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Best Places to Work in Virginia

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byline: Joan Tupponce

Acting like owners

2019 Virginia Business Best Places to Work – Top Small Employer

Cassaday & Co. Inc. encourages employees to think like business owners.

Salaries are relatively small. The rest of employees’ pay is based on the firm’s top-line revenue, whose growth is fueled by an intense focus on customer service.

“Our structure is different. Our employees know who butters their bread and why,” says Stephan Cassaday, founder, chairman and CEO of the Tysons-based wealth management firm. This type of pay structure motivates and “empowers employees to consistently do their best at work,” he adds.

Commissions on all types of trading on stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc., represent 4 percent of the firm’s revenue. The remainder comes from fee-based asset management.

Employees understand their ownership-style role in the company, says Allison Felix, the firm’s president, principal and chief operating officer. “Our culture is connected to the way we get paid, which is similar to how the owners are paid. If someone doesn’t do well, it affects their paycheck.”

After working for other brokerage firms for several years, Cassaday abandoned the traditional Wall Street model in starting an independent firm in 1993 to serve investors seeking impartial advice.

Since then, total assets under management or supervision grew from $40 million to $3 billion as of December.

The firm has nearly 50 employees serving more than 2,000 households in the U.S. Most of its clients live in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland.

Barron’s ranked Cassaday as No. 1 in Virginia on its list of America’s Top 1,200 Advisors. It was his fourth time as the top Virginia adviser on the list.

Cassaday & Co. also has been recognized as one of the Best Places to Work in Virginia for the past eight years.

“Steve’s approach is to create a family firm,” says Felix. “He is 100 percent focused on treating people the way he wants to be treated.”

Cassaday says he follows simple principles in guiding his workforce, empowering employees to do their jobs in a way that complements their talents.

Employees are regularly surveyed to check their level of satisfaction with the firm. “We ask them how we are doing,” says Cassaday. “We uncover things they like and don’t like. They are often things we haven’t thought of. For example, they said they wanted to have outside events where they can socialize, bonding the group together.”

The company encourages communication with employees through an open-door policy. “We work to make sure people are comfortable in coming to us. We always have open channels,” Cassaday says.

Cassaday & Co. has a continuous-improvement standard that is supported by a six-figure budget for travel and education. “We believe in very vigorous training,” Cassaday says. “People will come back from training and debrief us so we can learn, too.”

The firm pays for training for professional designations, such as certified financial planner, or securities licensure. “We are supportive of our employees getting extra education such as graduate school or certified public accountant education,” Felix says.

Employees receive an extensive list of benefits, including health, dental and vision insurance as well as flexible work schedules, paid parking, early release days, birthday paid time off and gym memberships.

The firm’s dependent-care assistance includes daycare and after-school programs. “That has been appreciated especially by people coming from other organizations that don’t have that,” Felix says.

In addition, employees take part in a variety of social outings, ranging from visiting wineries and playing paintball to attending concerts and spending a day at a spa. “We try to keep it fun and different. Every year we do something new,” Felix says.

The company also encourages a culture of giving. “We have a company foundation. Employees contribute, and I match the contributions by 200 percent,” Cassaday says. “Our employees go to charities and participate in events. They see how important the work is that these charities are doing. That’s a big deal here.”

List of Small Employers

Notes on napkins

2019 Virginia Business Best Places to Work
Top Midsize Employer

Officials at Definitive Logic Corp. say its people-centric culture is a big plus for employees and clients.

“That’s what sets us apart from other companies,” says Mary Kerski, director of technology and integration operations. “In orientation we talk about our credo principles. We preach you don’t work for Definitive Logic; you work with Definitive Logic.

People have a choice to be here, and they want to be here.”

Paul Burke and Jeremy Fisher started the Arlington-based IT firm in 1999. Since then, it has grown to more than 180 employees, many of whom work at client locations around the nation.

“Both of our owners worked at other consulting firms in the area,” says Kerski. “They went out to dinner together and talked about the things they would do differently if they had their own organization. What they wrote on napkins became the company’s credo.”

The company primarily serves government contractors through its two divisions — technology integration, which includes enterprise integration, business intelligence and analytics; and business transformation, which provides data-driven insights for strategic planning and management.

The firm’s hiring process is very selective. “When you come in here, you are working with other experts, people with a strong work ethic doing things they want to do,” says Kerski. “Everybody is excited about new opportunities.”

Employees develop relationships because of their common professional interests, she said.

“You are performing work with people you respect, people you want to work with, and you are working on things you want to work on,” says Kerski. “This is a team to the point of being a family.”

Company benefits include health, dental and vision insurance as well as tuition reimbursement (up to $5,250 annually), parking reimbursements (up to $250 a month) and paid transit benefits (up to $200 month). Employees also are offered paid training and referrals as well as business development bonuses.

“We allow … people to pursue additional degrees as long as they go through our approval process,” Kerski says.

Employees are eligible for paid sabbaticals (one to three weeks every five years) and eight hours of volunteer time a year. “If they volunteer one to four hours, the company makes a $50 an hour payment to the charity. After four hours, we give $100 an hour to the charity up to $800, which is donated at the end of the year,” Kerski says.

Employees also get the opportunity to bond through a variety of extra-curricular activities. Each year features a winter trip to a Caribbean destination for all employees and their companions and/or family. The event is typically held over Martin Luther King weekend in January.

The long weekend trip gives employees a chance to relax, socialize and “take in the sights and/or enjoy the activities the resort has to offer,” says Kerski, adding this year’s destination is Riviera Maya in Mexico.

The company also hosts a Summer Kickoff Party for employees, family, friends and clients. This event is held every year aboard the Cherry Blossom Riverboat, which docks outside of the Chart House in Old Town Alexandria. “Employees get to socialize,” Kerski says. “It’s a thank you for all the work you do.”

Summer is also time for the company’s all-you-can-eat Crab Fest for employees and their guests. The company additionally holds a variety of seasonal activities such as Halloween for Kids, Kids at Heart, Pot Luck Thanksgiving and a holiday party. Year- round activities include a chili cookoff, team lunches and dinners and sporting events to watch DC United, Washington Nationals and Washington Capitals games.

When employees need to lessen their stress they can take time to play Nerf war. “We did a Nerf war and stocked the office with Nerf guns so people could blow off steam and de-stress,” Kerski says.

List of Midsize Employers

Integrity and the Golden Rule

2019 Virginia Business Best Places to Work – Top Large Employer

Having a sense of humor is an asset at Accounting Principals. “We laugh with each other and at ourselves,” says managing director Jen Dodge. “We laugh every day, and that is part of our culture.”

Dodge says the corporate culture of the Glen Allen-based company is based on integrity and the Golden Rule. “That is the way we treat our clients and our employees,” Dodge says. “We have a strong amount of forgiveness and grace on our team.

We accept each other for who we are, our strengths and weaknesses. We forgive each other when mistakes occur.”

Another guiding principle at the company is: Treat every day like Christmas. “That goes back to the way we treat people with kindness, fun and laughter,” Dodge says. “It’s a theme here.”

A professional recruitment and staffing firm, Accounting Principals provides executive search, professional consulting and temporary staffing through its divisions,  Ajilon and Parker+Lynch.  Nationally, the Jacksonville, Fla.-based company has more than 75 locations and 1,000 employees. The Glen Allen office employs about 20 people.

Founded in 1991 as Accounting Solutions, the company was sold to Accounting Principals in 2005. Five years later, Accounting Principals became part of The Adecco Group, an international staffing company based in Zurich.

“We have a very tenured team. Some of our employees have been here for up to 22 years,” Dodge says. “We have low attrition rates because we are constantly looking at the way the marketplace is changing and the way the needs of our clients and employees change as a direct result. We try to come up with creative and flexible solutions to meet everyone’s needs when marketplace conditions are tight.”

The company’s benefits provide partial reimbursements for gym memberships, yoga classes and personal trainers as well as smoking cessation and weight-loss classes.

“We do also offer benefits to our contract associates that include 401(k) options, service bonuses and paid holidays,” Dodge says. “We are very blessed and thankful, too, for what we have. We don’t take it for granted.”

Each year, two or three company employees from around the world are picked to participate in events as part of the company’s Win4Youth initiative. The program encourages employees to participate in fitness and sports activities to raise money for children’s charities. Employees this year attended a triathlon in Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands.

The firm also encourages employees to volunteer. Staff members form teams three to five times a year to help causes such as Junior Achievement of Central Virginia’s financial literacy program and the Caring Clothes Closet, which provides free clothes to families in crisis.  Each employee also gets one day off to volunteer for a cause.

Accounting Principals also is known for the cookies employees give out during the year.

“We bake them at the office and take the cookies out to our clients,” Dodge says. “It started as a tradition 20 years ago of taking them to some of our contract associates when we delivered paychecks. During the holidays, we say we are loading up the Christmas sleigh. We deliver cookies almost every day. We want to personally thank every client for their business.”

The firm also creates a goofy, off-the-wall holiday card every year. The project is a team effort. “People look forward to those cards,” Dodge says. “This year’s theme is a throwback to the senior year of high school.”

Operations coordinator Robin Miller, a firm employee for four years, says she feels “very valued here.”

“When I come to work I feel like I am working with family members,” she says. “We are committed to succeed as a team and as a family.”

List of Large Employers

Chamber grapples with rebranding the region

One of Bryan Stephens’ goals for this year is the creation of a new brand identity for his region.

“People always ask me, ‘Where is Hampton Roads?’” says Stephens, president and CEO of the Hampton Roads Chamber. “Very few [area residents] say Hampton Roads when they are asked where they are from.”

The Hampton Roads name hasn’t helped drive the region’s economy, especially its hospitality industry, he says. “The brand of a region is either an enabler or an inhibitor. If it’s an inhibitor, we have to try to turn it into an enabler.”

With that purpose in mind, the chamber is putting together a rebranding committee, which will include members of its board and area community leaders. A consultant will be hired as well.

“Our goal is to get Hampton Roads recognized throughout the United States and the globe as a great region to live, work and do business,” Stephens says. “We want relocated people to be excited about the opportunity to come to Hampton Roads.”

The committee will be charged with identifying a new brand for the region, which includes more than a dozen cities and counties. “What do we want to be known as? What resonates? We want it to be more than a name. We want it to be a sense of place,” Stephens says.

The rebranding effort will include surveys, focus groups, meetings and forums. Stephens says the chamber wants to ensure that the process is transparent and inclusive.

“We want to try to get as many people involved in the process as possible,” he says. “We are a region of 1.7 million people, and we have never had a total consensus of what people want Hampton Roads to be.”

Site location consultant Didi Caldwell, president and founding principal of Global Location Strategies in Greenville, S.C., recognizes that Hampton Roads has struggled in finding all-encompassing identity.

“I’m not sure it’s recognizable when you are talking with national companies and the international community,” she says. “When you say Hampton Roads, I don’t know that people know where that is.”

A new brand identity is one way to get on people’s radar, she adds. “A rebrand of Hampton Roads would boost opportunities and help put more leads in the top of the file.”

$10.3 million project will add 61 jobs to plant’s staff

Continental AG, the parent company of O’Sullivan Films in Winchester, chose the  Shenandoah Valley plant over a company facility in Mexico for a $10.3 million expansion. The project will add 61 jobs during the next three years at a site already employing 450 people.

Big factors in Continental’s choice were the quality of the Winchester plant’s workforce and its consistent production track record, says plant manager Scott Krueger.

“We felt positive that this would be the right location for that expansion.”

The project will include extensive internal modifications and additional equipment at the plant. Jobs will be added in areas such as production, technical, research and development and support functions.

“The expansion will allow us to provide a greater range of products to the marketplace and also expand capacity,” Krueger says. “We will be making more and different products, especially in the market known as synthetic leathers.”

Continental, a German automotive products company, acquired O’Sullivan in 2017, allowing the Winchester facility to “take advantage of opportunities at a higher level,” Krueger says. 

O’Sullivan began operations in 1896 in Massachusetts making rubber heels for shoes. It moved to Winchester in 1932 as O’Sullivan Corp. before becoming O’Sullivan Films in 2006.

The company has made automotive interior trim materials since the late 1940s. Today the Winchester plant provides raw materials to manufacturers. “We develop sheet products that someone can turn into another product,” Krueger says. “If it’s soft to the touch in a car — seating, instrument panels, door panels, etc. — we have the ability to make the material for someone.” 

The company works with manufacturers in a variety of other industries including outdoor decking, and medical, residential and commercial flooring.

“The expansion will allow us to provide a greater range of products to the marketplace and also expand capacity,” Krueger says. “We will be making more and different products, especially in the market known as synthetic leathers.”

In connection with the expansion, O’Sullivan received a $188,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund and is eligible to receive state benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program as well as sales and use tax exemptions on manufacturing equipment.

In filling new positions, O’Sullivan will conduct national and international level recruiting for certain jobs. “For our skilled trades, we recruit more locally,” Krueger says. 

O’Sullivan already is one of the largest employers in Winchester. “It’s part of our community identity,” says Shawn Hershberger, the city’s director of development services.

Expanding the Winchester plant is a “vote of confidence for the leadership and works of this facility,” he adds. “We are a community that has seen a lot of recent job growth. It’s just another sign that this is a great place to do business.”

Wallops launch site will be company’s first in U.S.

A new launch facility at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island is expected to boost Virginia’s aerospace industry.

Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex-2 will be the Los Angeles-based company’s first in the United States. Rocket Lab and Virginia Space, which runs the spaceport, are teaming together to build the $20 million complex. It will be located near a launch pad used by Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems to launch its Antares rockets.

Gov. Ralph Northam approved a $5 million grant for the project through the commonwealth’s Transportation Partnership Opportunity Fund.

The development of Launch Complex-2 “strengthens our existing position as the industry leader providing frequent and tailored access to orbit for small satellites,” says Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s CEO.

The new launch site will cater to U.S government customers. “They will be carrying sensitive government payloads,” says Dale Nash, Virginia Space’s executive director and CEO. “[Rocket Lab’s customers] want to launch them in the U.S. and retain tight control.”

Launching from U.S. soil gives Rocket Lab’s customers more flexibility by “increasing launch frequency and offering an unmatched ability to rapidly deploy space-based assets with confidence and precision,” Beck says.

The spaceport, which is co-located at NASA Wallops Island, was one of four locations under consideration for the Rocket Lab project. The company also looked at Cape Canaveral in Florida, Pacific Spaceport Complex–Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Virginia made the final cut thanks to high flight frequency available from the spaceport along with a rapid construction timeline. Rocket Lab’s first Electron rocket launch from the site is targeted for the third quarter of next year.

“We anticipate one launch a month, or 12 a year,” says Nash. “We have a very aggressive schedule to get this facility built, about eight or nine months, but we have an existing workforce with the knowledge and expertise to do this.”

The facility is expected to create 30 jobs with a pay scale in the mid-$80,000 range. “The number of jobs will spike to as many as 100 people during the one- to two-week launch period and then scale back to 30,” Nash says. “This will be a huge impact on the region.”

Nash has developed the workforce at Virginia Space working with Eastern Shore Community College and universities in the commonwealth, Maryland and Delaware.

“Over 25 percent of our total workforce has gone through our internship program. We will help Rocket Lab develop their workforce with local talent. That was a key selling point to Rocket Lab,” he says.

Expansion project promises customers more room

WCS Logistics says its 65,000-square-foot expansion in Winchester will increase productivity and improve safety while adding capacity for the company’s customers.

WCS broke ground on the expansion project in May. The opening is scheduled for February.

“The expansion will have room for approximately 8,500 pallet positions, expanding WCS freezer capacity and yielding better space utilization due to greater rack height and more optimized configuration,” says Brian Beazer, the company’s CEO and general manager. “It paves the way for additional WCS Logistics modern warehouses.”

Established in 1917 as Winchester Cold Storage Co. by Virginia politician and businessman Harry F. Byrd, the logistics company now serves national and international customers.

“It was originally founded because of the growing apple market in the area and the necessity to keep them fresh as long as possible,” Beazer says. “We were once known as the largest apple storage in the world, and now we are one of the largest.”

The company has diversified its services over the years, now handling dry, refrigerated and frozen products. It now has five locations — four in Virginia and one in West Virginia — for a total of approximately 2 million square feet. All of the warehouses are positioned near Interstate 81.

“We can store product at almost any temperature,” says Beazer.  “We still store approximately the same number of apples, but it is only about 20 percent of our overall business.”

The expansion will allow the company to provide customers more services, he says. “We are utilizing a cascading [carbon dioxide] ammonia refrigeration system that is safer and more efficient than other systems,” Beazer says. “As things change in the industry, we are changing along with them.”

The company has made a concerted effort to provide support for all temperature ranges, he adds. “This new facility continues us down that road of being the best place for all your needs,” Beazer says. “We will be able to serve our customers more by giving them the added room they need to grow as companies. It will also allow us to take on new customers that want to expand their businesses and reach new markets.” 

Collaboration leads to 2-hour, free Wi-Fi service in Boydton

Mecklenburg County now offers two hours of free Wi-Fi access daily in the Courthouse Square area of Boydton as a result of a collaboration between Microsoft Corp. and Lake Country Satellite.

The service addresses a major need in the region. “This free Wi-Fi service, where you can use your own device, is something no other community has in this area,” says David Varner, president of Boydton-based Lake Country Satellite, which will operate the system.

Lake Country was chosen as Microsoft’s project partner because “of their expertise in building and operating Wi-Fi systems such as the one we built in Boydton,” says Jeremy Satterfield, manager of Microsoft’s TechSpark Virginia, a program promoting economic opportunity and job creation in Southern Virginia.

Officials from Microsoft’s Datacenter Community Development program met with community leaders late last year to identify areas where the company could make investments. “The lack of internet availability in Boydton was identified as a need that would benefit merchants, residents and visitors,” Satterfield says.

The free Wi-Fi hours are available for people to do “whatever they need to do,” says Varner. “They can choose whatever two hours they want. As soon as they connect their device, the timer starts. It automatically logs a person out after two hours.”

Microsoft has an ongoing interest in the area. Southern Virginia is one of six TechSpark communities, and Boydton is home to a Microsoft data center. “Our Datacenter Academy, which helps train data-center technicians, was inaugurated at Southside Virginia Community College in South Hill and the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center in South Boston,” says Satterfield.

Microsoft also supports Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative in its efforts to expand broadband service. The co-op secured a $2.6 million grant from the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission to fund a new subsidiary, EmPower, which will deploy 135 miles of fiber broadband in Southern Virginia.

Microsoft Datacenter Community Development is involved in similar projects in other areas where the company has data enters. It is building a community Wi-Fi system in the Valley Junction neighborhood of West Des Moines, Iowa.

“I think it’s going to be a game changer in the long run,” says Varner of the Mecklenburg project. “I think eventually it will draw more businesses and restaurants to the Boydton area.”

Training programs attract N.C. company to Cyber Park

BGF Industries Inc. decided to move its corporate headquarters and research and development operations to the Cyber Park in Danville after learning about the area’s workforce development efforts.

“Their training struck me as unique and interesting,” says BGF President Jerry Barbour, who also serves as head of global operations for supply chains for its parent company, France-based Porcher Groupe. “I have been with the company for 42 years, and it’s becoming a little harder to find the specialized training we need. We typically have to train in-house.”

BGF makes high-performance technical fiber materials.

Matt Rowe, director of economic development for Pittsylvania County, worked with the company for almost two years, walking representatives through the workforce programs in place at local community colleges and the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research.

Even though Cyber Park was not the most cost-effective choice for the company, Rowe believes being located there and having the access to workforce programs “outweighed the difference of the cost,” he says.

Cyber Park is owned by the Danville-Pittsylvania County Regional Industrial Facility Authority.

BGF will invest $7 million in relocating from Greensboro, N.C., to the Cyber Park where it will build a 25,000-square-foot facility next year.

“Our plan is to be at the Cyber Park site in temporary leased space by no later than June 2019,” Barbour says. “We estimate that the new building will be completed and in place 18 months from this November. The R&D Center will be one of the first departments to move.”

As part of the deal, the region received a $275,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund and $620,000 in Tobacco Region Opportunity Funds for the project.

This isn’t the company’s first facility in Virginia. Four of BGF’s six U.S. operations are in the commonwealth — one in South Hill and three in Altavista. The Cyber Park site is expected to employ 65 workers (both existing and new) within a three-year period.

BGF sees the area’s growing aerospace and automotive research segment as an added benefit.

“Cyber Park is becoming an aerospace hub, and that is one of our largest business units,” Barbour says. The company makes lightweight fabrics that are used in the interior of aircrafts.

“We are into the aerospace business, and we really need engineers to help us grow R&D,” he says. “Our future is also in the automotive industry. We want to delve more into that field.”

Facial-recognition systems used at Virginia airports

Passengers speed through the international boarding areas at Washington Dulles International and Ronald Reagan Washington National airports in seconds, thanks to new facial-recognition technology.

The technology helps streamline passenger verification on outbound international flights. Large aircraft such as a double-decker Airbus A380 are “boarding 500 passengers in 22 minutes. Normally it takes 45 to 50 minutes to board,” says Colleen Manaher, executive director; planning, program analysis and evaluation in the office of field operations for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The new biometric screening system at Dulles and Reagan, veriScan, was designed by the Office of Technology at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) in partnership with the CBP. MWAA oversees the two Washington-area airports. The system was developed in response to a congressional mandate for CBP to implement biometric exit processes for commercial flights leaving the U.S. 

With veriScan, passengers walk up to an iPad equipped with the custom-developed software.  Their photos are taken, encrypted and transmitted to CBP. The airport pictures are matched against existing travel document photos.

“Currently it’s being used in a two-step process. The first step, the passenger presents a boarding pass to the gate agent. With the second step, veriScan technology replaces manually checking a passport or document,” says Andrew Trull, a MWAA spokesman. “We are moving to a one-step process that will replace both the document check and a boarding pass for passengers.”

Airlines began a veriScan pilot program at Dulles in July. Reagan activated the system for a limited number of international flights in late November.

“To date, we have used the technology to process more than 20,000 passengers boarding at Dulles to fly internationally with a 99 percent match rate,” says Trull.

Facial-recognition technology now is being used for exit and entry of international passengers at about 15 high-volume airports around the country.

Some third-party vendors have developed software that meets the CBP’s specifications, but MWAA found its in-house solution is equally effective at about a tenth of the cost of commercial options.

“We decided instead of investing in those, we would develop our own software,” Trull says. “It’s more flexible and versatile.”

Twenty-seven airlines that either tested veriScan or participated in a pilot program at Dulles are now adopting the facial-recognition system.

The early adopters include SAS, United, Air France, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Emirates. Other airlines and airports also are interested in using veriScan.

“We would like to see it expand,” Trull says. “We are doing pilot programs and tests at other airports.”