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byline: Robyn Sidersky

Johnston-Willis Hospital names new CEO

Johnston-Willis Hospital in Richmond has a new chief executive, HCA Virginia Health System announced Tuesday.

Beth Matish will become the Chesterfield County hospital’s CEO on Aug. 29. She has been part of the senior leadership team at Henrico Doctors’ Hospitals for 20 years and was named CEO of  Retreat Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond, another HCA facility, in 2016.

“I look forward to Beth bringing her skills in physician relations, employee engagement and business growth to Johnston-Willis,” Dr. William Lunn, CEO of Chippenham and Johnston-Willis Hospitals, said in a statement. “She is a proven leader who is known for consistently high scores in both inpatient satisfaction and employee engagement.

Matish replaces David McKnight, who was named CEO of the 292-bed facility in December 2021. McKnight had come to Johnston-Willis from Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center. He left the hospital on July 31, a spokesperson confirmed. According to his LinkedIn account, McKnight joined Spotsylvania County-based Vakos Real Estate Services as its chief operating officer in August.

Before she was chief executive of Retreat Doctors’ Hospital, Matish was chief operating officer for HCA’s Parham Doctors’ Hospital in Henrico County. At Retreat, she oversaw the annual orthopedic surgery volume growth of 5% and launched the hospital’s psychiatry and weight-loss surgery programs.

She started at HCA in 2001 as a summer associate at Parkridge Medical Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, before she moved to Richmond to become an associate administrator at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital.

Matish is a Chesapeake native and earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Duke University.

A subsidiary of Nashville, Tennessee-based HCA Healthcare, HCA Virginia Health System operates 14 hospitals, 27 outpatient centers and five freestanding emergency rooms, many of which are clustered in Northern Virginia and Central Virginia. HCA Virginia is affiliated with 3,000 physicians.

Hanover County business center sells for $41M

Baltimore-based Merritt Properties announced Tuesday it has purchased Crescent Business Center in Ashland from Crescent Business Center LC, a Thalhimer Realty Partners Inc. development, for $41.3 million.

The Hanover County business center includes five industrial buildings with 262,256 square feet of space on 20 acres and are 100% occupied, including Trane U.S. Inc., Electronic Systems, Motion Industries Inc. and Sunbelt Rentals as tenants. Another 19 acres on the property off Interstate 95 are undeveloped, and Merritt is evaluating development options to meet market needs.

“With this acquisition, we continue to execute on our strategy of extending our presence in strategic growth markets from the mid-Atlantic to the Southeast,” Merritt CEO Scott Dorsey said in a statement. “Crescent Business Center offered us the ideal opportunity to establish our presence in Richmond with high-quality existing assets, a strong tenant base and land for additional shallow bay industrial development.”

Eric Robison of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s Capital Markets Group handled the sale negotiations on behalf of the seller. Graham Stoneburner and R. Scott Douglas, also with Thalhimer, have been named exclusive leasing representatives for Crescent Business Center on behalf of Merritt Properties. Thalhimer’s Commercial Property Services Group will handle the property management of Crescent Business Center. Jason Crowder has been named portfolio manager for the center.

Merritt Properties already has 1.7 million square feet of office, bulk and flex/light industrial space in Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford counties.

Coronado announces $169M coal mining expansion

Coronado Global Resources Inc., an Australian producer of metallurgical coal, will invest $169.1 million to expand coal mining operations at its Buchanan Mine Complex, located about 10 miles southeast of Grundy in Buchanan County. The expansion will see the mining operation add 181 jobs, bringing its total workers at the site to 781, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Tuesday.

Coronado will increase capacity at the mine to meet the growing demand for metallurgical coal, which is used in steel production. The company began production at the Buchanan Mine Complex in 1983 and started longwall mining operations on the site in 1987. Last year, the Buchanan operation was the largest metallurgical coal-producing mine in the central Appalachian region.

“Coronado’s worldwide operations produce the highest quality metallurgical coal used in steel making,” Coronado CEO Gerry Spindler said in a statement. “We are committed to our Buchanan operation in Virginia and see great potential for capitalizing on the growing demand for steel, not only for construction and transportation infrastructure but also [for] renewable energy component parts.”

In addition to the Buchanan mine, Coronado has operations at the Logan Mine Complex in West Virginia and the Curragh Mine Complex in the Bowen Basin in Queensland, Australia. The company also operated the Greenbrier Mine Complex, a West Virginia mining complex that has been idle since April 2020 and is undergoing a reclamation process. Coronado idled its U.S. mines and temporarily furloughed workers in 2020 in response to pandemic-sparked global economic downturns.

“Coronado Global Resources’ major expansion is a win-win, creating 181 high-paying jobs in the resilient Buchanan community and increasing Southwest Virginia’s production of an essential component for the steel industry,” Youngkin said in a statement. “We value our long-term corporate partnership with Coronado and look forward to the economic benefits that will stem from this tremendous announcement.”

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Buchanan and Tazewell counties and InvestSWVA to secure the project. Youngkin approved a $3.525 million grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist the two counties. Funding and services to support employee training will be provided through VEDP’s Virginia Jobs Investment Program.

“Coronado’s additional investment in its Buchanan operation and its skilled workforce demonstrate a commitment to ensuring Virginia remains the energy capital of the East Coast,” state Sen. Todd Pillion, co-chair of InvestSWVA, said in a statement. “Our team is proud to have partnered with Coronado’s executive leadership in a retention and growth strategy that will supply the world’s steel manufacturers with the highest-quality met coal available in the global market.”

 

Lease signed for Fairwinds Landing in Norfolk

The ball has started rolling on the $100 million project turning the Lambert’s Point Docks property in Norfolk into Fairwinds Landing, a maritime operations and logistics center to support the local offshore wind, defense and transportation industries.

The Miller Group signed a lease for the 122-acre site owned by Norfolk Southern Corp. It has 20 miles of rail infrastructure, multicommodity, high-volume transload facilities and 1.1 million square feet of industrial warehouse space.

“Both Norfolk Southern and The Miller Group should be commended for their combined vision for such a tremendous site. The commonwealth, Hampton Roads and Norfolk will benefit greatly from the capital investment, development and job creation that will occur as a result of this transaction,” said Geoff Poston, senior vice president at Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, which brokered the lease.

Jerry Miller established the special purpose company in October 2021 to develop the property. Fairwinds Landing LLC currently uses the personnel of affiliated companies including Virginia Beach-based real estate development company The Miller Group, Virginia Beach’s Balicore Construction and Portsmouth-based Fairlead Integrated, an end-to-end supplier for defense contractors.

Fairwinds Landing will support several aspects of the offshore wind supply chain: manufacturing, fabrication and assembly; construction and storage; staging, maintenance and operations; and maritime logistics and transportation.

Va. layoffs and discharges down in June

Virginia companies put the brakes on layoffs in June, even as workers continued to seek new opportunities, refueling the Great Resignation.

Virginia had 28,000 layoffs and discharges in June, a decrease of 13,000 from May, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data released last week. That marked about 25% fewer involuntary separations by employers compared with June 2021. Industries that saw the largest decreases in layoffs and discharges nationally were wholesale and trade, finance and insurance, and the federal government.

However, at the same time, an estimated 114,000 Virginia workers quit their jobs in June, up 4,000 from May and 8.6% higher than in June 2021. Nationally, quits increased among education workers for state and local government (+14,000), while the construction industry saw a big decrease in quits (-51,000). According to the BLS, the number of quits, which includes workers who quit to take new jobs, can be a leading indicator of wage trends.

The rate of Virginians quitting jobs is up a third from five years ago.

Quits nationally remained flat in June at 4.2 million. The 1.3 million layoffs and discharges reported nationally in June were also about the same as May’s numbers. Virginia was one of nine states to see a decrease in layoffs and discharges; involuntary separations increased in five states.

The number of job openings in Virginia in June was 324,000, an increase of 12,000 from the month before, but lower than the record 340,000 job openings seen in March. In June, there was less than one unemployed worker per job opening in Virginia, holding steady over the past few months, marking the lowest rate since January 2021. The number of job openings in the U.S. decreased by 605,000 to 10.7 million. It went down in 19 states and up in two states in June. The job openings rate (job openings as a percentage of total employment) in Virginia was 7.4% in June, lower than the series high of 7.9% in September 2021. However, it is still higher than the national rate of 6.6%.

For June, there was less than one employed worker per job opening in the commonwealth, holding steady over the past few months, according to the Virginia Employment Commission. The peak was in February 2010 when it peaked at 4.4 unemployed workers per job opening. In April 2020, it was 3.3 workers.

The number of hires in Virginia rose by 3,000 to 173,000 in June, 3.6% greater year-over-year and 20% higher than five years prior. A hire is defined as an addition to the payroll.

 

 

 

 

Mary Baldwin University president to retire

Mary Baldwin University President Pamela R. Fox will retire from the school in June 2023 after two decades, the university announced Monday.

Fox announced her retirement during the school’s state of the university address. Her tenure, as the ninth president, is the longest in Mary Baldwin’s history since it became a four-year college in 1923. The university’s board of trustees will work with search firm Academic Search to find the next president, with the goal of naming the person in spring 2023.

“With humility, I have been extraordinarily honored to lead and serve alongside each of you,” Fox wrote in a message to the MBU community. “We have worked together with shared commitment to maintain our momentum with devotion to the mission, legacy, and promising future of Mary Baldwin University.”

She arrived in 2003 and spearheaded major undertakings, such as launching a new branch and campus and college for health care professionals, transitioning from a college to a university and overseeing record enrollment, with the largest incoming class in Mary Baldwin’s history.

During her tenure, Fox spearheaded two of the university’s largest fundraising campaigns, added more than 30 new degrees or programs and opened the Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences in 2014 among other milestones.

“Pamela has charted a path to success for the next generation of students through innovative programmatic changes, executed with remarkable speed and success,” Gabrielle G. “Gabby” McCree, chair of the board of trustees, said in a statement.

 

BWX Technologies hires new chief admin officer

Lynchburg-based BWX Technologies Inc. has hired Robert “Bob” Duffy as its senior vice president and chief administrative officer, the nuclear components and fuel supplier announced Monday. He starts Aug. 29.

Duffy will take the place of Rick Loving, BWXT’s current chief administrative officer, who announced his retirement after 43 years with the company. Duffy previously was senior vice president and chief human resources and administration officer for aerospace and defense contractor L3Harris Technologies Inc.. From 1998 to 2012, he served in human resources leadership positions with companies such as United Technologies Corp., Sikorsky Aircraft, UTC Fire & Security, Carrier Global Corp., Hamilton Sundstrand and Pratt & Whitney.

“Bob has an extraordinary track record of leading and building large-scale, complex businesses and will be a superb addition to our senior leadership team,” BWXT President and CEO Rex Geveden said in a statement. “His experience includes human capital development, continuous improvement processes, safety and security, and supply chain management among others. All of these functional areas are crucial for the growth BWXT expects to generate from investments in our core businesses and new nuclear markets.”

Loving will remain on staff through the first quarter to support the transition to Duffy.

Duffy has a master’s degree in management and technology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a bachelor’s degree in human resources management from Muhlenberg College. He also completed the executive business program at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

BWXT has approximately 6,600 employees across the United States and Canada, as well as joint ventures at more than a dozen Energy Department and NASA facilities.

 

Va. ABC hires chief digital and branding officer

The Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority has named Vida Williams as its first chief digital and branding officer, the authority announced Thursday.

Williams will guide the state ABC’s digital and web operations, communications and education with prevention teams, and support e-commerce initiatives. She started at the end of July.

“Virginia ABC is committed to its growth as an unparalleled retailer, wholesaler and regulator of the sale of distilled spirits,” Virginia ABC CEO Travis Hill said in a statement. “Innovative transformation of its digital footprint will be pivotal to implementing changes that have long-term positive impacts on our customers and communities. As the authority continues to look for ways to better serve its customers, ABC’s investments in e-commerce and community engagement will benefit greatly from Vida’s experience in transformative projects.”

Before joining Virginia ABC, Williams served as chief diversity officer and chief data officer for Richmond-based SingleStone Consulting. She earned the title “innovator in residence” while serving as an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s da Vinci Center for Innovation. She has also been managing partner at The Axis Partners Inc. and vice president of project management at Health Diagnostics Laboratory Inc. She graduated from Duke University.

In the past five years, Virginia ABC has contributed more than $2.6 billion to the general fund. It operates 395 stores across the commonwealth. Last year, the agency moved its headquarters and distribution center to Hanover County.

NoVa distillery to expand, create 42 jobs

Prince William County-based MurLarkey Distilled Spirits will invest $8.1 million to move and expand its operations, with plans to create 42 new jobs over the next three years, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Thursday.

MurLarkey will leave Bristow and establish a large new distillery and tasting room on the Manassas campus of Farm Brew Live,  a 12-acre entertainment complex with a brewery, restaurant and live music venue, located in Innovation Park, a mixed-use corporate research park. Founded in 2013 by brothers Mike and Jim Larkin and their cousin, Tom Murray, MurLarkey produces vodka, gin, whiskey and bourbon.

The distillery, which sources corn, rye and barley from Virginia farms, will increase its production eightfold over the next three years, leading to an additional $429,860 in purchases of 885,000 pounds of Virginia-grown grains.

“Virginia’s food and beverage industry continue to thrive as surging consumer spending and our world-class business environment combine to give company after company confidence that they can grow and succeed in the commonwealth,” Youngkin said in a statement. “With burdensome pandemic restrictions behind us, this growth and optimism is especially evident in our craft beverage sector as returning consumers bring newfound vibrancy to the industry.”

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services worked with Prince William County and MurLarkey to secure the project for Virginia, with a $250,000 grant from the Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund. Prince William County will match the grant with local funds.

“MurLarkey is both humbled and honored by the amazing support we have received from our state, county and local community. We’re excited to expand upon and further enhance the guest experience which MurLarkey has become famous for,” Murray said in a statement. “What started as a second career/family business has evolved into something which truly touches people, something broader reaching; much more than a craft spirits brand, MurLarkey has become a true lifestyle brand leading Virginia’s bourgeoning Spirit Trail.”

Caesars ups Danville casino investment to $650M

Caesars Entertainment Inc. has once again upped its investment in the forthcoming Caesars Virginia casino and resort  in Danville, this time from $500 million to $650 million, while announcing Wednesday that the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is now a joint venture partner in the casino project.

Plans for the casino include a 500-room hotel, 1,300 slots, 85 live game tables, 24 electronic table games, a World Series of Poker-branded live poker room and a Caesars sports book. It is also slated to have a full-service spa, pool, bars, an entertainment venue that can accommodate up to 2,500 people and 40,000 square feet of meeting and convention space.

“This venture is a vital opportunity for our nation and our people. We are excited to be expanding our longstanding and successful partnership with Caesars Entertainment to develop a first-class resort that will be defined by luxury and service that Caesars’ guests have known and come to expect,” Principal Chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Richard Sneed said in a statement.

Caesars, EBCI and a local minority investor will be partners in the joint venture, according to news release.

The casino will break ground this week and is expected to be completed in late 2024.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.