Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Upcoming Event

Best Places to Work in Virginia

Hamburger Menu Hamburger Menu

byline: Richard Foster

Lottery approves Danville Caesars casino’s license

UPDATED: April 26, 4 p.m. 

The Virginia Lottery Board approved the facility operator’s license for Danville’s $650 million Caesars Virginia casino, which is expected to open in a temporary space on May 15. It’s the third casino to receive state approval, following the Hard Rock casino in Bristol and Rivers Casino Portsmouth in Hampton Roads.

“For months, the Lottery’s Gaming Compliance Department and legal team have conducted background investigations and examined every detail of this application,” said Virginia Lottery Executive Director Kelly T. Gee. “Those investigations include not just Caesars Virginia, but all the vendors and employees as well.”

Approved by Danville voters in a November 2020 referendum, the Caesars Virginia casino is a partnership between Caesars Entertainment Inc. and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI).

A temporary casino is set to open in Danville on May 15 and a permanent one in late 2024. Photo courtesy Caesars

Caesars plans to open a 40,000-square-foot temporary facility at the former Dan River Inc. Schoolfield mill site. It will have eight sportsbook betting kiosks, 740 slot machines, 25 live table games including blackjack, roulette and baccarat; and 28 electronic table games of blackjack, roulette and craps, Caesars said in a news release. A quick service restaurant, Three Stacks, will also serve customers of the temporary casino. The temporary casino will create 400 jobs.

“We’ve received an incredible outpouring of support and cooperation to get us to this day, especially from the Danville community and the surrounding areas,” Chris Albrecht, senior vice president and general manager of Danville Casino and Caesars Virginia, said in a statement. “The opening of the Danville Casino is a monumental step forward for us, and we are excited to begin welcoming guests on May 15.”

Plans for the permanent resort casino call for 500 hotel rooms, a spa, a pool, bars, a 2,500-person entertainment venue and 40,000 square feet of meeting and convention space. The casino, expected to open in late 2024, will have at least 1,300 slots, 85 live game tables, 24 electronic table games, a poker room and sportsbook.

Virginia’s first casino, the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol, opened in July 2022 in a temporary space at the former Bristol Mall after receiving licensing approval less than 90 days earlier. In December 2022, developers began construction nearby on the $400 million permanent Hard Rock casino, which is slated to open in July 2024. The $340 million Rivers Casino Portsmouth, which received its license in November 2022, opened its permanent space in January. The Pamunkey Indian Tribe’s license for the proposed $500 million HeadWaters Resort & Casino on the Elizabeth River in Norfolk is still pending state approval.

“The Virginia Lottery Board takes very seriously its statutory role overseeing casino gambling in the commonwealth,” said Lottery Board Chairman Ferhan Hamid. “All Virginians, whether or not they use these facilities, need to be aware that they are operated and regulated responsibly.”

Business climate change

It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a revolution in how workers and businesses think about where, when and how we work. And that change is fully reflected in the survey responses we received from the 100 companies selected for this year’s Virginia Best Places to Work cohort.

Seventy-one of those 100 businesses reported that the pandemic has resulted in major adjustments to their work schedules, ranging from increased telecommuting opportunities to a fully remote workforce. In this issue’s annual Best Places to Work report, freelance writer Sydney Lake examines how some of Virginia’s best employers are negotiating this shifting workplace landscape.

Surveyed about the ways the pandemic transformed their workplaces, 30 companies said they have expanded telecommuting opportunities, including allowing for a mix of employees working in-person, remote and hybrid schedules. Another 21 companies reported that their workforces have gone fully or mostly remote, with 85% or more of their employees working four or more days remotely each week. And 20 businesses have implemented a hybrid work model, allowing employees to work a mixed schedule of remote and in-office workdays.

Most of these businesses reported implementing new conferencing and project management tools such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Slack to better help staff keep up with one another.

Equally as important to Virginia’s best employers is maintaining work culture in this new environment.

“Our culture is HUGE to us,” said a representative from the Dutch cloud computing/web services company Leaseweb, which has its U.S. headquarters in Manassas and now employs a hybrid/remote workforce. Once a month, the company holds an in-person “Leasewebber Day,” gathering employees for fun team-building activities ranging from going out for happy hour to holding summer barbecues and cornhole tournaments to renting out a movie theater to watch the latest Marvel movie.

Mythics Inc., a Virginia Beach-based federal contractor that allows employees to work remotely or in the office as needed, reported that it has “hosted a variety of virtual and in-office activities and contests such as wellness bingo, employee cookbook, virtual yoga, happy hours and other engaging activities.” It also implemented a “buddy” program “to engage/connect our new hires with current team members to accelerate integration with teams.”

Responding to the 2023 Best Places to Work survey, some of this year’s cohort companies also discussed how implementing remote work has been advantageous in allowing them to hire employees from around the nation, enlarging their applicant pools amid a tight and competitive labor market for many industries.

“We have expanded our hiring practices to include remote candidates for nearly every position except the office administrator in our physical office,” responded Richmond-based marketing agency Workshop Digital, adding that 41% of the company’s employees are now working remotely from outside the region. Due to that shift, the agency is also downsizing its physical office space and reinvesting the savings in its workforce and training opportunities.

Remote work has given employees more freedom to work where and when they want to, while helping companies retain employees who need or want increased flexibility. Some companies, such as Reston-based tech company Resonate, report allowing employees to relocate to other states. Richmond-based RiverFront Investment Group, which has moved to a hybrid work model, responded that “some associates have worked remotely in the mountains, at the river or in other countries near family for weeks at a time, balancing that with time in the office later.” 

Overall, Virginia’s best employers report that moving to more flexible work models has been good not only for employee morale but also the bottom line.

“COVID was an opportunity to encourage the kind of working freedoms that transformed our day-to-day operations,” responded Alexandria-based Xsensus LLP, an intellectual property law firm. “Our people were champions during this time, as we grew our business 30% year-over-year since the beginning of COVID. Of course, we needed to hire more administrative staff, but they too are able to work remotely!

“The changes made to our existing workplace policies have been so successful, we do not foresee any reason to change this policy because most people would like to continue working remotely.” 

Making the cut

The focal point of a New York Times exposé last year, Bon Secours’ Richmond Community Hospital was one of four hospitals in Virginia to receive top marks from patients in an annual nationwide survey.

The Virginia results of the latest survey, which was conducted in 2021, are shown below. Overall, Virginia patient satisfaction was 70%, two percentage points below the national average.

Four of 81 Virginia acute-care hospitals received patients’ top ratings: Richmond Community; Inova Loudoun Hospital; Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville; and Valley Health’s Page Memorial Hospital in Luray. Unlike the other three, Richmond Community’s ranking was based on fewer than 50 completed surveys.

In September 2022, the Times reported that Cincinnati-based Bon Secours Mercy Health was making as much as $100 million a year from Richmond Community, largely due to the federal 340B program, which allows hospitals in poor areas to purchase medications for a large discount, while charging insurers full price and keeping the profits. Unlike the nonprofit health system’s suburban hospitals, the Times reported, Richmond Community lacked an intensive care unit, a maternity ward and a reliably working magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. In December 2022, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that $27.5 million was sent from Richmond Community to Bon Secours’ Ohio headquarters in 2019.

The patient satisfaction scores come from the annual Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems conducted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Results are provided by Virginia Health Information, a Richmond-based nonprofit offering an array of data on hospitals, nursing facilities, physicians and health insurers in the commonwealth. In addition to the patient satisfaction survey, VHI annually provides Virginia Business with service line reports showing patient discharge volume by region for a wide variety of hospital procedures.

The national satisfaction survey asks patients two questions: How do they rate hospitals overall? And would they recommend the hospital to friends and family? The highest ratings in answer to the first question are 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. The highest recommendation in response to the second question is: “Yes, definitely.”

In answering both questions in 2021, 80% or more of respondents gave top ratings to the four hospitals. Additionally, another six hospitals scored 80% or better on one of the two questions in the 2021 survey: Inova Fair Oaks Hospital in Fairfax; Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church; Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital in Onancock; Smyth County Community Hospital in Marion; University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville; and Novant Health UVA Haymarket Medical Center in Prince William County.

The Virginia average percentages for top ratings in the 2021 survey were 70% for the first question and 69% for the second question (up 1% for the first question and unchanged for the second question from the 2020 survey). The national averages for the latest survey were 72% for the first question and 70% percent for the second, with the first question unchanged and the second question a percentage point lower than the previous year.

In the 2021 survey, data was unavailable from seven hospitals, including Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters and Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center.

The service line reports in the charts below show consumers which hospitals are the market leaders in their regions in terms of patient discharges for a variety of procedures. VHI suggests that patients seek additional information about their options and needs from health care providers. Not all hospitals provide the same types of care.

VHI also publishes regional and statewide costs for dozens of services to help consumers compare expected costs. These and other details about Virginia hospitals and other health providers are available at vhi.org. 

The 23rd edition of the Virginia Business Legal Elite

Launched in cooperation with the Virginia Bar Association in 2000, Virginia Business’ Legal Elite polls lawyers licensed to practice in Virginia each year, asking them to identify which of their peers are the top attorneys across 20 categories of legal specialties.

In compiling the Legal Elite, Virginia Business contacted more than 14,000 attorneys and more than 50 law firms, directing them to a balloting website, which was available only during the annual voting period.

This year’s Legal Elite categories include a total of 1,431 lawyers, 25.3% of the 5,649 attorneys who were nominated by their peers this year. Attorneys cast 1,670 ballots, making 28,474 separate votes across all 20 legal specialty categories.

Virginia Business also profiles a representative from each legal category.

The 18 attorneys who have appeared in all 23 editions are listed. Ten are from Central Virginia, while five are based in Hampton Roads and three are in Northern Virginia. Notably, this year saw two long-term honorees fall off the list due to their retirements: Conrad M. Shumadine with Willcox & Savage PC in Norfolk and Ralph M. Tener with McCandlish Lillard PC in Fairfax.

Two firms are well-represented in this list of 23-year honorees, with three attorneys each. Willcox & Savage has Allan G. Donn, William M. Furr and Thomas G. Johnson Jr. Williams Mullen also has three long-term honorees: William D. Bayliss and Calvin W. “Woody” Fowler Jr., who are based in Richmond, and Thomas R. Frantz, the firm’s chairman emeritus, in Virginia Beach.  

The long haul: The 18 lawyers who have made the list every year since 2000

Smart growth: At 100, Gentry Locke sticks to its ideals

Click on category to see complete list and profile.

 

 

Getting meta

Twenty years ago, artificial intelligence seemed like the stuff of sci-fi films such as “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “The Matrix.” Today, it’s so ubiquitous as to be virtually unremarkable and unnoticeable — integrated into everything from GPS traffic navigation apps on our phones to smart devices in our homes to security scanners at the airport.

In this issue, Virginia Business Associate Editor Courtney Mabeus explores how some of the commonwealth’s largest federal contractors and tech companies are developing this maturing technology for uses such as expediting medical diagnoses and providing real-time intelligence to troops on tomorrow’s battlefields. (See related story, “Artificial intelligence gets real”)

In a way not dissimilar to AI’s journey, by 2042 the metaverse may be passé. But to the average business executive outside the tech realm, the concept can seem a bit bewildering here in 2022, even though it’s getting more and more press lately.

Part of the problem is that there doesn’t appear to be any consensus on the meaning of metaverse. Science fiction gives us an idealized concept of it as a three-dimensional virtual world that would replace the internet and social networks. Instead of shopping by scrolling through a page of images, for instance, you’d stroll through a virtual mall, examining 3D wares, trying on clothes or test-driving cars in VR.

Despite the fact that Facebook Inc. changed its name to Meta Platforms Inc., we’re still a long way from living in the Matrix. Facebook’s metaverse vision so far is a VR network called Horizon Worlds that requires a bulky headset and features legless, cartoonish avatars that look more like characters from “The Sims” than real people. Horizon Worlds is also similar to Second Life, a virtual network that launched in 2003. So far, Horizon Worlds’ numbers have been underwhelming, The Wall Street Journal reported, with fewer than 200,000 users as of mid-October — less than the population of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Additionally, it’s unlikely that current VR rigs, which can cause motion sickness and neck pain in some users, will become de rigueur in offices and homes — especially considering that Meta’s latest VR headset, the Quest Pro, debuted in October at $1,500 a pop.

That said, as remote work continues to grow, making it possible to employ workers from practically anywhere, the demand for virtual and augmented (or mixed) reality platforms and technologies will grow, and more companies and products will arise to meet those needs.

As with any tech, there will be winners and losers, and some will be more comfortable adopting it than others.

Today, we think of digital natives as younger millennials, Gen Zers and members of Generation Alpha, people who know only a hyperconnected world of the internet and smartphones. But the metaverse will speak to a slightly different skill set.

The people who will be most comfortable navigating 3D interfaces are likely to be video gamers. And before you dismiss that population as nerdy basement dwellers, consider that gaming is a $60 billion industry in the U.S. alone, with more than 215 million Americans actively playing video games, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Entertainment Software Association.

About 48% of gamers are women and girls now. And while most children play video games, more than 70% of all video gamers are over age 18. About 36% of gamers are between ages 18 and 34, and 26% are between ages 36 and 54. The numbers drop dramatically, however, among people ages 55 and older, who could stand to be left behind or at a considerable disadvantage in navigating a vastly different cyberworld than the one we know today. There’s plenty of time yet to deal with that problem, though.

I believe Web3 and future social media and work platforms may well feature 3D environments and mixed reality objects, but I think it’s also possible that the American innovators who will create the best of those haven’t yet joined the workforce.

Confident pronouncements from the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world aside, be skeptical of those who claim the ability to definitively predict the future of the metaverse. And be more so of those spouting empty buzzwords and asking you to invest your money in it.   

A ‘quiet’ place?

With Halloween fast approaching, I thought I’d regale you with a spooky tale of the corporate world’s favorite new boogeyman: quiet quitting.

Like many scary things for people over age 45, this story begins on TikTok and Reddit, where this summer Gen Z and millennial workers were riffing about “quiet quitting” — generally defined as doing the minimum amount of work required of them and not going above and beyond.

This in turn kicked off a panicked wave of stories and podcasts from the likes of The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes and Fortune, decrying anti-hustle culture as the End of Western Civilization as We Know It, with spine-tingling, bone-chilling headlines like, “Why Half The Workforce Is Quiet Quitting, And What To Do About It.”

Since then, like a monster in the third act of a creature feature, the clickbait stories about quiet quitting will not die — even though the phenomenon may turn out to be about as real as Dracula or the Wolf Man.

The most hyperbolic stories are those that would lead one to conclude that half the U.S. workforce are total slackers.

The one stat trumpeted most in quiet-quitting stories is a June Gallup poll of U.S. employee engagement. Gallup warned of a “quiet quitting crisis,” noting that quiet quitters “make up 50% of the U.S. workforce” — and “probably more,” Gallup added for pulse-quickening good measure.

Here’s the thing, though: The June survey of nearly 15,100 full- and part-time workers found that 32% are engaged at their jobs and 18% are “actively disengaged” (read “one foot out the door”). Gallup labeled the remaining middle 50% as “quiet quitters,” saying these are “people who do the minimum required and are psychologically detached from their job.”

But Gallup’s been conducting this same poll for at least 22 years and while it measured four-point increases in people who say they’re actively engaged or disengaged in their jobs since 2020, the folks they’re calling “quiet quitters” have hovered between 50% to 55% of the workforce for decades, so there’s not anything necessarily new going on here.

In other words, these are people, who like many millennials and Gen Zers, don’t define themselves by the work they do. They show up, do what they’re asked, get paid and go home. No more, no less.

The term “quiet quitting” apparently was coined by 44-year-old Gen X career coach Bryan Creely, who posted a TikTok video with his thoughts on a March article from Insider devoted to “coasting culture.” Insider writer Aki Ito wrote about how exhausted, overtaxed workers had “quietly decided to take it easy at work rather than quit their jobs.”

Several of the mainstream stories about quiet quitting focus on remote work or white-collar jobs, but many viral videos and posts about quiet quitting were created by lower-paid hourly workers who say they’re being asked to take on more and more work for no extra compensation. “Act your wage” is a common saying among these folks, and it’s notable that this comes at a time when CEO-to-worker pay ratios are at an all-time high, with the average S&P CEO in 2021 making 324 times more than their workers’ median pay. Amazon.com Inc. tops the list, with a CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 6,474 to 1. (For more on this, see our October 2022 cover story about executive compensation.)

Amid pandemic-sparked labor shortages, everyone from hourly restaurant workers to office desk jockeys to remote executives was asked to take on more duties, with work increasingly encroaching on personal and family time in ways both subtle and substantive.

It’s perhaps no surprise then that what many overextended “quiet quitters” are actually talking about in their posts and videos is the need for work-life balance — that they’re literally tired of living to work, rather than the other way ’round.

There’s a reason the phrases most likely to repel job seekers these days include “must handle stress well,” “willing to wear many hats” and “responsibilities may include those outside the job description,” according to the results of a survey of 800 U.S. adults released in September by Paychex Inc., a payroll processing company.

For many, “quiet quitting” seems to be just another way of saying they’re setting work-life boundaries.

But it does make for scary headlines.  

All businesses great and small

There are 32.5 million small businesses in the United States, employing more than 61 million people and making up a staggering 99.9% of the nation’s businesses, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

As business journalists, though, we tend to focus almost exclusively on the larger businesses that reap bigger profits and make bigger news. With a combined $16.1 trillion in annual revenues, Fortune 500 companies alone make up 18% of the gross world product and two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product, while employing nearly 30 million worldwide. It’s easy for corporations like Boeing Co. or Dominion Energy Inc. to soak up attention.

And the fact is, it’s also very difficult to know which small businesses will last and which have a story worth telling. Entrepreneurs face steep risks — about 20% of small businesses fail in the first year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure rises to a dreary 45% in five years, and a daunting 65% hang up “out of business” signs within 10 years.

Faced with that kind of math, it’s understandable why business news outlets can be hesitant to cover startups and small businesses. Yet, with the contraction and closure of many daily and weekly newspapers, coverage of small, local businesses is shrinking, and that’s everyone’s loss.

That’s one of the reasons why we’ve launched a new page devoted to startups, where we’ll endeavor to cover a little of everything — from accelerators, venture capital and funding rounds to mom-and-pop shops.

And speaking of startups, in our cover story, freelance writer Greg Weatherford takes us on the speedy journeys some Virginia companies have traveled to become unicorns with billion-dollar-plus valuations — just six years(!) in the case of Herndon cybersecurity firm Expel Inc.

September also brings the third annual edition of the Virginia 500, polybagged with this issue. Five times the size of our annual monthly issues, this compendium of the commonwealth’s 500 most powerful executives is the length of a modest airport paperback. And if, like me, you’re the type of person who enjoys learning about movers and shakers and how they got to where they are, it can be just as compelling a read.

From an editorial standpoint, I don’t mind confiding that the 500 is a beast of a project. From research to writing to publication, it’s about six months of work, involving all five members of our editorial staff, nine freelance writers and two copy editors. And that’s not even including the photographers, art director and layout staff. I’d like to single out Virginia Business Associate Editor Courtney Mabeus and freelance writer Beth JoJack, whose stellar writing and reporting accounts for about 40% of the 500. Additionally, Deputy Editor Kate Andrews and Assistant Editor Katherine Schulte provided invaluable editing and fact-checking assistance, and Associate Editor Robyn Sidersky kept our daily news website humming along while the rest of us were deep in 500 Land.

As reporters and editors, we find the 500 is an incredibly valuable reference exercise for helping us keep up with the state’s top executives and businesses. And we know that many of you feel the same way, because the 500 is the most popular publication we’ve introduced in the magazine’s 36-year history.

That said, we don’t like to work in a vacuum. Our goal for the 500 is to present as accurate a picture of power in the commonwealth as we can, but it’s also somewhat subjective, no matter how much research we do to back it up. So, if after reading this year’s edition you feel we missed someone crucial or included someone you think shouldn’t have made the grade, feel free to reach out to me. I’m always glad to chat — and now that the 500 is done for another year, I’ll have a little more time.

For a while, anyway.  

2022 Virginia 500: Moving up

When I give my elevator speech about the Virginia 500, it usually starts this way: It’s like the Fortune 500, but instead of focusing on companies, it’s about people.

More specifically, unlike the Fortune 500, which ranks companies by gross revenues, this is a more subjective list. We strive to inventory the most powerful and influential leaders and executives in Virginia across 20 major sectors, ranging from real estate and manufacturing to higher education and government. We accept suggestions for the Virginia 500, but it is compiled based on research by our editorial staff, not through nominations.

Some of the list is determined by a person’s position — if you’re the governor of Virginia or the head of a Fortune 1000 corporation, you’ll find yourself on the Virginia 500. Other factors we consider include company revenue, the number of employees a leader oversees, the scope of their responsibilities, how newsworthy the executive is, and how prominent they are within their industry and/or community. We examine board memberships, as well as philanthropy.

When I discuss the Virginia 500, I also explain what it’s not: public relations or advertising. This is an editorial product, and our editors choose who makes the list, which leaders we write about and what we say about them. Though most people named to this list consider their inclusion an honor, a very small number don’t want to be listed. However, it isn’t an opt-out process.

For the sake of expediency and organization, we condense some industries into overarching categories. One example is the real estate section, which includes leaders from related industries such as architecture and engineering, construction and development.

We do not attempt to adjust this list for race, gender or geography. Our aim is to present a true picture of who holds the most power in business, government and higher education in the commonwealth. As such, this list skews largely white and male, though it is significantly more diverse than America’s top business leadership.

There are six Black CEOs (including two women) leading Fortune 500 companies this year, making up 1.2% of Fortune 500 leaders. By comparison, the Virginia 500 has 42 Black leaders (including nine women), composing 8.4% of the list. (About 14% of the U.S. population are Black or African people.) People of color make up 12.8% of the Virginia 500.

As for gender, there are 95 women leaders on the Virginia 500, making up 19% of the list. Comparatively, 44 women CEOs head up Fortune 500 companies this year, comprising 8.79% of top U.S. business leadership. (That’s up from 41 women Fortune 500 CEOs in 2021.)

It also shouldn’t come as a surprise that economic power in the Old Dominion is mostly clustered within the so-called “golden crescent” of Northern Virginia (representing 39.6% of Virginia 500 leaders), Central Virginia (28.9%) and Hampton Roads (19%).

Additionally, Virginia is not immune to national trends. This year’s Virginia 500 edition had a 24.2% turnover rate from last year, featuring 121 new leaders. While some are executives we have chosen to add for various reasons (such as recognizing lifetime achievements in the living legends section), many newcomers to the list have succeeded now-retired baby boomer executives or leaders who left for other jobs in a C-suite version of the Great Resignation.

For those of us who haven’t ascended to the lofty heights of those represented here, there is an aspirational joy to reading about the career journeys of the leaders in these pages.

After all, there’s always next year.

Breaking rank

What a difference a year makes.

On July 13, 2021, against a backdrop of ships blasting their horns and spraying water in celebration at the Port of Virginia’s Norfolk International Terminals, Gov. Ralph Northam sat for a harborside interview with CNBC, which had just named Virginia the nation’s best state for business for an unprecedented second consecutive year. (Virginia previously won the No. 1 spot in CNBC’s America’s Top States for Business list in 2019; the cable business news network suspended the 2020 rankings due to the pandemic.)

“This is an exciting day for Virginia,” a grinning Northam said, going on to tout the state’s investment in the port’s infrastructure.

Exactly one year later, under new Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the commonwealth presented a very different response after Virginia was bumped from the top spot by North Carolina, with CNBC ranking the Old Dominion as the nation’s No. 3 state for business in 2022.

There were no news releases sent out from the governor’s office recognizing the fact that coming in third out of 50 is still pretty darn good. Ditto, there were no kudos extended to our southern neighbor.

Instead, when asked by reporters about the rankings, Youngkin said, “I’m always so appreciative of Virginia receiving good accolades … [but] Virginia has not been performing like the best state for business.”

This isn’t a case of sour grapes on Youngkin’s part — it’s a consistent position.

During his campaign for governor, Youngkin downplayed Virginia’s No. 1 ranking, noting that Virginia’s pandemic job recovery numbers in late summer 2021 had placed it among the bottom five states. He’s also been critical of the cost of living and doing business in Virginia, as well as the fact that Virginia lags behind many other states in the availability of large, shovel-ready sites for larger economic development projects. (Incomplete site grading was cited as one factor for why Hyundai chose a site in Savannah, Georgia, for a $5.5 billion electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant in May instead of Pittsylvania County’s Southern Virginia Mega Site at Berry Hill.)

CNBC bases its rankings on 88 metrics, including workforce (the most heavily weighted category); education; cost of living; technology and innovation; and access to capital.

“A great education system is building a smart workforce,” CNBC said about Virginia this year, “but migration has slowed to a state where living costs are high.”

In terms of infrastructure, CNBC ranked Virginia ninth best in the nation, citing the commonwealth’s ongoing $3.8 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion, as well as the fact that 89.3% of Virginians have broadband access. (Also, just 4% of bridges and 13% of roads in Virginia are in poor condition, the network noted.)

Nevertheless, CNBC gave Virginia a D+ grade for cost of living and C+ grades for its economy and life, health and inclusion.

To his credit, Youngkin, former co-CEO of Washington, D.C., private equity firm The Carlyle Group, has said that as governor his priorities include job creation and lowering the costs of living and doing business in the commonwealth.

Responding to the CNBC rankings, Youngkin noted that Virginia jobs numbers improved dramatically during the first six months of his administration, and he touted economic development successes such as the June announcement that the Lego Group plans to build a $1 billion toy manufacturing plant in Chesterfield County. Yet, the governor distanced himself a bit from the factors that CNBC criticized, saying that while he’s working to improve the economy, his administration’s also “had to dig out of a hole” he inherited from Northam.

Meanwhile, Virginia Democrats issued a statement, claiming that Youngkin’s “culture war” and stances on issues such as abortion (the governor has proposed banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy) “are driving business away” from Virginia. State Democrats also charged that Youngkin is too focused on his rumored interest in a 2024 presidential bid.

After just six months in office, though, it was probably still a little early for Youngkin to either take credit for the good or blame for the bad. And if Virginia politicos learned any lessons from former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder’s term, it is likely also far too soon to chase national ambitions.

Virginia’s Fortune 500 companies

Virginia continues to perform well on the Fortune 500, with 21 companies from the commonwealth making the 2022 list, which ranks the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the United States by total revenue.

Mortgage finance company Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (“Freddie Mac”) once again topped Virginia’s list of Fortune 500 companies. With $65.89 billion in 2021 revenue, the firm placed 56th on the list. (Freddie Mac will have more competition next year, though, when Raytheon Technologies Corp., ranked 58th this year with $64.38 billion in revenue, will be counted among the Virginia-based companies.)

Nine of this year’s Fortune 500 companies are based in Fairfax County. Coming in a close second is the Richmond region, with eight companies, including Richmond-based Arko Corp., which debuted on the Fortune 500 this year at No. 498. Arko is the parent company of Richmond-based GPM Investments LLC, one of the nation’s largest convenience store chains.

The only Virginia companies that moved up on the Fortune 500 this year were Goochland County-based Performance Food Group Co., which rose two slots to No. 112, and Henrico County insurer Markel Corp., which shot up 22 places to No. 289.

Notable companies that dropped from Virginia’s Fortune 500 list include railroad corporation Norfolk Southern, which moved to Atlanta last year, and federal contractor CACI International Inc., which slid to No. 522.