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byline: Jason Roop

Chantilly IT firm acquired by N.C. company

A year shy of its 30th anniversary, Chantilly-based IT services provider SolutionWorx has been acquired by WingSwept, a B2B tech services company based in Garner, North Carolina, the companies announced.

The deal, which became effective March 31, will allow the managed IT service providers to grow, and provide SolutionWorx with the resources of a larger organization. SolutionWorx’s location in the D.C. metro area added to the appeal, WingSwept noted. Terms of the acquisition were  not disclosed.

“We will be increasing our scale of expertise and range of capabilities while further diversifying our skillset,” said Jay Strickland, founder and CEO of WingSwept, in a statement, “enabling WingSwept to better support all of our clients, and to expand our potential to serve new markets.”

“Together WingSwept and SolutionWorx bring an aligned, employee-focused culture with the ability to serve more clients and employees,” said Mike Mazan, founder and CEO of SolutionWorx, in a statement.

The companies have worked together on projects, according to the announcement, and Mazan and Strickland have served as advisers to each other for more than a decade.

WingSwept, founded in 2000, made the Inc. 5000 list of the nation’s fastest-growing privately owned companies for nine of the last 10 years.

Urban Land Institute Va. chapter elects new chair

Chesterfield County’s director of community enhancement, Daniel Cohen, has been elected chair of the Urban Land Institute’s Virginia District Council and will begin chairing the district board on July 1, the nonprofit announced today.

The Virginia district serves more than 420 members in the Hampton Roads, Richmond and Charlottesville metro region, working to shape communities through land use decisions.

Cohen has held planning roles in Richmond, Atlanta and Orange County, California. He’s overseen Chesterfield’s community enhancement department since July 2018. After graduating from SUNY Oneonta, Cohen earned master’s degrees in sociology from New School University and urban planning from UCLA.

Cohen, who’s volunteered with ULI for more than nine years, will take over from ULI Virginia chair Sal Musarra, a senior land planner and vice president at planning and design consultants Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc.

Founded in 1936, the Urban Land Institute is the world’s oldest and largest network of cross-disciplinary real estate and land use experts.

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Blue Ridge Bank hires first chief development officer

Steve Farbstein has left his position at Cornerstone RPO to become Blue Ridge Bank’s first chief development officer, the bank recently announced.

Farbstein will be responsible for marketing, employee development and growing and maintaining lines of revenue at the bank, a subsidiary of Charlottesville-based Blue Ridge Bankshares Inc. — which completed a merger in February with Bay Banks of Virginia Inc., the parent holding company of Virginia Commonwealth Bank.

A graduate of the University of Richmond, Farbstein was vice president of business development at Richmond-based recruitment process outsourcing company Cornerstone RPO. He brings more than 30 years of experience, including serving as head of mortgage banking at Park Sterling Bank, now South State Bank, and StellarOne Bank.

Farbstein is a former chair of the Mortgage Executives Committee at the Virginia Bankers Association and the Richmond Mortgage Bankers Association. A longtime volunteer with the The March of Dimes, he recently finished a term as national chair of its volunteer leadership council.

Bank President and CEO Brian K. Plum called Farbstein a “principled, measured and thoughtful leader” in a statement.

“He has a passion for great culture, and his leadership will be invaluable as we continue improving upon our culture and business practices,” Plum said. “Steve will play a critical role in helping us unlock existing potential and capturing all that’s possible with our multiple business lines. His addition is a force multiplier for our team.”

Farbstein said in the announcement that he was looking forward to “playing a key role in Blue Ridge’s rapidly evolving brand and culture.”

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Va., Md., Del. electric coops association leader retires

Richard G. Johnstone Jr. handed over the reins of the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives this week, retiring after 36 years.

Johnstone served as president and CEO of the 76-year-old, Glen-Allen based organization, which represents 15 member-owned electric cooperatives. His replacement, Brian S. Mosier, was announced in January and took over April 1.

Johnstone, 65, also held the position of executive editor at the association’s magazine, Cooperative Living. As its longest-tenured member editor, serving from 1985 to 2005, Johnstone tripled the association publication’s circulation to 600,000. (By comparison, the state’s highest-circulation newspaper, the Sunday edition of The Washington Post, with 355,100 subscribers, according to the Virginia Press Association.)

Johnstone holds a degree in journalism and speech communications from the University of Richmond, where he served as editorial page editor of the student newspaper. He edited the Virginia Bar News for nearly seven years before joining Cooperative Living.

He’s led the association since 1999, and served as president of the National Rural Electric Statewide Editors Association and the National Rural Electric Statewide Managers Association.

In his retirement announcement, the trade association cited Johnstone’s work in growing the Gaff-n-Go Lineworker’s Rodeo into one of the country’s largest regional utility rodeos, creating a scholarship foundation that’s helped more than 800 young people, and opening a regional training facility in Fluvanna County in 2019, which provides continuing education to line workers, board members and other co-op professionals.

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Shenandoah Growers picks new COO

Shenandoah Growers Inc. has hired former Walmart executive Cameron Geiger as the company’s chief operating officer, it announced this week.

The Rockingham County-based agricultural products company says Geiger will help lead the company’s next phase of growth.

Geiger, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1989 — the year Shenandoah Growers was founded. He brings more than 30 years of experience in technology, automation and supply chain logistics.

For nearly 19 years, Geiger held a variety of leadership roles at Walmart. He served as senior vice president of supply chain services at Walmart U.S. and as chief information officer at Walmart International.

Shenandoah Growers says it’s developed the largest commercial indoor organic growing systems in the country, and is the largest certified organic indoor farming company, selling in most major U.S. retailers. Its line of fresh herbs and greens is sold under the That’s Tasty brand. The company recently announced an expansion of its transportation fleet, adding 15 dual-temperature trailers.

“Cameron’s wealth of experience managing and continuing to evolve one of the most complex and diverse supply chains in the world, day in and day out, and his reputation for transformation, technology-driven leadership is an exciting addition to the Shenandoah Growers team,” company President Phillip Karp said in a statement.

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PPP loans deadline extended to May 31

Businesses and banks received a two-month extension to apply for Paycheck Protection Program loans this week, as President Joe Biden signed legislation delaying the deadline for the latest round of PPP loans from March 31 to May 31.

This week’s extension takes some of the pressure off bankers and businesses, says Steve Yeakel, president and CEO of the Virginia Association of Community Bankers. So far in this 2021 round, he says, Virginia banks have written nearly 65,000 PPP loans totaling $4.49 billion.

This round of PPP loans is more targeted, with some additional challenges that come with second-draw loans, he says: “But at the end of the day, more money is getting to more people who really need it.”

Since the PPP loan program launched in April 2020 in the wake of the economic disruption caused by the pandemic, Richmond-based Atlantic Union Bank has processed 15,700 loans totaling approximately $2.2 billion — “the vast majority” of PPP loans in Virginia, bank president and CEO John Asbury says. Tthe program has brought more than 3,000 new customers to the bank since last year, Asbury says.

Atlantic Union has received a little more than 6,000 applications since the latest round of PPP began, writing more than $591 million in loans. So far, the SBA has granted a little more than 5,000 loan applications.

Atlantic Union stopped taking PPP loan applications March 19, but has reopened the process because of the extension. “The program keeps getting better,” Asbury says. “All changes being made are to the advantage of the borrowers.”

He and Alison Holt-Fuller, who runs the bank’s PPP program in her role as head of product and enterprise first line risk management, say some changes make the program more appealing.

Those include a more streamlined forgiveness process and the ability to take a second draw — including the potential for businesses to receive two draws in 2021, as long as the covered periods required by the program don’t overlap. They say another change is that businesses may apply for both a PPP loan and a shuttered venue grant.

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Maximus hires new Federal Services general manager

Government services company Maximus Inc. has named IBM executive Teresa “Terry” Weipert as general manager of its U.S. Federal Services Segment, the Reston-based company announced this week.

Weipert will replace Thomas Romeo, who is staying through July to help with the transition before he retires and moves to the segment’s advisory board.

When Romeo started with Maximus in August 2011, his division brought in $80 million of revenue. During the last decade, the federal contracting division grew its annual revenue to $1.6 billion. Romeo oversaw the acquisition of General Dynamic Information Technology Inc.’s contract center business in 2018, and most recently the $430 million acquisition of McLean-based Attain LLC’s federal division.

Weipert comes to Maximus from IBM, where she led its Healthcare, Life Sciences and SLED Public Markets units, the company said. She has also worked for Accenture, Sutherland Global Services and Unisys Corp.

Maximus CEO Bruce Caswell said in the announcement that Weipert will help with the company’s long-term strategy to expand its value to federal customers with citizen services and technology capabilities.

Founded in 1975, Maximus has 34,000 employees worldwide and is a Medicaid enrollment administrator. In the last year, it worked on a variety of pandemic-response services.

“Since the COVID-19 pandemic began,” Caswell said in a statement, “Maximus has been at the forefront of helping with the response, ranging from testing support, contact tracing and vaccine distribution to helping the IRS carry out the CARES and now American Recovery Act.”

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Virginia National Bank finalizes merger with Fauquier Bank

The parent company of Virginia National Bank announced the completion of its merger with Fauquier Bankshares Inc. today, creating a combined bank with $1.7 billion in assets and $1.5 billion in deposits as of Dec. 31, 2020.

The merger, announced in October, brings together Charlottesville-based Virginia National Bankshares Corp. and the Warrenton-based parent company of The Fauquier Bank.

Charlottesville will serve as the new bank’s headquarters, and the new bank will be branded as Virginia National Bank. Fauquier bank branches are expected to be converted in July.

In October, the banks said that the merger would allow them to serve larger corporate clients in Charlottesville, Warrenton, Winchester and the counties of Albemarle, Fauquier, Frederick and Prince William. The banks are also seeking to expand in the Richmond and Northern Virginia markets.

Glenn W. Rust will continue to serve as president and CEO of National Bankshares Corp. The former president and CEO of Fauquier, Marc J. Bogan, will serve as president and CEO of Virginia National Bank.

“This is an exciting moment in the history of Virginia National as we increase our ability to better serve the financial needs of our customers,” Rust said in a statement, “while also providing the opportunity to enhance profitability and increase shareholder value.”

Virginia National’s common stock, listed as VABK, will begin trading April 5 on the Nasdaq Capital Market. Fauquier shareholders are entitled to receive 0.675 shares of Virginia National common stock for each share held in Fauquier.

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TMEIC Corp. in Roanoke consolidates with Texas operation

The parent of Roanoke-based TMEIC Corp. is merging its two United States operations effective April 1, the company announced this week, naming Manmeet S. Bhatia president and CEO of the new entity, TMEIC Corporation Americas.

Dale Guidry is stepping down as president and CEO of TMEIC Corp. and into an advisory role until retirement, the company said. During his term, which began in 2007, the company tripled in size.

In 2011, Tokyo-based Toshiba Mitsubishi-Electric Industrial Systems (TMEIC) Corp. bought out GE’s share of the TMEIC General Electric joint venture, a move that also placed Guidry in charge of developing growth strategies and business plans for the corporation’s subsidiary companies in Asia, Europe and South America.

The new merger brings together TMEIC Power Electronics Products Corp. in Katy, Texas, and TMEIC Corp. in Roanoke, with the operations of both companies remaining at their respective locations, and Katy leadership reporting to Roanoke.

The company says the change is meant to combine technical and engineering capabilities, and improve efficiencies in sourcing, import-export and project coordination operations.

The Roanoke-based operation of the company designs and develops advanced automation systems, large AC and DC motors and photovoltaic inverters.

“The ongoing growth of our overseas operations and manufacturing capabilities, particularly in the U.S., is a critical component of our overall global growth strategy both in the short term and well into the future,” TMEIC Group President and CEO Masahiko Yamawaki said in a statement.

Bhatia, who lives in Roanoke, will lead the new U.S.-based operation. He served a variety of leadership roles at the Roanoke company before being named COO in 2019.

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Ashburn-based Telos Corp. names new vice president

Ashburn-based cybersecurity firm Telos Corp. has hired Troy M. Bertram as vice president to lead its global enterprise sales teams across state and local governments, education, regulated industries and commercial business verticals, it recently announced.

The company cited Bertram’s more than 25 years of experience in government and transformative technology companies. He’s a graduate of the University of Minnesota and earned his MBA from St. Edward’s University.

Bertram, a U.S. Army veteran, comes to Telos after serving as chief revenue officer of Saildrone Inc. He previously held management roles at Amazon Web Services and Dell Technologies.

“He will be instrumental in further developing our global business and channel strategy,” Telos Chairman and CEO John B. Wood said in a statement.

Telos went public with a $254 million IPO in November.

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