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byline: Jessica Sabbath

Vandeventer Black partner named president of the Norfolk and Portsmouth Bar Association

Vandeventer Black partner James R. Harvey has been named president of the Norfolk and Portsmouth Bar Association.

He has been on the association’s board since 2011 and served as the head of its charitable foundation.

Harvey serves as the chair of the Norfolk Board of Zoning Appeals, and is a past chair of the Virginia Bar Association's Construction and Public Contracts Section.  He also is the chairman of the board of directors for the Tidewater Aquatic Club, which promotes competitive youth swimming.

Harvey’s professional career includes experience in construction, surety, government contracts, land use, defective products, professional liability and business disputes. He served on active duty as a U.S. Army officer and in the Virginia National Guard.

Bedford’s first brewery will open on June 24

Beale’s, the first brewery in the town of Bedford, plans to open on June 24. The 12,000-square-foot facility at 510 Grove St. includes a 30-barrel production brewery, taproom and kitchen.

Beale’s also will have a barbecue restaurant with an indoor capacity of 86 people and an outdoor area with seating for 60.

The $2 million project is expected to create 30 jobs.

It has been in the works since October 2015 when Waukeshaw Development approached Bedford County and town officials about the idea of bringing a brewery to Bedford. Based in Petersburg, Waukeshaw focuses on historic tax credit developments and was the force behind Petersburg’s Trapezium Brewing Co.

The Beale’s project involved a combination of state and federal historic tax credits, along with a $600,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Community and Housing Development’s Industrial Revitalization Fund. “We’ve enjoyed a great partnership with the state and the town of Bedford on this project,” Dave McCormack, president of Waukeshaw Development, said in a statement. “We’re looking forward to seeing those efforts come to life when Beale’s opens later this month.”

Beale’s name comes from a local legend of treasure that some believe was buried in Bedford by Thomas Jefferson Beale back in the 1820s.

The brewery’s flagship beer will be Beale’s Gold, a lager. In addition to lager-style beers, other options will include IPAs and fruit beers. Beale’s plans to distribute its beer locally starting this summer and eventually expand distribution statewide.
Bedford native James Frazer will serve as the facility’s brewmaster. Jared Srsic, the local restauranteur behind Town Kitchen & Provisions and Millstone Tea Room, will lead the taproom’s barbecue program.

Dollar Tree announces promotion

Dollar Tree Inc. announced it has promoted Michael A. Witynski to president and chief operating officer of its Dollar Tree store segment.

Witynski will be responsible for merchandising and marketing and store operations for more than 6,200 Dollar Tree  stores in the United States. A Dollar Tree veteran, Mr. Witynski has served as chief operating officer since July 2015, and he previously served as senior vice president of stores since joining Dollar Tree in 2010.

Prior to joining Dollar Tree, he held executive leadership positions at Shaw’s Supermarkets and Supervalu Inc. Mr. Witynski will continue to report to Gary Philbin, Enterprise President.

SAIC names COO

Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) has appointed Nazzic S. Keene chief operating officer.

The move expands Keene’s roles to include both COO and president of the Global Markets & Missions Sector. The change is effective immediately.

As sector president, Keene’s responsibilities have included customer relationship management, growing the company’s strategic business pipeline, driving growth, and overseeing program execution across the company.

As COO, her expanded portfolio will include the Services & Solutions Sector and the functional responsibilities of communications, contracts & pricing, information technology, and procurement.

Keene joined SAIC in August 2012 as senior vice president for corporate strategy and planning. She played a key role in the spinoff of SAIC from its former parent company in September 2013.

Before joining SAIC, she was the senior vice president and general manager for U.S. Enterprise Markets at CGI Group Inc. and led the company’s U.S. expansion. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona.

SAIC relocating headquarters to Reston

SAIC is moving its headquarters from McLean to Reston.

The information technology company will occupy the building previously occupied by Scitor Corp., which SAIC acquired in 2015. The building is located at 12010 Sunset Hills Road and the move will take place July 1.

The move is part of an effort to increase efficiencies and consolidate SAIC’s office leases in the Washington area.

SAIC has been leasing its current space in McLean since July 2013, when the Meridian Group purchased it from SAIC’s former parent company. SAIC’s lease in McLean expires in 2020. SAIC’s lease for the Reston facility expires in 2022.

SAIC will continue to occupy several floors in its McLean location at 1710 SAIC Dr., which effective July 1, will officially become 1785 Greensboro Station Place. The address is changing at the request of the property owner, the Meridian Group.

Virginia Tech tests NASA traffic management system for unmanned aircraft

This week Virginia Tech tested a traffic management system designed to help multiple unmanned aircraft navigate the air space safely.

The research was part of a national campaign to study the system, which was developed by NASA.

A traffic management system could be key in helping grow the commercialization of unmanned vehicles. The system evaluates flight plans, monitors aircraft in flight and alerts users to changes or potentially hazardous situations.

“Being able to handle that kind of volume safely and efficiently will determine whether a lot of the UAS applications in development will be commercially viable over the long term,” Mark Blanks, the director of the Virginia Tech Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership, which operates the university’s Federal Aviation Administration-designated UAS test site, said in a statement.

The test flights in Blacksburg were designed to mimic what operators might encounter if widespread commercial UAS flights beyond line of sight become commonplace.

Multiple aircraft carried out a variety of simulated missions simultaneously, using different software interfaces to communicate with NASA’s central cloud-based platform and respond to changes in the airspace.

The testing builds on research conducted last year. This year added more logistical and operational challenges to more closely mimic a real-world scenario.
This year also saw increased participation from commercial partners. Virginia Tech worked with ANRA Technologies, Aviation Systems Engineering Co. Inc., Fortem Technologies, Intel Corp., and Project Wing.

Deloitte names federal technology leader

Deloitte announced that Nishita Henry, a principal of Deloitte Consulting LLP, has been named federal technology leader.

Henry will lead more than 3,000 practitioners, working with federal agencies to transform and modernize technology systems with an emphasis on applications, cloud, analytics and system operations.

Henry was Deloitte’s federal innovation leader and prior to that was technology strategy and architecture leader.

Throughout her career, Henry has led Deloitte’s work at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, transforming business and technology from the production floor to the back office. Henry’s experience also includes leading the work at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to create new ways for industry to interact with FDA and improve drug quality efforts.

Her most recent work has been leading the modernization of a travel distribution platform in the cloud for a public transportation company.

Henry holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

CIBT Global purchased by private equity firm

CIBT Global Inc. has been acquired by Kohlberg & Co. LLC, a private equity firm in New York.

Kohlberg bought the McLean-based company from ABRY Partners.

Based in McLean, CIBT employs nearly 1,300 employees in 15 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and the Netherlands.

The company provides travel visa and immigration services to corporations, travel management companies and individuals.

“CIBT is the clear market leader in travel visa and immigration services, providing a full suite of mission-critical services to blue-chip clients across the world,” Ahmed I. Wahla, a Kohlberg partner, said in a statement. “We are very pleased to be partnering with CIBT’s management team and its dedicated, worldwide employee base, and we look forward to supporting the company’s future growth initiatives.”

Credit Suisse and William Blair served as financial advisers and Kirkland & Ellis served as legal counsel to CIBT. Ropes & Gray served as legal counsel to Kohlberg. Antares Capital, Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, and Owl Rock led the debt financing for the transaction.

HII delivers aircraft carrier to Navy

The Navy has accepted delivery of the future USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier in Newport News.

Delivery followed the ship's successful completion of acceptance trials on May 26.

Ford is the lead ship of its class and the first new-design aircraft carrier delivered to the Navy since USS Nimitz in 1975. Ford is also the first aircraft carrier to join the fleet since USS George H. W. Bush in 2009.

More than 5,000 shipbuilders in Newport News and thousands of suppliers across the United States contributed to the construction of the ship.

The Fordclass features a new nuclear power plant, a redesigned island, electromagnetic catapults, improved weapons movement, an enhanced flight deck capable of increased aircraft deployment rates, and growth margin for future technologies. Each Ford-class ship will operate with a smaller crew than a Nimitz-class carrier, according to HII.

Ford will be commissioned into the fleet this summer, formally placing the ship into active service. After that, there will be a “shakedown” period where the ship will conduct several at-sea events to provide longer underway periods for the ship's crew to operate and train on its systems. In addition, planned deferred work will be performed, and any deficiencies identified during trials will be addressed during in-port periods.

Ford is expected to be operational in 2020.

On the go

A new economic initiative took up only a few lines in this year’s budget bill, but its impact is galvanizing hundreds of business leaders around Virginia.

Momentum behind the Virginia Initiative for Growth and Opportunity in Each Region  — GO Virginia — is accelerating rapidly. The initiative encourages regional cooperation on economic development projects ranging from joint site development to workforce programs aimed at closing the skills gap.

GO Virginia was created by legislative framework in the 2016 General Assembly session and survived the budget ax in a year when the state government was facing a $1.25 billion shortfall.  

The program will receive $28 million in the current two-year budget. That is down from $36 million the program was slated to receive last year. Gov. Terry McAuliffe originally had proposed cutting $15 million from last year’s funding plan, but the General Assembly restored half of that, $7.5 million. “We’re creating more higher paying jobs and incentivizing collaboration, primarily from out-of-state revenue, to diversify the economy in every region of the commonwealth,” says John “Dubby” Wynne, chairman of the 24-member GO Virginia board, which will oversee grants distributed by the program.

Work on the program is escalating quickly. This spring, more than 300 people attended the GO Virginia Orientation Conference in Richmond. Nine regional councils, which were certified by the GO Virginia board in April, are preparing funding requests to develop regional economic diversification plans that will govern how the program’s money is spent.

These councils, 15 to 27 members each, read like a who’s who of business leaders around the state, including K-VA-T Food Stores CEO Steve Smith, Carilion Clinic President and CEO Nancy Agee, lawyers Tom Frantz of Williams Mullen and Richard Cullen of McGuireWoods, Northern Virginia Community College President Scott Ralls and Bill Goodwin, chairman emeritus of CCA Industries Inc.

The regional priority plans will be submitted to the GO Virginia board starting in late summer for approval. “We’re going to use those priorities outlined in those plans — which are deep-thinking and data-driven — as the milestones against which every grant submission should be judged,” says Wynne.

After that, localities can begin to apply for grants.  “I think GO Virginia legislation could be the most transformational legislation to help economic competitiveness in 20 years,” says Barry DuVal, president and CEO of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce. The chamber plans to incorporate the regional plans into its Blueprint Virginia 2025, a business plan for the commonwealth that the group is updating.

“The fact that cities and counties don’t grow along political boundaries is being recognized,” says DuVal. “Cities and counties grow along economic boundaries.”

So what programs are likely to be funded? “Creativity is the only limitation here,” says Wynne.

Under the program, localities can work together to apply for grants on projects aligned with plans developed by the regional councils. The projects likely will fall into efforts such as workforce development, business incubators and accelerators, joint site development and scale-up programs for small and midsize businesses. The legislation specifies that early efforts should be placed on addressing skills gaps in the workforce.

Grant requests must come from at least two localities and provide non-state funding that is at least equal to what the grants are seeking from the state. Waivers can be granted for applicants from economically distressed areas that would require projects to match only 50 percent.

GO Virginia grants will be administered from two pots of money. About $11 million will be divided among the nine regions based on population. Projects will compete against one another for another statewide pot of $11 million. All grants will need to be approved by both the regional council and the GO Virginia board. They will be scored against a regional council’s diversification plan and evaluated on economic impact, non-state financial contributions, number of localities involved, compatibility with existing programs and project savings anticipated.

Grants may assist existing programs if they expand to additional localities, or they broaden their scope.

Another legislative action from 2016 will encourage localities to work together to secure major investments in the commonwealth. The Virginia Collaborative Economic Development Act encourages localities to collaborate in attracting major investment from companies. The law allows localities, who can show they worked jointly on attracting a project to the region, to receive up to 45 percent of personal income taxes generated from the new jobs for six years.

That legislation applies to projects creating at least 200 jobs paying above the median wage for a region and a capital investment of at least $25 million.  A provision in the law allows requirements to be lowered to 25 new jobs and $1 million of capital investment in cases of fiscal distress or “extraordinary economic opportunity” for the localities.  “That’s the first time the cities and localities have had an interest in creating jobs together,” says Wynne. “That’s why they’ve always fought over the years on who gets the property taxes.”

The GO Virginia board will determine whether the localities can receive the grants.

Another related bill from 2016 created the Virginia Research Investment Committee, which will oversee grants made to help commercialize research at universities. Four members of GO Virginia’s board will serve on the committee.

GO Virginia is unique. When developing the legislation, GO Virginia supporters studied smaller regional initiatives  in Georgia, Indiana, Michigan and Colorado. “These states had pieces of programs that were instructive to our thinking,” says Christopher Lloyd of McGuireWoods Consulting. “We cobbled together some good ideas from each of those and put a Virginia stamp on it.”

Already, other states are interested in Virginia’s regional approach.

“This is a bottom-up approach based on regional priorities,” says Wynne. “The beauty of this is that, for the first time, the state is asking each region to identify its priorities and then saying, ‘Ok, you are in charge of getting this done. We’ll help you, but you’re in charge.’”