots to help the disabled with daily tasks or enter a danger zone to help a soldier.

Iftekharuddin says NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), which has frequently collaborated with ODU researchers, is particularly interested in developing the technology.

Sharing the wheel
At Virginia Tech, researchers have gained national recognition for their research on autonomous vehicles.

Azim Eskandarian, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, says the more than 30,000 motor vehicle deaths recorded each year in the U.S. are largely caused by human error.

“If you replace humans [in driving], you’re solving 90 percent of accidents. I believe autonomous driving will have a strong impact on overall safety,” Eskandarian says.

He also believes that the widespread deployment of autonomous vehicles will change transportation dramatically, possibly leading to less traffic congestion.

But he adds researchers face many technical challenges before autonomous vehicles see widespread use. Even then, he expects humans and machines to share driving responsibilities for a time.
Commercial transportation might be one area of shared driving responsibility, he says. Human drivers might give up some of their time behind the wheel to reduce fatigue.

Internet’s dark side
Bert Huang, who directs the machine-learning laboratory at Virginia Tech, says he has no idea what artificial intelligence in 2050 may look like, given the unprecedented pace of recent change.

“I am shocked at what has changed in the world in the last three years,” Huang says.

One of the concerns of scientists, Huang says, is that algorithm-driven systems are evolving faster than the scientific community can keep up. Scientists want to incorporate concepts like fairness, accountability and transparency in these systems.

“A few years ago, we thought of the internet as a wonderful tool to connect us. We could get to know everyone,” Huang says.

Instead, he says, scientists are finding that algorithms in social-media systems have the potential — through politically charged content recommended to users — to divide people into opposing camps.  

“People have been radicalized, because [the content] is more engaging,” Huang laments.

Robot-assisted surgery
At the University of Virginia, increasing the safety of robot-assisted surgery has become a research focus of Homa Alemzadeh, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Last year, 877,000 robot-assisted surgeries were performed across the country. But Alemzadeh and her colleagues also discovered more than 10,000 adverse incidents, with 1,391 cases involving patient injury and 144 resulting in death.

Alemzadeh says the role of surgeons and physicians will change significantly as robots become more prominent in medicine and patient treatment.

Although robotic surgical systems will handle many procedures, surgeons and other medical professionals still will be in charge of planning and monitoring treatments as well as programming the machines.

“This will actually raise several challenges and interesting questions in terms of ethical and legal issues, trust in automation, and safety validation and certification of future systems,” Alemzadeh says.

Asimov anticipated those types of questions when “I, Robot” was published more than a half century ago. He left it up to 21st-century researchers to find the answers.

Addressing #MeToo issues

Toppling like trees in a hurricane, many male executives in entertainment, media and other industries have been felled by allegations of sexual harassment.

The hashtag #MeToo has raised awareness about the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace, sparking a growing movement in the U.S. and abroad.

The depths of the issue were highlighted late last year in a poll by ABC News and The Washington Post. Fifty-four percent of the American women responding to the poll said they have received “unwanted and inappropriate” sexual advances, and 95 percent said such behavior usually has gone unpunished.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted early this year found that half of its respondents believed that “men getting away with committing sexual harassment/assault” was a major problem. By contrast, only 34 percent were equally concerned about “employers firing accused men before getting all the facts.”

At the same time, 51 percent of respondents agreed that the intense focus on sexual harassment has made it harder “for men to know how to interact with women in the workplace.”

The sexual harassment issue presents challenges for programs training business executives at Virginia universities.

1991 Senate hearing
Mary Gowan, dean of the College of Business at James Madison University, has researched the sexual harassment issue and conducted training for companies since 1991.

That was the year that law professor Anita Hill became a national figure. In televised confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hill ignited a firestorm by accusing Clarence Thomas, a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, of sexually harassing her. Thomas had been Hill’s boss at the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

When Thomas appeared before the committee, he vehemently denied Hill’s accusations, charging that he was the subject of “a high-tech lynching” by liberals seeking to deny a black conservative a seat on the Supreme Court. The Senate ultimately confirmed Thomas by a narrow margin, 52-48.

Gowan says that, after the contentious hearing, many companies began conducting sexual harassment training. But over time, many of these programs became “check-the-box” exercises, often using videos and other off-the-shelf materials.

In the past few years, however, many executives began to realize that many of “the issues we thought we had dealt with have not been dealt with,” Gowan says.

That realization, in turn, has led to more substantive conversations about sexual harassment because of the effects it can have on a company’s reputation and its bottom line.

When sexual harassment accusations are made, Gowan says, action must be taken quickly and correctly. “But make sure it’s not a witch hunt,” she warns.

Gowan says undergraduate business students are keenly aware of the Me Too movement. “It’s very much part of their vocabulary … women in particular are thinking about it,” she says.

Not a separate program
Some Virginia executive education programs address the sexual harassment issue as  part of existing programs.

“We have not had any executive education clients ask specifically about sexual harassment training, but the vast majority of our clients request communication training, and gender communication is part of that,” says Kenneth White, associate dean of MBA and executive programs at the College of William & Mary.

He says there is no universal approach to identifying and dealing with sexual harassment. That’s one reason why it’s a challenging topic.

“Despite it being awkward to discuss, silence is not an option,” White says. “Talking about it is a major step in the right direction, and that’s what we have done in our sessions with clients. It can’t be avoided. It needs to be met head on through conversation.”

Joanne Even, business development director of executive education at the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business, says that discussion of sexual harassment often intersects with conversations about behavior in the workplace, social intelligence and better working environments.

She believes that executive education clients may not be asking specifically for sexual harassment programs because companies already have programs designed to address the topic and enforce proper behavior.

Maury Peiperl, dean of the School of Business at George Mason University and expert in global leadership, says that different cultural norms come to bear on how sexual harassment is addressed throughout the world.

After more than a quarter of a century abroad, Peiperl observes that some other parts of the world — he cites Northern Europe and the Scandinavian countries — are ahead of the U.S. in promoting a culture of equal rights and treatment.

But he says the current heightened awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace has made it “an everyday issue for all organizations all the time.”

Another hot topic
Sexual harassment isn’t the only hot topic that executive education programs are addressing.

At a time when hackers increasingly are stealing information from companies, Peiperl says researchers at George Mason’s School of Business and Volgenau School of Engineering have taken “joint ownership” in finding ways to safeguard critical data.

Peiperl wants to develop more short courses, certificate programs and online offerings to provide executives with the training they require. “Being able to do things securely is the hottest thing going,” he says.

White of William & Mary agrees that “cybersecurity is huge,” especially as an open-enrollment executive education program.

“We just hosted [on March 16 and 17] a fantastic two-day conference with our law school,  ‘Another Day at the Breech: Cyber Intrusion.’ The conference featured experts from around the country along with members of our faculty.

“Large or small, protecting your digital assets requires an understanding of the risk and a well-considered, organizationally understood, and readily deployable plan,” White says.

UR’s Even says the university doesn’t run a cybersecurity program through its executive education program but has undergraduate and certificate programs that put the problems of cybersecurity more sharply into focus.

She says she hopes cybersecurity is  “top of mind” for every business executive.

Ashland mourns the loss of 137-year-old newspaper

In an era when newspapers nationwide are struggling to survive, it should have come as no surprise that a weekly in Hanover County would close abruptly.

But there was surprise and anguish when the Ashland-based Herald-Progress ceased publication in late March, after 137 years. “It’s a real loss for the community,” says Ashland Mayor Jim Foley, who moved to the Hanover town of 7,500 about 20 years ago.

Foley says he has no idea whether another community newspaper will take the place of the Herald-Progress or whether an existing publication might take over hyper-local coverage of the town and Hanover County. “[It] remains to be seen … that someone else will pick up the pieces,” he says.

Herald-Progress employees were informed two days before the final edition that the newspaper was closing. “We’re all kind of in shock,” says Betty Luck, a news assistant.

In addition to the Herald-Progress, a sister weekly, the Caroline Progress, which covered Caroline County and its environs for 99 years, also closed March 29. The newspapers had six full-time staff members as well as a number of regional correspondents and part-timers.

The papers were owned by Morristown, Tenn.-based Lakeway Publishers Inc., which has 22 other publications.

In identical messages in the final editions of the Herald-Progress and Caroline Progress, R. Jack Fishman, Lakeway’s president, says the newspapers were “no longer commercially viable.”

Four other Virginia weekly papers owned by the company, however, are doing well, says Steve Weddle, vice president of Lakeway Publishers of Virginia. The group includes three newspapers in the Northern Neck area — the Northern Neck News, the Westmoreland News and the Northumberland Echo — and The Central Virginian based in Louisa.

Tom Harris, Hanover County’s public information officer, worked for the Herald-Progress for 16 years. He laments the national cultural shift that has made newspapers, and print journalism generally, a tough sell.

“I grew up reading a newspaper,” the 60-year-old Harris says.  “But now I’m the father of children in their 20s, and picking up a newspaper is for them an old-fashioned way to learn things.”

Harris says that for his generation a local newspaper was like a member of the family and an important part of daily life.

“It was not just about going to a board of supervisors meeting or covering a court case. It was about knowing the people down the street and knowing their values,” Harris says, describing the role of a community newspaper.

Haute cuisine in a tiny town

An electric fry pan purchased at a yard sale for $1.89. A wood-burning cook stove. An unheated farmhouse with a big garden bought on time with a $48-a-month mortgage. A trove of old French cookbooks borrowed from a local library. A few dollars in the bank from working in restaurants, starting at age 15.

Out of those simple beginnings — and the later conversion of an abandoned garage — Patrick O’Connell, a self-taught chef, has forged an internationally acclaimed restaurant and lodging.

Each year, the Inn at Little Washington draws throngs of visitors from around the globe to Washington, Va., a tiny town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. With a population of less than 150, there’s no stoplight. It’s a place where locals say that on Main Street you’re as likely to see a John Deere tractor as a limousine, or nattily dressed wait staff balancing dinner trays on their way to a guest’s room.

A long list of luminaries have stayed at the Inn, including baseball great Cal Ripken, former Vice President Al Gore, actors Robert Duvall, Warren Beatty and his wife, Annette Bening,  and many of the Supreme Court justices, to name a few. 

This year O’Connell is celebrating the Inn’s 40th anniversary.  The theme, “A Magnificent Dream,” is indicative of his theatrical flair and will be carried out in a series of events in Virginia and France.  (See box, Page 40).

The Inn is O’Connell’s crowning glory. At age 72, the renowned chef and proprietor presides over an establishment that repeatedly earns top rankings from some of the most discriminating travel and dining groups in the world.

This year, for example, the Inn’s restaurant won AAA’s five-diamond rating — the highest possible — for the 30th consecutive year, longer than any other restaurant in the 80-year history of AAA’s rating system, a process that involves unannounced visits.

“To create an exquisite dining experience worthy of the highest praise in the land is an accomplishment, but maintaining that superb level of excellence for more than a quarter of a century is simply unmatched,” says Martha Mitchell Meade, manager of government and public affairs for AAA’s mid-Atlantic region.

AAA defines a five-diamond restaurant or hotel as one, with “Ultimate luxury, sophistication and comfort with extraordinary physical attributes, meticulous personalized service, extensive amenities and impeccable standards of excellence.”

A grandmother’s influence
O’Connell, who was born in Washington, D.C., learned his love of food from his grandmother. She lived in Wisconsin, where O’Connell spent his summers as a boy. He has only to close his eyes to return to her kitchen with its oilcloth counters.

“It was the kind of kitchen that had several cookie jars always full [and] a wonderful breakfast nook, which we have replicated here at my kitchen at the Inn,” O’Connell says.

“Outside the kitchen door was an old apple tree, a rhubarb patch, a strawberry patch and a couple of herbs, a little garden, a grape arbor that I used to read under.”

His mother’s talents, on the other hand, lay not in cooking but in entertaining. “There was nothing casual or thrown together in my mother’s world,” he says. “So, if we were having company, cleaning the house usually began two weeks prior to their arrival. And for several days before, a path of newspapers was laid down, and no one was permitted to step off of it.”

O’Connell says his first real job was at a hamburger restaurant on a main artery leading through Maryland. The chef, who studied theater in college before giving it up, says the culture of restaurant life made an immediate impression.

“I love the duality of the restaurant people behind the scenes and the illusion they maintained in what is now called the front of the house,” O’Connell says.

“It gave me the feeling of possessing a faculty that normal people didn’t have — that you could live in two worlds, that you could enter the world of illusion and [then] step back into the blood-and-guts zone,” he says.

Another experience that helped shape O’Connell’s career was a yearlong visit to France. There he found that food was regarded as art and celebrity chefs as national icons.

“I think you take all the influences of your life, put them in a big pot and stir, and the best rises to the top,” he says.

O’Connell and a former partner, Reinhardt Lynch, raised vegetables and sold them to health food stores in Washington, D.C., before they found a way to make a living an hour away in rural Rappahannock County, a place with no major grocery store.

Developing a following
“There was a network of 50 local families, the landed gentry, who loved to show off their magnificent spreads but were desperate when it came to what would they serve for food,” O’Connell recalls.

To fill that niche, he and his partner bought an old van for $150, cooked food they were raising on their farm and began catering parties, weddings and receptions — including one for former U.S. Sen John Warner when he married actress Elizabeth Taylor.

For waiters and waitresses, O’Connell would recruit members of the local hippie culture, put together uniforms from clothes he purchased at various Goodwill shops and train the staff on the fly.

In time, O’Connell and his partner developed a clientele and a reputation for the French cuisine that marked the parties they catered.

That would serve them well when they decided to open a restaurant in Little Washington, a community laid out by 17-year-old surveyor George Washington in July 1749.

At first, the prospective restaurateurs could not get a sufficient loan from a local bank. So they decided to go to a bank in a neighboring community, showing up without an appointment and asking for the president.

The bank president turned out to be a former guest at one of their parties, and he had had a fabulous time. “He said, ‘I can start you out with $25,000, if that would help,’” O’Connell recalls with a laugh, saying he still can’t believe his luck.

O’Connell and his partner subsequently rented a vacant gas station and garage in Little Washington at $200 a month, renovated the property and opened for business on Jan. 28, 1978, in the middle of a blizzard.

It was a difficult start. A month or so later, though, they were catapulted into prominence when a Washington restaurant critic, John Rosson of the Washington Evening Star, dined anonymously at the restaurant. The critic described the experience as a “tour de force.” Reservations began flooding in.

On opening day, you could have dined on scampi griglia a la pescadora (grilled shrimp) and escalope de veau au calvados (veal scallopini with French apple brandy sauce) for $4.95. Today, meals at the Inn at Little Washington go for $218 per person excluding tax and gratuity. Optional wine pairings from the Inn’s 14,000-bottle wine cellar are $125 per person.

Rates for lodging range from $395 a night for a standard room during the non peak season to $3,575 per night for a Saturday  in high season for one of the Inn’s most luxurious accommodations, the  3,600-square-foot Claiborne House, a private event venue that includes two bedrooms, two and a half baths, a full chef’s kitchen, library and media room.  Prices vary depending on the time of year and number of occupants. They include a welcome cocktail, afternoon tea, house breakfast and valet parking.

In addition to the main hotel, the Inn has a number of other properties that have been converted into sumptuous living quarters, with names such as the Gamekeepers Cottage, the Mayor’s House and The Parsonage.

The Inn also has plans for opening a café and bakery in what was the town’s post office with the hope of expanding the concept in other markets, according to Robert Fasce, its business and brand development manager.

New directions
In 2007, O’Connell split with his partner over the direction of the Inn and borrowed $17 million to buy him out, according to The Washington Post.

O’Connell says many observers predicted catastrophe, but the Inn instead began expanding, and its reputation grew with it.

John Fox Sullivan, a retired magazine publisher who is Little Washington’s mayor, says the Inn is crucial to the town’s economy.

“The Inn generates more than 80 percent of the revenues to the town,” through meals and lodging taxes, employment and the halo effect on other inns, restaurants and shops in the community.

Altogether, the Inn has more than 140 full-time employees and often has more than 200 on the payroll, with the addition of contractors for various construction and renovation projects.

Sullivan says O’Connell’s influence on the community goes beyond dollar figures.

“Patrick O’Connell came to this town with nothing and built up this enterprise into a world-class enterprise. He loves this town and loves this county. He’s very sensitive to what the town is all about, its authenticity,” Sullivan says.

Sullivan adds that O’Connell is gregarious and outgoing at the Inn, a posture that might hide a bit of shyness.

“He’s in his own world, and it’s a slightly different world. He’s always looking at stuff as if he’s the director of a movie — he never stops thinking about how to make the place better,” Sullivan says.

In keeping with his own roots as a farmer and purveyor of naturally grown food, O’Connell maintains a full-time “farmer in residence” at the Inn to produce a stream of fresh vegetables and other edibles.

In addition to two gardens, a greenhouse and cherry orchard, the Inn also has arrangements with local farmers who provide agricultural products, according to the Inn’s requirements.

The Inn’s future
While the Inn at Little Washington has been a boon to the community and the surrounding region, concern has crept in about its future. People wonder how much longer O’Connell will be able to sustain the long, stressful hours required of a lead chef.

“I don’t think the Inn is ever going away,” says Sullivan. “It comes down to who the new ownership will be.”

For his part, O’Connell, who has been called “the pope of American haute cuisine” in various publications, says people should not be worried because he’s not.

“Not only can it go on, it will go. And it will continue to evolve, as it is now. It is no longer dependent on one person; it is a culture that has been created,“ O’Connell says, citing a multi-generational workforce that is committed to high culinary and lodging standards, and whose talents have been forged under his tutelage in spotlight of food and lodging critics.

He said the question for 40 years has been, “What if I get hit by a bus?”

“So, for the last negotiation for a rather large loan, 12 bankers sat at a table and someone mentioned the risk factor and if something happened to me.

“And I said, ‘You know, I’ve been dodging buses in this town for 40 years.’”   
 

40th anniversary events

  • June 16:  Summer garden party on the grounds of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate. O’Connell will pay tribute to Washington — who surveyed the town of Washington where his business is located — with a dinner that re-creates the experience of dining at Mount Vernon in the 18th century. Tickets cost $2,500 each, and table sponsorships start at $25,000, with proceeds benefiting the Mount Vernon Ladies Association.
  • Sept. 2: The Inn will hold a two-day street party (Innstock) to celebrate former employees and chefs from the past four decades. The two-day festival with food, wines and music is open to the public at $250 a ticket, while residents of the town of Washington may attend at no charge. Proceeds will benefit the Patrick O’Connell Foundation, which supports culinary education and historic preservation.
  • Sept. 30: The capstone event acknowledges O’Connell’s early appreciation of French cuisine. He celebrates with a lavish party at the grand Vaux-le-Vicomte. The 17th-century French chateau near Paris was once the site of a banquet for King Louis XIV, and he plans a feast fit for a king. Tickets are $3,000 each, with proceeds going to a still-to-be announced historic French charity.

Recent awards presented to The Inn at Little Washington
For the second year in a row, The Inn at Little Washington was awarded two stars by the 117-year old, Paris-based Michelin Guide, one of only three restaurants in the Washington, D.C., guide to earn this honor. Two stars continues to be the highest ranking awarded to any D.C. area restaurant.

The Inn was named the No. 1 restaurant in The Washington Post 2017 Fall Dining Guide.

In 2018, the Forbes Travel Guide recognized the Inn with two Five Star Awards, one for the restaurant and one for the hotel, for the 29th consecutive year.

The American Automobile Association for 2018 bestowed its highest accolade — The Five Diamond Award — on the Inn’s restaurant for the 30th consecutive year. This puts the Inn in the top 0.2 percent of the more than 31,000 restaurants rated by AAA. AAA also awarded The Inn’s accommodations Five Diamonds for the 30th consecutive year.

New test for accountants

Gary Thomson graduated from college with an accounting degree in 1985.

Looming ahead of him was the CPA exam. Thomson and many other accounting graduates rushed to take the test before the far-reaching Tax Reform Act of 1986 became law.

“We all had a big incentive back in those days to get our CPAs out of the way so we wouldn’t have to be tested on the [1986] tax law,” Thomson says.

Now, more than 30 years later, accountants are being tested again — this time by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, described as the biggest tax overhaul since 1986.

Thomson, the Richmond-based regional managing partner of Dixon Hughes Goodman, says his accounting firm and others still are trying to wrap their arms around the new law. “We just don’t know all there is to know,” he says.

Additional information — on technical corrections, the lawmakers’ intent and the implementation of regulations — all will affect how the law is interpreted. “Until we see some of those regulations, people are going to be guarded about saying, ‘This is absolutely the right answer,’ ” Thomson says.

Challenges, opportunities
In essence, tax clients are looking for clarity from accountants who still are on a steep learning curve. Thomson says that dynamic is creating challenges and opportunities for the profession.

One challenge for accounting firms has been the time devoted to learning the intricacies of the tax law since it was signed into law Dec. 22. “If you look at the number of hours where people had to be redeployed from doing client work to doing this tax work … it definitely has impacted us” in terms of chargeable hours, Thomson says.

On the plus side, the new tax law has given his firm the opportunity to reach out to clients in helping them understand the legislation. That interaction has helped to build trust that likely will lead to more business in the future.

Another plus has been that many companies with their own tax departments have sought help from accounting firms in dealing with the crush of questions the tax law has created. “So, it’s an opportunity for us to get entrée into companies that wouldn’t normally outsource their work or ask for supplemental help,” Thomson says.

Questions at parties
Kelly Nakamoto, CPA, the mid-Atlantic tax leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC),  says that — because everyone from partners to first-year accountants are challenged by the tax law — it has created “a leveling” up and down the chain of command. “We’re all having to learn the new rules,” she says.

Although poring over tax legislation is not an awe-inspiring activity for most people, the level of excitement at the firm has risen as accountants scramble to understand the legislation, Nakamoto says.

In addition, she says, clients are asking for immediate help, placing increased pressure on tax practitioners while trying to deal with the stress of the current tax season.

If all that were not enough, Nakamoto and other accountants also say they have been fielding tax questions at social events. “The curiosity level of friends and families and other colleagues has absolutely heightened,” she says.

Easing the panic
Paul DiNardo, CPA, a principal with Wall, Einhorn and Chernitzer in Norfolk, says that in the closing days of 2017, just after the tax law was passed, requests for accounting advice suddenly spiked. Phones began ringing. Emails and texts surged. “What this law did was to put a number of our clients into a panic before year’s end,” DiNardo says.

Most of those clients had the same question, “How does this apply to me?”

DiNardo says that his firm had been following various versions of the tax bill through Congress. When the House and Senate reconciled their differences in the final bill, accountants scrambled to advise their clients on issues such as prepaying certain taxes and choosing when to make charitable gifts.

“Accountants are introverts by nature,” DiNardo notes. Leaving their offices to meet with clients required some accountants to make adjustments. The effort, however, was necessary to assure clients they are important. Many times clients will leave CPA firms because they don’t see their accountants often enough. They begin to think, “My accountant doesn’t care about me,” DiNardo says. 

Ryan McEntire, CPA, who leads the Lynchburg office of the Roanoke-based Brown Edwards & Co., says that with tax changes, “we get used to delivering both good and bad news,” he says.

While most of the news for clients is good under the tax law, sometimes it isn’t good, and every accountant has to be prepared for that.

“What I learned early is that anyone can bring a problem to a client, but clients like people who bring a problem and options for solutions,” McEntire says.

Offering resources
To help its members understand the tax law, the Virginia Society of CPAs has established a resource center on its website. It provides an overview of tax changes plus a list of online education offerings.

“In addition to the online resource center, the VSCPA held an in-person, tax-reform update seminar in January and had more than 600 attendees,” says David Bass, the society’s public affairs and communications director.

Seth Davis, CPA, a partner with Dixon Hughes Goodman, is the incoming chair of the VSCPA’s Tax Advisory Committee. In addition to helping Virginia CPAs, his group has been educating legislators on the possible effects of the tax law on the commonwealth and its economy.

Overall, Davis says, the law’s lower corporate tax rate could lead to more investment in Virginia. But, he adds, the stock market and other variables also could come into play.

What is certain, he says, is the new tax law is on people’s minds, putting accountants in the spotlight. That, Davis says, is a new experience for his profession. 

Lines in the dust

Former Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, an acknowledged student of Virginia’s history, recently offered a sobering assessment of the state’s local government structure and where it might be heading unless changes are made.

“Today, our local governments are experiencing some earth-shaking tremors. Some people now wonder whether there is a San Andreas Fault in our local governments’ near future,” Baliles said at the annual meeting of the Virginia Bar Association in mid-January in Williamsburg.

The San Andreas Fault is an earthquake-producing formation that runs for 750 miles through California, producing often-devastating shocks.

The “tremors” that Baliles referred to include financial stress recently experienced by cities such as Petersburg, Bristol, Martinsville and Buena Vista, as well as rural counties in Southern and Southwest Virginia.

In addition, he observed that several Virginia urban areas, while experiencing explosive growth, are finding they have inadequate revenues to match the needs and expectations of their residents.

Baliles took a lead role in a panel discussion sponsored by the bar association focusing on Virginia’s local government structure and the fault lines that are appearing with increased regularity.

“We are prisoners of our history to some extent,” Baliles said, in trying to get at the root of the recent problems.

In Virginia’s earliest days and for many years afterward, local government rested in the formation of counties whose boundaries were created by a simple rule.

“The courthouse had to be within a day’s ride on horseback within any point in the county,” Baliles said.

County boundaries drawn in the 18th and 19th centuries still exist, but along the way Virginia gave birth to a rare form of local government, 38 independent cities that are not part of counties.

Baliles said that Virginia’s counties and the independent cities operate different systems of government, often with different laws.

“Today, cities and counties are adjacent to each other providing the same level of services, and many cannot tell whether they’re in a city or a county and may not care,” the former governor said.

When regional problems arise — such as opioid addiction, transportation snarls or the pursuit of an equitable system of public education — the boundaries create barriers to possible solutions.

“If we have regional problems, we’ve got to have a regional approach. That requires us to consider boundary changes, which is a hard-rock political problem,” Baliles said.

He said that the governmental structure in Virginia is inefficient and out of date. “The current structure is costing us money and lost opportunities. We should have fixed this a long time ago, but we did not,” Baliles said.

One panel member, James D. Campbell, former executive director of the Virginia Association of Counties, said the recommendations from various groups studying regional cooperation often have lost their momentum when funding disappeared from the General Assembly.

He noted that annexation of parts of counties by various cities had caused frustrations leading to “temporary” moratoriums on annexation. The most recent moratorium on city annexations is in effect through 2024.

Baliles noted that annexation was once received favorably by cities and counties but over time had become an anathema politically. “It poisoned the well … of any semblance of regional cooperation between neighboring counties and cities,” he said.

Campbell said that a business-led economic initiative — GO Virginia — is the most recent effort to encourage regional cooperation.

The program describes itself as an effort “to restore Virginia’s position of economic leadership by growing and diversifying the state’s economy.”

R. Michael Amyx, retired executive director of the Virginia Municipal League, says the program tries to match job skills by regions, where economic development opportunities may differ.

Amyx said the first round of projects approved in December included a digital shipbuilding workforce program for Tidewater that could eventually employ up to 8,500 workers, drawing from all parts of the state and beyond.

Robert C. Bobb, CEO of the Robert Bobb Group, a financial turnaround entity and management firm for local governments (including most recently Petersburg), warned that Virginia is losing some of its financial clout as more residents leave for other states.

Bobb said that Virginians are moving into states to the south — such as North Carolina and Georgia — in high numbers.

Research indicates that the exodus has been prompted by retirees and younger people looking for better employment opportunities. But most important, they are seeking a way to lower their overall cost of living.

“They are less expensive to reside in than in Virginia,” Bobb said, speaking of metropolitan areas such as Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C.

Seeking talent

Richmond’s ability to attract talent contributed to it landing a major employer last year.

Owens & Minor, a Mechanicsville-based Fortune 500 distributor of medical supplies, chose Richmond for a client engagement center after considering more than 60 other cities.

Of the center’s projected 500 workers, 300 will be either new hires or employees transferring from the company’s various distribution sites. In addition, about 200 workers will move downtown from the company’s headquarters.

Cody Phipps, Owens & Minor’s president and CEO, said the company wants to attract talented workers.

Richmond's pool of talent is growing in part because of an influx of millennials, who soon will represent more than half the U.S. workforce. And millennials tend to want to work in cities such as Richmond.

Millennials have fueled a rebound in Richmond’s fortunes after seeing its population decline for decades. From 2010 to 2016, nearly 13,000 new residents moved to Richmond, increasing its population to an estimated 223,170.

With several colleges and universities in the region, including the more than 34,000 students at Virginia Commonwealth University, employers have a pipeline of college graduates for jobs in a variety of areas.

“Companies focused on a very young technology workforce are drawn to Richmond,” says Barry Matherly, president and CEO of the Greater Richmond Partnership, an economic development organization that serves the city and Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties.

Owens & Minor is not alone in tapping into the Richmond region’s workforce.

Thomson Reuters, an international media and information company, established an internal cybersecurity operations center in downtown Richmond last year with more than 60 employees.

‘Middle-office’ jobs
Another trend that has been rapidly developing is the creation of “middle-office” jobs, which in the past had been based at a company’s headquarters operations.

Middle-office IT jobs, for instance, can range from pay and receiving functions to research and analysis, software design and back-office operations.

“These are professional jobs, college-degree, high-paying jobs,” Matherly explains. “We’ve been focusing on the middle. We’re trying to evolve in that middle.”

The technology company that made the biggest splash in the region last year was Facebook (see related story on Page 17). The California-based social media giant is making a direct investment of $750 million in building a data center in the White Oak Technology Park in Henrico.

Hundreds of millions of additional dollars will be spent building solar facilities across the state to provide the data center with 100 percent renewable energy.

At build-out, Facebook is expected to become Henrico’s largest taxpayer.

Matherly says Facebook’s decision to locate in the region raises its profile in attracting other corporate prospects.

Auto-related cluster
In the Charlottesville region, Central Virginia Partnership President Helen Cauthen says that although there were no huge announcements last year, there was still good news.

“An atypical automobile-related cluster is developing in our region,” she says.

The charge is being led by Perrone Robotics, a Crozet-based company focused on software development for autonomous vehicles and robotics.

Last year, the company added 127 jobs, as the development of autonomous vehicles has become one of the hottest fields in the automobile industry.

Also in the automobile mix is Continental in Culpeper. In 2015, the company announced that it would begin investing significantly over three years in its Culpeper facility, which is focused on product lines providing stability control to motor vehicles, including the brakes and suspension.

Another element in the auto-related cluster is a vehicle research center in Ruckersville operated by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Among other programs, the institute evaluates crash avoidance systems in vehicles.

Also related to this trend is the Center for Applied Biomechanics at the University of Virginia, the nation’s largest, university-based injury biomechanics laboratory in the world.

It was started by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 1989 and now operates a 30,000-square-foot facility that analyzes how the human body responds to injury.
Lynchburg call centers

In Lynchburg, the big employment news of 2017 was the arrival of Convergys, a customer management company.

The Cincinnati-based company plans to create a call center in Lynchburg hiring more than 600 customer service representatives and other workers over three years.

Call centers are big business in Lynchburg. In 2016, Pacific Life Insurance Co. announced that it was going to establish a call center, with a staff that would eventually number about 300.

 

Central Virginia’s recent deals

Company Location #Jobs
Convergys Corp. Lynchburg 600
Owens & Minor 1 Richmond 300
Amazon.com Inc. Hanover County 300
Envera Health Richmond 122
Perrone Robotics Albermarle County 127
Facebook Henrico County 100
Thomson Reuters2 Richmond 68
2nd Life Inc. Richmond 66
IMPREG International Henrico County 60
Sigora Solar Charlottesville 50
1 300 new hires or employees transferring from various distribution sites. 200 employees also will be transferred from Hanover County.
2 Company has headquarters in another country.                        
Source: Virginia Economic Development Partnership, 2017

‘Project Echo’

For months, Henrico County officials worked in the dark, trying to land a major industrial client who preferred anonymity in negotiations.

“It was a dialogue that continued over 10 months basically, before they announced the project,” says Gary McLaren, executive director of the Henrico Economic Development Authority.

The wait was worth it. Facebook, the California-based social media giant, announced on Oct. 5 that it would build a nearly 1-million-square-foot data center in Henrico.

Facebook’s direct investment would be $750 million, with a total investment of about $1 billion by the time the multiphase project is completed in 2019.

The total includes hundreds of millions of dollars spent under an arrangement with Dominion Energy to create solar energy facilities across the commonwealth. The goal is to provide the Facebook data center with 100 percent renewable energy.

“The unique thing about this project is that they wanted most of the permitting in place and the agreements in place before they were willing to announce and close the order,” McLaren says.

To sweeten the deal, Henrico dropped its data center tax from $3.50 per $100 to 40 cents.

That tax reduction occurred before the county even knew who the client was. But in early discussions, when Facebook was known only as “Project Echo,” Henrico officials say it became obvious that their $3.50 data-center tax rate did not make them competitive.

“I look at economic development incentives this way,” McLaren says. “Would you rather have 100 percent of nothing, or 40 percent of something?”

It was not as though Henrico had pulled the 40-cent figure out of a hat. Forty cents per $100 was also the tax rate the county had levied on a former Henrico semiconductor manufacturer.

“We believe that at full build-out, this will become the county’s largest taxpayer. So, that’s pretty significant,” McLaren says.

The county has smaller data centers that now will pay the lower tax rate.

McLaren says the 40-cent tax also is a shout-out to other companies searching for the right spot to build data centers.

“I do think we got some people’s attention,” he says.

The Facebook data center will be built in phases on more than 300 acres in Henrico’s White Oak Technology Park.

The first phase, encompassing the 1 million square feet, will be operated by 100 employees and contractors.

In time, another three buildings are expected to follow. They will bring the overall square footage of the complex to 2.5 million square feet, with a potential full-time employment of 240 workers.

McLaren says that the 2,300-acre White Oak Technology Park still has room for other data centers and technology clusters. The county lists the available land at 1,292 acres.

From a data center operator’s standpoint, a selling point is the presence of two 230- kilovolt electric lines on the site. If something happens to one power source, the other would be instantly available.

At the time Facebook made its announcement, the governor’s office cited a 2017 U.S. Chamber of Commerce study that suggested a data-center project of Facebook’s size in Henrico could:

  • Employ up to 1,688 local workers during construction.
  • Provide $77.7 million in wages for those workers.
  • Generate $243.5 million along the local economy’s supply chain.

McLaren and other Henrico officials credit Dominion Energy with shepherding the project to the Richmond area.

To make the project work with renewable energy, Dominion and Facebook negotiated a special renewable energy tariff designated as Schedule RF and submitted it to the State Corporation Commission for approval. The tariff also will allow other large energy users to have access to renewable resources.

Moreover, the McAuliffe administration said that any renewable energy projects tied to the tariff would be built in the state, enlarging Virginia’s solar footprint.

McLaren says one of the important aspects of data-center operations is that the banks of computers they house are refreshed every three years or so.

That means the tax revenue of data centers remains constant, as new equipment is moved in to replace older equipment that has depreciated in value.

Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas likes to explain the county’s pro-business tax philosophy this way: The county tries to see how low it can go on taxes and how high it can go on providing services within those revenues. “It’s pretty straightforward, but it has been incredibly effective,” Vithoulkas says.

He notes that in the past few years the county has reduced its machinery and tools tax and its aircraft personal property tax by 70 and 67 percent, respectively.

Vithoulkas adds that new companies and new aircraft have more than made up for any tax revenues that were initially lost.

For residential property owners, he says, it’s a matter of pride in Henrico that the real estate property tax is 87 cents per $100, one of the lowest for large urban areas in Virginia. The rate has not been increased since 1978. 

Dog days

Some of Virginia’s best workplaces are going to the dogs.

Companies are allowing employees to bring their dogs to work. Executives say the practice reduces employees’ stress while helping to build morale.

At Charlottesville-based Crutchfield Corp., for example, dogs are a constant presence and have become a reflection of the company’s corporate culture. “We’re pretty quirky,” says Chris Lilley, Crutchfield’s chief human resources officer.

Allowing pets at work is just one of the many steps taken by the Best Places to Work in Virginia to make their offices more welcoming. Research has found that workplace stress is a major contributor to employee absenteeism, low morale and burnout, all of which can cause reduced productivity.

This is the eighth year that Virginia Business has compiled the Best Places to Work in Virginia list in cooperation with Pennsylvania-based Best Companies Group.

This year, 175 entrants vied to be named one of the Best Places to Work in Virginia. A hundred were selected for the list in three categories: small (15-99 U.S. employees); midsize (100-249); and large, (250 or more).

The Best Companies Group made its selections based on surveys conducted with the companies and their employees.

Employee surveys, for example, were used to benchmark companies on a list of core values: leadership and planning, corporate culture and communication, role satisfaction, work environment, relationship with supervisor, training and benefits, pay and overall engagement.

 

Founder fond of dogs
Crutchfield’s connection with dogs is — like its business — a reflection of the interests of its founder.

William G. “Bill” Crutchfield started the company in 1974. When Crutchfield planned to sell a Porsche 356 coupe, he was unable to find anyone to help install an after-market car stereo.

That gave him an idea for a mail-order, car-stereo business. Since then, the company has expanded to offer a variety of consumer-electronic products. As the company has evolved, its workforce has grown from one employee to about 600.

Crutchfield, which launched a website in 1995, claims to be the first retailer to sell consumer electronics on the internet.

But let’s not forget the dogs. Bill Crutchfield is a dog lover. A photo of him being licked by a dachshund is prominent on the company’s website.

Other dogs on the site, under the rubric “Crutchfield’s Furry Family,” run the gamut of breeds.

Just as Crutchfield evolved as a company, it has morphed into a dog-friendly environment. “It creates an informal atmosphere,” Lilley says.

Employees who bring their dogs to work tell him they are happier, and that positive attitude helps when the work starts piling up.

The company seems to be on solid ground in crediting pets with reducing stress. A number of studies, including one by Virginia Commonwealth University in 2012, have found that the presence of dogs in the workplace can make a difference in lowering an employee’s stress.

“On a daily basis we have dozens of dogs out here. They are really part of most departments,” says Kelly Greenstone, the company’s employee relations manager.

But, Lilley says, dogs don’t just roam the building. Some employees are allergic to dogs, and others simply are not dog people. They may be afraid of dogs and become nervous around them.

That’s where empathy and tolerance comes in. There are dog-free spaces and fur-free departments.

Employees also check with their cubicle mates and other co-workers before they bring in their dogs, Lilley says.

“That’s what I really like: watching employees take care of each other. It’s very self-policing,” he says.

Crutchfield also strives to relieve stress through a variety of wellness programs, including exercise and mindfulness classes.

The company also has a “gratitude board” where employees can post comments about what they are most grateful for.

But it’s the presence of dogs that gets everyone’s attention.

Sticking to the stairs 
Crutchfield is not the sole company on the Best Places to Work list using dogs to lower workplace stress.

Centreville-based Carfax brags about its dogs in the Best Places to Work survey.  The company provides vehicle history information for buyers and sellers of used cars.

“Dogs are great stress relievers,” the company says in the survey. “Having dogs in the office creates excitement and a loving environment. Some of our dogs come dressed in a different outfit every day — people can’t wait to see what they’re wearing.”

Adrienne Webster, vice president of human resources at Carfax, says dogs also provide their human handlers with a health benefit. Walking the dog helps to keep the owner fit.

Webster says that the company’s employee handbook emphasizes “no jerks” in the workplace. The same policy applies to dogs. Employees are responsible for making sure their pets are well behaved.

“Dogs aren’t allowed on elevators. They have to take the stairs,” is one of the company rules that Webster says help keep dogs in line. “We haven’t had any incidents,” of misbehaving dogs, she adds.

Flexible schedules
Allowing pets in the office is not the only way to keep stress under control.

For example, Virginia Distillery Co. in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Nelson County uses flexible scheduling to permit employees to handle personal concerns, such as attending a child’s school event or keeping a doctor’s appointment.

Having that flexibility is important to employees who are working to build the company’s brand.

At the World Whiskies Awards last year, one of the distillery’s products was named the Best American Single Malt Whisky.

Meanwhile, the distillery’s flagship American Single Malt is still aging, with a release date set for 2019.

In addition to its flexible scheduling, the company also does well by doing good. Its community projects include volunteering at the local food pantry and producing a special single-barrel release of whisky whose proceeds went to the Nelson County first-responder teams.

The company’s CEO, Gareth H. Moore of Charlottesville, says Nelson was chosen for the distillery for a compelling reason.

“Nelson County has a long tradition of manufacturing craft beverages — we are surrounded by great businesses like Devil’s Backbone brewery, Bold Rock cidery and a plethora of wineries.  The community has a heritage of building these industries locally to create world-class products and also a culture of hospitality in welcoming people to their facilities to experience their products in person,” Moore says.

Pajamas and flip-flops
Sometimes you can reduce workplace stress by the clothes you wear. That’s one of the practices followed by Health Quality Innovators (HQI) in Richmond.

Employees, for example, are permitted to wear shorts to work when the temperature gets above 90 degrees in the summer, and the company celebrates National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day, which will be held April 16 this year.

“We wear business-like pajamas. It’s a lot of fun,” says Jenni Brockman, vice president, organizational growth and communications for the nonprofit, health-care quality consulting firm.

Brockman says the company strives to be creative in coming up with innovative ideas that help health-care providers and patients.

Some of the company’s creativity exercises for employees also involve  clothing. For example, HQI held a contest in which employees were invited to create their own flip-flops.

One employee developed small, blow-up pools for flip-flops; another created platform-shoe flips-flops. The big winner was flip-flops made out of bacon.

“We try to have fun. It goes a long way toward relieving stress,” adds Heidi White, the company’s director of human resources.

Finding the right dress
Sometimes customers’ tension can trigger employees’ stress. That’s an issue that Ashley Kimberl tries to address.

Kimberl is president of All the Rage Stores, a special occasion dress shop that has locations in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.

In addition, she operates a prom and bridal business, Studio I Do. Customers include brides searching for wedding gowns and teenage girls looking for prom dresses.  Finding the right look can be stressful for employees as well as customers.

Kimberl lowers the tension for employees by using a team approach to sales, “so they don’t have a bunch of quotas.”

In hiring for her sales team, she looks for people who are not only outgoing but are also adaptable.

“We have to be chameleons,” she says. “A big part of our training is talking about how you have to be able to mold yourself to every customer’s needs and wants.”

To boost employee morale, Kimberl holds staff meetings outside the shop and buys employees coffee or lunch.

Sometimes she splurges on stress relief. “We had a spa day. Everybody got their nails and feet done,” she says. “It was great.”

 

Virginia Business Best Places to Work 2017

Best Places to Work Multiple Year Winners

Top Small Employer: Macedon Technologies and List of small employers

Top Midsize Employer: Chesbay Distributing and List of midsize employers

Top Large Employer: Accounting Principals and List of large employers

Related story:

Positions with perks
Employers explore a variety of ways to keep workers happy
by Gary Robertson

Please enjoy a gallery of photos from our Best Places to Work awards luncheon.  If you would like a copy of your company's photo, please contact Adrienne R. Watson at [email protected] with the photo number.