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byline: Kate Andrews

Va. Beach-based ADS wins $91.6M DOD contract

Virginia Beach-based Atlantic Diving Supply won a $91.6 million contract to support weapons system programs for the U.S. Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Friday.

The equipment vendor won the contract from the DOD’s Defense Logistics Agency, which awarded ADS a $100 million, five-year contract earlier this month. The new contract has a four-year base period with three two-year option periods, with a March 31, 2025 completion date.

ADS’ first contract with DLA was awarded in 2000 and covered technologies used for marine lifesaving, diving, and search and rescue operations.

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General Dynamics books $2.4B Navy contract to build 10th submarine

General Dynamics has been awarded a potential $2.4 billion contract option from the Navy to build a 10th Virginia-class submarine, the U.S. Department of Defense announced last week.

The Fairfax-based company’s Electric Boat subsidiary in Connecticut will work with Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding on the project, which was added on to a December 2019 contract for $22.2 billion, the largest ever awarded by the Navy. The contract called for the building of nine submarines, with the possibility of a 10th vessel.

About a third of the contract work will take place in Newport News, and work on all 10 submarines is set to be finished by February 2030. According to the Navy, the Naval Sea Systems Command will provide about $2.7 billion in shipbuilding and conversion funds for fiscal years 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 at the time of the award.

General Dynamics employs 100,000 people worldwide and reported $39.4 billion in 2019 revenue.

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CGI Federal names new president

Stephanie Mango, a 25-year employee at Fairfax County-based CGI Federal, has been promoted as its president, parent company CGI Inc. announced Monday. She replaces Tim Hurlebaus, who is taking on a new role as president of CGI’s U.S. commercial and state government operations.

Hurlebaus, in turn, takes the place of Dave Henderson, who is now president of CGI’s global IP solutions.

A government contractor that works with more than 85 government agencies on defense, civilian, health care and intelligence projects, CGI Federal employs 7,000 people in the U.S. Mango was most recently senior vice president and leader of CGI’s security, assistance, justice and health business unit, where she oversaw the company’s mergers with Sunflower Systems and TeraThink Corp. CGI Federal is a subsidiary of CGI Inc., which is one of the largest independent IT and business consulting firms in the world.

Tim Hurlebaus, president of CGI’s U.S. commercial and state government operations

“I am honored to take the helm of such a remarkable organization that provides mission-critical services to help agencies enhance citizen engagement, accelerate digital transformation, protect America’s assets, modernize operations and empower the federal workforce of the future,” Mango said in a statement. “I’ve seen firsthand how the contributions of our members have shaped the success of our clients, our business and our communities, and I am excited about the road ahead of us.”

In addition to her work duties, Mango is vice chair for the American Council for Technology, a member of the Industry Advisory Council’s executive committee and a founding member of Chief Washington D.C., a network for women leaders.

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COVID roundup: Nearly 25% of Virginians vaccinated; fewer restrictions expected April 1

Nearly a quarter of Virginia’s population has now been vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Virginia Department of Health’s update Monday, March 22, and counties in the Eastern Shore, Southern Virginia and northern Shenandoah Valley have expanded vaccination to include people in group 1c.

So far, 3.1 million vaccine doses have been administered statewide as of Monday, and 2 million people have been vaccinated with at least one dose — 24.2% of the state’s population. The state is averaging 49,912 administered doses daily, VDH reported.

Meanwhile, Gov. Ralph Northam is expected to announce some loosening of public gathering restrictions that would take effect April 1, according to multiple news reports. The governor unveiled a tentative plan last week that would allow in-person graduations at schools, colleges and universities outdoors, with a limit of 5,000 people or 30% of the venue capacity. Indoor events will be capped at 500 people or 30%, and masks and social distancing will be required.

Also this week, the state’s cumulative number of cases has reached 605,967, up 10,102 from the previous week, a slight increase. The total number of deaths went up by 67 last week to 10,127, VDH reported Monday. The current seven-day positivity rate is 5.6%, up .2% from the previous week.

As for the state’s vaccination campaign, more doses are arriving weekly and more people are getting their shots, particularly in communities with mass vaccination clinics launched last week — Danville, Petersburg and Portsmouth. On Monday, Prince William County’s clinic opens. Although the clinics offer thousands of shots per day, they are still running by appointment only, as are other vaccination sites. Over the past week, local health departments received 382,990 vaccine doses, which don’t include the number of doses allocated to pharmacies directly by the federal government.

All adult residents of Virginia can now register to get vaccinated at vaccinate.virginia.gov or call (877) VAX-IN-VA, or (877) 829-4682. Depending on locality, people in groups 1b and 1c are now eligible for vaccination, and pharmacies now have started vaccinating people under the age of 65, including people with high-risk medical conditions and essential workers in group 1b.

Group 1c includes workers from sectors including energy, higher education, finance, legal and housing and construction. Others in group 1c include workers in water, waste removal, food service, transportation and logistics, information technology and communication, media and public safety as well as public health workers not included in earlier vaccination phases. According to VDH, all other localities across the state will move into phase 1c by mid-April.

The state now ranks eighth in the nation for its percentage of vaccine doses administered, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by Becker’s Hospital Review.

With race and ethnicity information available for only 64.7% of people who have received shots in the state, the majority of shots have been received by white, non-Hispanic people — 69.2% as of Monday, according to VDH. Black Virginians have received 13.9% of shots, although they make up 19.9% of the state’s population, according to 2019 estimates by the U.S. Census; 6.3% of vaccines were given to Latino residents, who comprise about 9.8% of Virginians.

State health officials have focused attention on equitable vaccination, especially as Latino and Black residents are heavily represented among people who have been infected, hospitalized and died from the coronavirus. Among Virginia’s COVID deaths in which ethnicity and race are recorded, 24.4% were Black, and 6.5% were Latino.

As of March 18, the following health districts have positivity rates of 10% or higher:

  • Hampton — 13.9%, up from 13% on March 11
  • Portsmouth — 11.1%, down from 12%

Globally, there are 123.3 million reported COVID-19 cases and 2,716,990 confirmed deaths, as of March 22. The United States, which has the most confirmed cases and deaths worldwide, has seen 29.8 million confirmed cases so far, with 542,382 deaths attributed to the coronavirus since February 2020.

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Facebook removes Amanda Chase’s Senate page

Facebook appears to have permanently removed State Sen. Amanda Chase’s official state Senate page, according to email communications provided by the campaign.

After multiple unsuccessful attempts by her campaign to get her public page reinstated as recently as last week, Chase, R-Chesterfield, said Sunday that she is considering a national class action lawsuit against the social media giant on behalf of herself and others whose pages were restricted because of content related to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Chase added that she feels “singled out” by Facebook for her conservative politics, and that Facebook’s ban on her Senate page also has harmed her campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. According to Chase, she had 144,000 followers on the public page, where she frequently posted live videos and photos from events. Her personal Facebook page and a private Facebook group for supporters of her gubernatorial campaign are still active, however.

Chase’s Facebook ban — which started as a temporary restriction on new posts and livestreams on the Senate page in early January — occurred at the same time that then-President Donald Trump’s public Facebook page was banned indefinitely. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that in Trump’s case Facebook made the decision for public safety reasons. The Facebook Oversight Board, a high-profile group determining content moderation decisions, is currently considering whether to overturn Trump’s ban and also plans to examine Facebook’s policies on elected officials.

The Virginia GOP has scheduled its nominating convention for governor and other statewide offices for May 8, and Chase campaign worker John Findlay, a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia, attempted last week to get Chase’s Facebook page reinstated before the convention. The social media giant first restricted Chase from streaming live video, posting or commenting on the page for 30 days in early January, and it took down two videos Chase posted from the National Mall in Washington, D.C., during a pro-Trump rally that took place a few hours before the violent takeover of the Capitol.

On March 11, Findlay, whose wife is also part of Chase’s campaign staff, emailed Facebook employee Rachel Holland, who is responsible for U.S. politics and government outreach. Findlay’s email to Holland was conciliatory, writing that Chase was “more than willing to comply” with Facebook’s requests, including deleting posts and “avoiding forbidden content.” Findlay added that Chase “would like to do a great deal of advertising” on Facebook. He said in an interview Sunday that he considered the request “likely a longshot, but it was a distinct possibility,” noting that Chase and Trump are the only high-profile political figures whose pages have been removed by Facebook.

However, Facebook did not change its mind. Reiterating a Jan. 19 communication with Chase’s campaign, Holland wrote in a March 16 email that Chase’s Senate page “was correctly disabled upon incurring multiple violations of our Community Standards which resulted in content removal. … Due to the potential for real-world harm, we do not allow exceptions [to] this policy.”

Two months earlier, Holland had explained in an email to Chase’s campaign that Facebook restricts and disables pages that are tied to violent groups, including U.S.-based militias and QAnon followers, and limits other content that includes “praise and support of the storming of the U.S. Capitol, calls to bring weapons to locations across the U.S. — not just in Washington but anywhere in the U.S. — including protests, incitement or encouragement of the events at the Capitol, including videos and photos from the protestors.”

Chase said Sunday she’s strongly considering bringing a lawsuit against Facebook and believes she and other pro-Trump partisans are being punished for their political beliefs. “You don’t adopt un-American policies, Facebook,” Chase said. “This is all a target on conservative Republicans. This has lit a fire under me. I will put Facebook out of business.”

Findlay said Sunday that although Chase is interested in suing Facebook, he’s not confident that a lawsuit would be resolved in time for the May 8 convention. “I think she’s still the overwhelming favorite” in the Republican gubernatorial field, despite the ban, he added.

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RBTC president leaves for new job

John Philips, president of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council, has resigned from the post to join Pulaski County-based GALA North America as vice president, RBTC’s board announced Friday. His last day is March 31.

Phillips, who holds degrees from Virginia Tech and Virginia Military Institute, joined RBTC in September 2019. He previously led Virginia Tech’s economic development office and launched the Knowledgeworks program at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center. During his tenure at RBTC, the group formed an alliance with the Regional Accelerator and Mentoring Program (RAMP) and the Valleys Innovation Council (VIC) called Verge, which took effect earlier this month.

According to a letter released Friday by board co-chairs Marty Muscatello and Ken Ferris, the RBTC Board of Directors will conduct a search for the organization’s next leader. In a letter to RBTC members, Phillips said he will continue “in a more limited capacity through April” to smooth the transition.

“During our time together, we accomplished many things, including achieving the RBTC’s first grant to grow our region’s technology internships and apprenticeships opportunities, pivoting our programming during the pandemic to continue serving our membership, and creating Verge,” Phillips said in his letter.

GALA North America, with a sales office and production facility based in Dublin, is a branch of the German-based candle and home decor manufacturer GALA Group. The company has about 250 employees in the United States.

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Virginia Tech joins Mid-Atlantic Quantum Alliance

Virginia Tech has joined a group of universities, government agencies and national labs in the Mid-Atlantic Quantum Alliance, the university announced this week.

Led by the University of Maryland, the 24 members of MQA “are building a vibrant and diverse ecosystem designed to foster U.S. and regional leadership in the coming quantum technology revolution,” including developing technologies, science discovery, entrepreneurship and workforce building, particularly in the growing quantum computing industry. Virginia Tech faculty in chemistry, mathematics, physics, computer science and engineering will join the effort.

“Joining the Mid-Atlantic Quantum Alliance will enhance Virginia Tech’s prospects of forging closer partnership with national labs, industry leaders, and other academic institutions that are currently active in research related to quantum science and engineering,” Dan Sui, vice president for research and innovation at Virginia Tech, said in a statement. “Continuing to support Virginia Tech’s quantum collaboratory is a top priority, and I am confident that our quantum information science and engineering faculty will benefit from this exciting new membership.”

The association with MQA, which was launched in January 2020, could help Virginia Tech doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers find jobs in private companies or national laboratories, said Vito Scarola, an associate professor in Tech’s physics department. Other members include George Mason University, Booz Allen Hamilton and McLean-based Mitre Corp.

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Va. extends income tax deadline to May 17

Virginia will also extend its income tax filing and payment deadline to May 17, following the lead by the Internal Revenue Service, which announced a similar delay this week.

Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement Friday that the state tax deadline will move from May 1 to May 17, affecting only individual income taxes but not applying to estimated quarterly tax payments. The IRS said Wednesday it would push the federal income tax filing deadline to May 17, a month after its usual April 15 deadline, because it is dealing with a 24 million backlog of returns awaiting process since the 2019 tax year.

“Aligning Virginia’s filing and payment deadline with the federal government will provide additional flexibility and simplify the process for taxpayers,” Northam said in a statement. “Even with this extended deadline, we encourage Virginians to file as soon as possible so we can get people the refunds they are entitled to while also protecting the commonwealth’s strong fiscal footing.”

Last year, due to the pandemic and resulting financial downturn, both the IRS and the state tax department delayed payment deadlines.

The governor’s office said the General Assembly will consider the issue of interest accruing between the original and new deadlines during its April veto session. Taxpayers must make payments by May 17 to avoid penalties.

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Hotel revenues down 39% in February

Virginia hotel revenues for February 2021 declined by 39% compared to February 2020, according to data released Thursday by STR Inc., a CoStar Group division that provides market data on the U.S. hospitality industry.

During the same period, rooms sold declined by 23%. The average daily rate (ADR) paid for hotel rooms dropped 21% to $80.34, while revenue per available room (RevPAR) fell to $34.84, a 39% decline.

“Performance of the hotels in the commonwealth during February 2021 was in general worse than in January 2021,” said Professor Vinod Agarwal of Old Dominion University’s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy in a statement. “COVID-19 continues to adversely impact this industry. However, with increasing vaccinations and declining COVID-19 infections, we should start seeing a significant improvement in the performance of the hotel industry over the 2020 levels beginning in March 2021.”

Hotel revenues and rooms sold declined in most markets during February 2021, compared with February 2020. Revenues fell 63% in the Northern Virginia market, 24% in Charlottesville and 17% in Hampton Roads. In January, revenues fell 34% in Northern Virginia, 36% in Charlottesville and 11% in Hampton Roads. The number of rooms sold during February 2021 declined by 46% in Northern Virginia, 24% in Charlottesville and 9% in the Hampton Roads market. The Chesapeake and Suffolk market fared better than other areas, with a 0.65% increase in rooms sold.

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MWAA sells facial recognition system to Pangiam

VeriScan, a facial-recognition system developed by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, has been sold to Alexandria-based Pangiam, a security and travel services provider, the company announced Friday. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

More than 40 airlines use veriScan’s traveler verification system, which is an integrated biometric facial recognition program that debuted in 2018 at Washington Dulles International and Ronald Reagan Washington National airports, which MWAA oversees. MWAA developed the technology in partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the system was sold to other airports beginning in 2018. According to Pangiam’s news release, 1.3 million passengers have been processed by veriScan since 2018, with 99% accuracy.

Although facial recognition programs have become commonplace at airports, there has been considerable controversy over the technology’s use elsewhere, particularly by police. Some states, including Massachusetts, have started passing regulations that limit the use of facial recognition technology, and the American Civil Liberties Union has called for the Biden administration to halt its use, calling it a “threat to civil rights and civil liberties when it works, and when it doesn’t.”

Pangiam’s purchase of veriScan is its first acquisition since the merger of Alexandria software company Linkware LLC and Pangiam, which were purchased by Florida-based private equity firm AE Industrial Partners LP in November. The combined entity now operates as Pangiam in the commercial space, and the Linkware brand is still used for government customers.

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