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byline: Joan Tupponce

Danville grapples with Ikea plant closure

The closing of Danville’s Ikea plant at the end of the year is terrible news for its employees, but the mood in the city is not as heavy as it was when Danville’s textiles and tobacco industries collapsed in the 1990s.

The Swedish furniture manufacturer’s 300 local employees will be able to work until production ends in December, and the company is working with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union and federal, state and local agencies to provide support and job search assistance.

“The Ikea Industry board of directors made the decision in late June and we announced it to our co-workers on July 10,”
says site manager Bert Eades. “We understand it is a tough message, and we will support all co-workers as much as possible in this time of change. Despite many efforts to improve, the cost structure for production in Danville is still too high, especially when it comes to raw materials. This results in pricing that is significantly higher than for other plants making the same products.”

The loss of a business and 300 jobs is significant to Danville and Pittsylvania County’s manufacturing labor force of nearly 18,000, but the region is “now on the road to economic revitalization, helped in part by foreign investment, particularly advanced manufacturing projects from the United Kingdom,” says former Danville mayor Linwood Wright, now a consultant with the city’s office of economic development.

With several manufacturers, a large call center and other employers operating now or in the near future, the region is no longer as vulnerable to economic devastation as it was in the 1990s, when textile and tobacco employers closed up shop.

Meanwhile, Eades has plans for a job fair to help his colleagues find new work, and he has talked with Danville Community College about providing educational opportunities. Also, Ikea is helping to find a new occupant for the nearly 1-million-square-foot plant it has occupied since 2008 in Cane Creek Centre, an industrial park jointly owned by the city and the county. Several parties have already expressed interest.

“It’s our intent to do everything we possibly can do to bring at least equivalent employment to this site so Ikea’s workers will have an opportunity to seek jobs that will minimize any time out of work,” says Telly Tucker, Danville’s director of economic development.

Signs of change

When city workers installed the new signs for Arthur Ashe Boulevard, renaming one of the city’s most historic and visible streets, Richmond took a leap foward, and the nation noticed. On a steamy day in late June thousands of people crowded on the front lawn of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture and piled onto the street (formerly known as the Boulevard) to share in the celebration of tennis legend and humanitarian Arthur Ashe, a Richmond native.

It’s that type of change that brought Leonard Sledge, Richmond’s new director of economic development, to the city.

“I think Richmond is a city that is consistently looking to tell all sides of its history and have people see all sides,” says Sledge. The former executive director of Georgia’s Henry County Development Authority, he also previously served as economic development director for Hampton.

“The renaming of Arthur Ashe Boulevard was tremendous. There’s an amazing opportunity for Richmond to grow, and I’m going to do the best I can in terms of leading economic development.” 

Arthur Ashe Boulevard also will be home to “Rumors of War,” the first public sculpture by Kehinde Wiley, the world-renowned artist who painted the official portrait of former President Barack Obama.  A response to Richmond’s famed equestrian Confederate monuments, the massive bronze statue represents the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ biggest financial acquisition. The museum, however, has not disclosed how much the privately funded sculpture will cost. “Rumors of War” will debut in New York City’s Times Square in September before the piece is permanently installed on the VMFA’s front lawn in December.

Meanwhile, a new $25 million, 29,000-square-foot building near the James River, the American Civil War Museum, examines the conflict from many perspectives. The facility is the result of a merger between the Museum of the Confederacy and the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar.

The changes taking place in the Richmond region, which has a population of 1.3 million, has attracted new employers to the area. Currently there are seven Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the region, including Henrico-based Altria Group and Goochland-based CarMax.

The Greater Richmond Partnership markets the area to business prospects on behalf of the city of Richmond and Henrico, Chesterfield and Hanover counties.  “This is important to ensure that we share the full spectrum of the economic development opportunities in the region and the continued recognition that our respective citizens do not all live and work in the same locality,” Sledge says.

The partnership welcomed its new president and CEO, Lara Fritts, in August. She is only the third person and the first woman to fill that role in the organization’s 25-year history.

The region’s business pulse
Richmond has outgrown its reputation as a staid Southern metro area.Named a top food destination by the crowdsourced business-review site Yelp, Richmond enjoys regular national attention for its dining and beer/spirits scene. The city’s Scott’s Addition neighborhood, once a gritty industrial area, has been reborn as a hotspot for restaurants and breweries.

Another change has been the introduction of a rapid-transit bus system linking the city’s east and west ends. The  GRTC Transit System’s Pulse service celebrated its one-year anniversary in June, with ridership averaging double its initial goals. The Pulse recently earned a Bronze Standard BRT rating by the New York-based nonprofit Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. 

“The evolution of transit in Richmond creates opportunities for more transit-oriented development,” says Sledge. “A great example of this is the Sauer Center development, which is across the street from a [Pulse] station.” A 40-acre mixed-use, multimillion-dollar project under development on West Broad Street, the Sauer Center will be anchored by the city’s first Whole Foods grocery store.

Also in the works, NH District Corp., a nonprofit led by members of the corporate and civic community and chaired by Dominion Energy CEO Tom Farrell, has proposed the $1.5 billion redevelopment of a downtown Richmond neighborhood anchored by a 17,500-seat arena on the site of the now-shuttered Richmond Coliseum.

If approved by City Council, the Navy Hill development also would include more than 2,500 apartments plus hundreds of affordable housing units. In addition, the plans call for a 541-room high-rise hotel and 1 million square feet of commercial and office space. It will also restore the historic Blues Armory as a food market and include a GRTC bus transfer station. The developers expect the project to have a $3 billion economic impact on the region, including $1.2 billion in wages.  

Special delivery
Thanks in part to these developments, the economic picture for the city is on the upswing. In fiscal year 2019, Richmond’s economic development office helped 18 businesses locate or expand in the city, investing more than $67 million and adding more than 1,200 jobs.

That investment total, however, does not include the $350 million expansion of the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU. The 16-story, 500,000-square-foot inpatient facility will include trauma and emergency care and house 86 patients, with the potential to expand to 125 beds in the future. The facility is scheduled to open in 2022.

Another significant development is Amazon’s new $10 million specialty fulfillment and last-mile delivery center on the Virginia Interstate 95 Logistics Center site near the Port of Virginia’s Richmond Marine Terminal. Announced in July and scheduled to open in October, the 461,700-square-foot center is expected to create 150 jobs, adding to Amazon’s existing 10,000 employees in the state.

Amazon is the second major company to lease a building in the center. Brother International Corp., a significant Port of Virginia user, relocated its East Coast distribution center from New Jersey to a 461,700-square-foot warehouse there earlier this year.

Sledge credits these moves in part to California-based Panattoni Development Co.  It made the strategic decision two years ago to develop spec Class A industrial warehouses near the Richmond Marine Terminal, helping attract logistics operations to the city. “The projects demonstrate that Richmond is a great location for advanced manufacturing and e-commerce,” Sledge says. “We are glad that more developments like Hourigan’s Deepwater Industrial Park are being developed to help us attract more advanced manufacturing and e-commerce projects to the city.”

The growth of existing companies in the city is also adding to its economic picture. Chicago-based LBP Packaging acquired Richmond-based Dominion Packaging’s Quick-Service Restaurant business in late 2018. LBP is creating   118 jobs and investing approximately $19.7 million in the Richmond operation.

The city’s big challenge is making sure there is a diverse mix of buildings available to “respond to companies that express an interest in locating here as well as existing companies who desire to keep growing in the city,” Sledge says. “Another challenge the city is aggressively addressing is the development of quality affordable housing so people will have great opportunities to both live and work in the city.”

High-tech in Henrico
In Richmond’s surrounding counties, Henrico County’s eastern sector is “ground zero” for rapid speed connectivity, says Anthony Romanello, executive director of the county’s Economic Development Authority.

The Marea and Brusa international subsea high-capacity data cables landing in Virginia Beach feed into the QTS Realty Trust data center in eastern Henrico.

These high-capacity cable systems give the region increased access to European and South American markets through cables that run to Spain and Brazil. Offering 200 terabits per second of ultrahigh transmission capacity, “Marea has the fastest connectivity ever in the world so far,” says Romanello. “You could send every movie ever made across the Atlantic to Spain in 42 seconds.”

Henrico has seen a flurry of economic activity this year “in all sectors,” says Romanello.

In fiscal year 2019 the county had $751.6 million in capital investment, with 320 jobs created.

Early next year, the first-phase buildout of Facebook’s 970,000-square-foot data center is scheduled for completion in Henrico’s White Oak Technology Park. The $1.5 billion project will have 2.4 million total square feet and create more than 200 jobs when complete. The project has generated more than 1,300 construction jobs. Facebook is also investing $250 million in solar farms to support its data center investment.

Meanwhile, Swedish manufacturer Alfa Laval Inc., which specializes in heat transfer, separation and fluid handling, has added a new production line at its plant in eastern Henrico, creating 15 jobs. The addition is part of the company’s $50 million expansion at three of its U.S. plants.

New Chesterfield hotel
In neighboring Chesterfield County, Shamin Hotels Inc. is planning to invest approximately $125 million in multiple developments, including an upscale, destination hotel and 10,000-square-foot conference center at Stonebridge, the former Cloverleaf Mall property in Midlothian.

Stonebridge is a redevelopment success story. The mixed-use revitalization project is home to Kroger Marketplace, one of the grocer’s largest stores in the mid-Atlantic region. Created in a public-private partnership led by the Chesterfield Economic Development Authority, Stonebridge also includes apartments, shops, a senior center and the Richmond Volleyball Court.

“The new hotel and conference center position Chesterfield to take advantage of sports tourism activity. Sports tourism is a key component and the No. 1 tourism generator for the region,” says Karen Aylward, assistant director for Chesterfield County Economic Development. “There hasn’t been a full-service hotel built in the county in a couple of decades.”

In other economic news in Chesterfield, electrical connectors manufacturer ERNI Electronics Inc. is building a    $25 million national headquarters with a production and distribution facility at the Waterford Business Park. The project will create approximately 105 jobs.

Hanover’s banner year
Fiscal year 2019 was Hanover County’s most successful year on record. The county saw more than $350 million in investments during the year with the expected creation of more than 2,700 jobs. 

“We are having some of the strongest years we have seen,” says Linwood Thomas, the county’s director of economic development. “We are attracting interest from major corporations, both national and international.”

Currently, vacancy rates for industrial space are under 1%, so the county has created a speculative building program to encourage construction of multi-use structures. “That has generated a lot of attention,” Thomas says. “It’s the first of its kind in the state. We just announced our second speculative building by national developers, TPA Group of Atlanta. They will be building a 250,000-square-foot speculative building in the Lakeridge Parkway corridor.”

Raleigh, North Carolina-based developer Brookwood Capital Partners started construction on Hanover’s first speculative building earlier this year. Completion is anticipated by the end of the year. The 150,000-square-foot building, also in the Lakeridge Parkway corridor, is already fully leased. Hanover-based Wine & Beer Supply is the latest tenant to sign on. 

Hanover scored its largest project when Canadian-based Cascades Inc. announced it plans to invest $275 million in a lightweight recycled-containerboard operation in the former Bear Island Paper Mill. Expected to open by 2022, the project will create 140 jobs.

Furthermore, the Virginia Department of Forensic Science announced this summer that it’s building a 283,000-square-foot facility in Hanover to house the Central Forensic Laboratory and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.  

The upcoming months also look promising, Thomas adds. “We will have some major announcements of well-known companies.”

Newport News shipbuilding school enters second century

The Apprentice School is “a leadership factory for Newport News Shipbuilding,” says the school’s director of education, Latitia McCane. “The Apprentice School is one of our national treasures.”

In July, the school at Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding division marked 100 years of grooming graduates trained to work at the Newport News shipyard, the state’s largest industrial employer with more than 24,000 employees. The school has produced more than 10,800 graduates since opening in 1919 with 126 apprentices.

More than 3,000 graduates have moved into leadership roles with Newport News Shipbuilding. Former graduate Pat Phillips became president of the shipyard in 1992 and chairman in 1994, retiring in 1995 after 46 years with the company.

Opened at the end of World War I with the goal of recruiting, training and developing shipbuilders, the school today teaches advanced digital shipbuilding concepts and technology.

The school offers four- to eight-year, tuition-free apprenticeships in 19 trades and eight optional advanced programs, including production planning and supply chain management. “That’s one of the biggest changes over the years,” says McCane.

Another big change was the evolution from an all-male school to the inclusion of women in the 1970s. “We also had our first minority student in the 1960s,” McCane says. “We still struggle with female enrollment.”

The school, which currently enrolls 850 students, accepts just 225 apprentices out of 3,000 applicants each year.

Students are employed by Newport News Shipbuilding on their first day of the program.

Apprentices work a 40-hour week and are paid for all work, including time spent in academic classes. They can earn associate degrees in business administration, engineering and engineering technology and bachelor’s degrees in mechanical or electrical engineering through partnerships with Thomas Nelson and Tidewater community colleges and Old Dominion University.

The school also offers athletic programs such as baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, football, golf and wrestling. 

“This institution has contributed to the success of our community by providing its students with opportunities to earn a competitive education and build rewarding, sustainable careers,” says Florence G. Kingston, director of development for Newport News. “The strength of our skilled workforce and the superior quality of goods produced by our advanced manufacturing sector can be attributed to the work of The Apprentice School.” 

Merck expansion spurs new degrees, training programs

Blue Ridge Community College and James Madison University are collaborating with global pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck & Co. to create curriculum and training programs centered on biotechnology, process engineering and workforce development.

Merck is investing up to $1 billion over the next three years to expand its over-75-year-old manufacturing operation at its Elkton plant in Rockingham County to increase production of its human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines.

The expansion will create approximately 100 new jobs, increasing the plant’s workforce to more than 1,000 employees.

“What Merck liked is the collaboration between the two institutions,” says Melissa Lubin, JMU’s dean of professional and continuing education. “Some of the curriculum will be from Blue Ridge and some from JMU. We’ll also have some that is co-branded.”

Blue Ridge is already attuned to the needs of manufacturing. “As a community college, economic development is at the forefront of what we do,” says the college’s president, John Downey. “We are always looking to make a difference for employers in the region by training the next generation of skilled workers.”

In anticipation of growth in pharmaceutical biomanufacturing, Blue Ridge began planning for a new bioscience building 10 years ago. Opening this month,  the facility contains a clean room and labs that can adjust with the requirements of industries. It will help the school address Merck’s needs as well as those of other manufacturers in the region, Downey says.

JMU offers an interdisciplinary science and technology degree and is also looking at developing a “concentration in advanced manufacturing,” Lubin says.

The schools are collaborating on post-education manufacturing boot camps to train recent college graduates at the community college and university levels. “A lot of college grads would be more eager to work in manufacturing if they understood the environment better,” Downey says.

The project is now in the planning stages. As part of the state’s incentive package for Merck, the schools are eligible to receive up to $2.5 million — subject to General Assembly approval — for the development of a custom workforce solution. Funding is expected in July 2020.

Blue Ridge is also working with JMU to have one of its technical degrees in bioscience and mechatronics “matriculate to JMU so students can get their bachelor’s degree,” Downey says.

The schools will meet with Merck “to find out what skills they need,” Lubin says. “Everybody will be around the same table in August.”

Executive led effort to rebrand trade group

Rick Lugg advocates continuous process improvements to strengthen the member experience at Virginia Realtors.

“The members are why we exist and making sure the value we provide continues to satisfy the membership is our No. 1 priority,” says Lugg, the association’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer. “We have to make sure we are delivering on our value proposition each and every day.” 

Lugg oversees project management operations of the state’s largest trade association, which represents nearly 34,000 Realtors in residential and commercial real estate businesses.

During the past five years, the association’s membership has grown 3% to 4% annually.

In 2017, Lugg led efforts to rebrand the trade group, formerly known as the Virginia Association of Realtors and redesign its website. In 2018, Real Trends, a publishing, consulting and communications firm, selected the Virginia Realtors website as the Best Association/Multiple Listing Service (MLS) Website in the nation.

The organization has seen a 100% return on its investments since Lugg joined the association in 2009 during the height of the financial crisis. The association decided to move funds from expiring CDs and money market accounts to invest more in the stock market. 

“The board was very confident we could successfully weather the downturn and continue to manage the association and add to reserves when revenues were declining,” says Lugg.

“This show of faith paid off as the reserves of the association have more than doubled since then, with 75% invested in equities.”  

Lugg, who previously worked for Circuit City, likes the fact that the association has only 30 employees.

“There is always something different to do. Every day has its own challenges and I enjoy working through them. With a small team you have to be able to work on both the strategic and the mundane,” says Lugg, who graduated from Troy University and earned his MBA from the University of Richmond. 

While working at Circuit City, Lugg transitioned into strategic finance and operation roles. “I was involved in some of the business transformation initiatives and witnessed firsthand the value of staying focused on the core mission and the dangers of swaying too far off course,” he says.      

At the association, he is proud of being able to build and cultivate a collaborative culture “and watch the team come together,” he says. “My favorite thing is working with a group of people who have the same passion to make sure we do the best we can do.”

Lugg is someone that people can connect with, says Matthew Spradlin, a partner at Steward Partners Global Advisory, a private wealth management firm based in Washington, D.C. “I have worked with a lot of CFOs, from small [businesses] to Fortune 500 companies. What makes Rick stand out is that he has an amazing personality. He’s driven but he can connect with humans, and that is what makes him a great leader.”

One of Lugg’s newest projects involves changing the association’s software programs to cloud-based platforms to boost efficiency and automation. Lugg, who served in the U.S. Air Force as a computer programmer before coming to Richmond in 1999, is able to draw from his IT background.

The move to cloud-based platforms is a step toward providing a more flexible work environment where employees have the ability to work from anywhere, he says. “It has been a big project. We are trying to align our systems to our employee-friendly culture, while also greatly simplifying our disaster-recovery plan.”

The association has also loosened some policies, promoting a more casual dress atmosphere. “We want to make sure we attract and retain the best talent,” Lugg says. “Flexible work schedules and casual dress are helpful to employee morale.”

Tech official helped state secure HQ2

When he retires in November after 40 years with Virginia Tech, Dwight Shelton Jr. will leave a legacy. Among many accomplishments, he played a key role in helping the state land the biggest economic development project in U.S. history.

Virginia Tech’s vice president for finance and chief financial officer, Shelton worked with state officials on Virginia’s successful bid for Amazon’s $2.5 billion East Coast headquarters.

Based in Arlington, HQ2 is expected to generate  an economic impact of $14.2 billion and create more than 59,000 jobs throughout Virginia during the next dozen years.

“Had it not been for Dwight Shelton’s personal contributions to our HQ2 cultivation efforts, which formed the basis for the commonwealth’s $1.1 billion tech-talent pipeline initiative, I’m confident Virginia’s HQ2 bid would not have been successful,” says Stephen Moret, the president and CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP).

After Virginia made higher education the centerpiece of Virginia’s bid for the Amazon HQ2 project, VEDP and key General Assembly money committee members sought advice and assistance from Shelton.

He worked with Moret to develop and refine enrollment and funding models for the higher-education component of Virginia’s Amazon HQ2 proposal. Shelton also worked with key legislators to explain the models and Virginia Tech’s role in their implementation.

As part of that effort, Shelton also collaborated with state officials on the launch of Virginia Tech’s $1 billion Innovation Campus, which is under development in Alexandria.

During his tenure at Virginia Tech Shelton has been instrumental in the university’s growth as well as the advancement of higher education across the state. When he came to Virginia Tech, the university had 20,780 students and a total budget of $151.8 million. It now has an enrollment of 34,950 and a budget of $1.5 billion.

“I’m proud of how the overall financial picture has grown,” Shelton says. “We are in our strongest financial position now to be able to take on the new initiatives we are working on such as the technology talent pipeline and our Innovation Campus in Alexandria.”

Dennis H. Treacy, the rector of the Virginia Tech board of visitors, says, “Dwight’s two greatest strengths are his integrity and his encyclopedic knowledge of university workings. He has a complete understanding of the workings of the Virginia General Assembly and is often consulted by staff and members for analyses and recommended actions.”

Shelton counts his work with the VEDP and state officials on the Amazon project as one of his two biggest accomplishments. The other is the close working relationships he forged with colleagues from other universities to develop and help gain legislative approval of the Higher Education Restructuring Act of 2005.

“The act was significant in the state because it allowed colleges and universities to tailor their business practices to fit their operating environments, resulting in millions of dollars of savings to students and clients,” Shelton says.

Shelton also led efforts to develop and implement funding plans for the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, a joint venture with Carilion Clinic that now is a college of the university. 

“Over the last 15 to 20 years the university has created a number of new initiatives that required finance to work creatively to come up with strategies to make those initiatives work,” he says. 

Shelton has a “deep and genuine passion for his university and respect for the educational value created by Virginia Tech,” says Nancy Howell Agee, president and CEO of Carilion Clinic. “These serve as his ‘true north’ in his professional compass.”

She promotes the firm as its clients’ personal CFO

There are never enough hours in the day for Cindy Joyce.

Finding time for all the projects she wants to take on is her biggest challenge, says Agili’s CFO and chief operating officer. “I am a pleaser, so I want to make sure everyone is happy.”

Joyce joined the financial planning and investment firm, then called JoycePayne Partners, in 2005 after working for Union Pacific.

She works alongside her husband, Michael, who is president of Agili. “It doesn’t work for all married couples, but it works for us,” she says.

During the past 14 years, she’s made major contributions that have changed not only the company’s name but also its customer focus.

Joyce suggested adopting the name Agili — derived from agility — because she wanted “the company to be nimble for all of our clients,” she says.

In celebration of the firm’s 25th anniversary, she advocated focusing on the concept of serving Agili’s clients as their personal CFO.

“We do personalized and customized planning,” she says. “The firm has always done that, but not from a marketing standpoint. When we started thinking about what we do for each client, it became apparent this is what we really do. Our clients are busy people, so they totally understand and appreciate us being their personal CFO.”

Joyce enjoys handling the variety of projects that fall under her purview. Her responsibilities range from lease negotiation to making sure the company is financially successful. “Every day is a full plate, but it’s never the same,” she says.

Joyce is focused on “operational excellence,” says Sydney Petty of SFP Consulting in Richmond. “The breadth of her business experience and the depth of her heart make her a positive force.” 

To ensure Agili stays abreast of best practices and industry developments, Joyce regularly consults with the CFOs of 20 peer firms around the country that are part of Group 2020. “If I come up with a challenge, I use them as a sounding board. It’s a safe space, an area of trust,” she says. “We work as each other’s mentors even though we are competitors.”

As part of her duties, Joyce develops the theme and agenda for the  annual retreat for the firm’s 24 employees in Richmond and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She also confirms the speakers and organizes team-building exercises for the retreat, which sets the tone for the upcoming year and focuses the team on specific goals.

“I love it,” she says of the planning process. “We always have a surprise event that no one knows about but me. We’ve done everything from an escape room to a scavenger hunt. It’s a team-building event.”

One of her proudest achievements is the creation of an internal annual employee survey that encourages honest feedback. “We get a third party to read the results of the survey,” she says. “Our clients are happy because we have a fantastic team. I can’t be naïve or complacent about that. I always have to be listening to and learning from our team.”

Joyce also leads a group focused on internal process improvement, which she credits with substantially increasing the efficiency of client services.

She became interested in accounting in high school. “I was good with numbers and I always liked math. It came naturally,” says Joyce, a University of Denver alumna who holds an MBA from Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Outside of work, the mother of three has been involved with Greater Richmond SCAN (Stop Child Abuse Now) for the past 21 years.

Merger showed CFO’s ‘passion for excellence’

Jennifer Whichello loves being involved with the intersection of people and process.

“If you can’t bring the right people together with the right processes at the right time and motivate them, the best-laid plan won’t come into fruition,” she says. “You have to get them to buy into the plan so it energizes them.”

A Chesapeake native, Whichello is chief financial officer of Richmond-based NSTO LLC, the parent company of Need Supply Co. and Totokaelo, two U.S.-based clothing and lifestyle retailers. NSTO has another office in New York.

Whichello demonstrated her ability to bring people together in combining the operations of Totokaelo with Need Supply Co. to create “an efficient and scalable platform,” says NSTO CEO Christopher Bossola. He cites the merger as Whichello’s “greatest accomplishment” at the company to date.

When she joined Need Supply in 2016, it and Totokaelo were being run as parallel companies. “It was very church and state. They were separate for a while,” Whichello says.

She found excessive duplication and felt merging the companies would improve efficiency. “That was the first merger I have been involved with,” she says. “Everything was seamless. Now we get to reap the benefits of the new structure.”

A Virginia Tech alum with an MBA from George Washington University, Whichello can “think strategically but will also roll up her sleeves and execute. She is a doer,” Bossola says. “She has a passion for excellence.”

At NSTO, Whichello oversees multiple functions. “I have always managed areas such as human resources, planning and logistics. There was only one job I had where I had only one role, and I didn’t feel challenged. I was bored,” she says.

A 2018 CFO Leadership Program graduate of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Whichello has held financial positions in the apparel industry since 2007. 

Her post-merger efforts to expand the company’s fulfillment center operations resulted in 24-hour order processing as well as faster shipping. The changes have increased repeat business and helped the company grow.

“Jenny is a very driven individual who sets high standards for herself and her team,” says John Jobe V, a partner at the accounting firm Cherry Bekaert LLP in Richmond. “Her role is not simply limited to the finance function. She brings a wealth of knowledge to NSTO across the finance, operations and human resources areas of the company.”

In the merger, Whichello designed and managed the consolidation of payroll and benefits along with restructuring NSTO’s organizational chart and human resource policies. She also oversaw the closure of redundant offices and functions. The company saved more than $1 million in operating costs and saw double-digit job creation at its Richmond office after closing its Los Angeles office and New York City photo studio.

While she loves overcoming challenges at work, there are days Whichello feels she has “limited bandwidth,” she says. “Sometimes I can’t take on every project that I want to. My one goal for 2019 is to says, ‘no’ more because I can’t do everything I want to do and do an excellent job.”

Working in a consumer-driven industry keeps her on her toes, she adds. “I’ve been working in companies like this since 2007 so I am pretty resilient and thick-skinned.”

Her biggest joy is to see a plan that might be a stretch come to fruition because of an engaged workforce. “I like to get it working,” she says. “That’s what I like most about my job.”

Jobs, public debate follow new Augusta spring water plant

A $15.5 million Flow Alkaline Spring Water production plant opening this summer in Augusta County’s Verona area will bring additional jobs to the area.

Nonetheless, Flow Alkaline is facing resistance from a local  group worried about the impact of the company’s operations on a local water source, Seawright Springs. 

“We are not anti-business or anti-development,” says Verona resident Robin Hawks, a member of the Friends of Seawright Springs group. “We just think citizens should participate so we have the right project in the right place. This is the wrong project in the wrong place.”

Ontario-based Flow Alkaline is expected to create 51 jobs at its Augusta plant, most of them in the skilled trades. Of the 23 people already hired, 22 live within a 25-mile radius of Verona. The Canadian water distributor is leasing and renovating an existing 52,000-square-foot building in Verona’s Mill Place Commerce Park, which will serve as a packaging facility.

Flow Alkaline spokeswoman Autumn Furr says the company chose Verona because the spring “had almost identical properties in terms of taste and minerals to our original source in Bruce County, Canada. Moreover, the production location is strategically positioned along the I-81 corridor, within a day’s drive of major markets and distribution centers.”

“This is a great international company,” says Augusta County Director of Economic Development and Tourism Amanda Glover. “It complements our food and beverage cluster.”

Nevertheless, the Friends of Seawright Springs group has a raft of concerns about the plant, ranging from zoning to water usage to transportation and public safety.

“We feel the area is not zoned properly” and a special-use permit should be required, says Hawks, adding the group also worries about potential traffic hazards from tankers transporting water along a narrow highway that passes by county schools.

The county and state didn’t give citizens the opportunity “to voice concerns,” Hawks says. “It was a done deal. What that says to taxpayers is: We don’t care what you say or need.”

But the county contends that “no special-use permit is required,” says Glover, adding that Board of Supervisors members have met with concerned citizens, and county staff have also offered to talk to the Seawright Springs group.

As for Flow Alkaline, Furr says the company takes its “environmental and safety responsibilities very seriously and will work to ensure there are no adverse impacts, either on other water users or those we share the roads with.”

Friends of Seawright Springs has filed an appeal with the Board of Zoning Appeals. “If they accept our appeal,” Hawks says, “we make our case and let the Board of Zoning Appeals determine if this is an appropriate project.”

Halifax eyes ‘game-changing’ blueprint for future

When Halifax County looks at its future, its top priority for economic development might be a little surprising.

The No. 1 goal listed in the county’s newly released Community Strategic Plan is building a modern high school that prepares students for the 21st-century workforce. The plan also recommends aligning the school’s curriculum with the needs of local businesses.

“That is what we need for economic development: retention and recruitment of young professionals,” says Mitzi McCormick, president and CEO of the Halifax County Chamber of Commerce.  “We want to have a pipeline of future workers.”

During this year’s General Assembly session, Del. James Edmunds, R-Halifax County, introduced legislation to allow a local referendum on an optional county sales tax that would benefit the Halifax school system. House Bill 1634, which authorizes the county to impose an additional tax at a rate not to exceed 1%, passed the state House and Senate and will be on the ballot for consideration by county voters in November.

“The one-penny increase will generate nearly $3.5 million a year that would be used toward the schools. That is game changing,” McCormick says.

Increasing local broadband internet access is also a priority in the plan, she says. “We need to make sure it’s readily available to all parts of our county.”

Halifax’s strategic plan contains 11 key initiatives that “hit on workforce, economic and community development. From our perspective it’s a proactive and holistic strategy,” says Matt DeVeau, project manager for Atlanta-based Market Street Services, the community and economic development firm that developed the plan as well as the county’s earlier Vision 2020 plan.

The community is rallying around the new plan, McCormick says, adding, “This is the first time I have felt the community coming together, and I am very excited about that.” 

The initiatives will be implemented in phases. “Some of these things may start on a smaller basis,” she says. “We are not tackling every single thing at the same time.”