The Herndon-based Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) on Thursday opened the application process for $7 million in grant funds from its new Commonwealth Commercialization Fund, focused on promoting innovation and technology commercialization initiatives.
The fund started six months ago. This round will provide grants up to $100,000 to support companies’ commercialization and market entry goals. Funding can be used for product or service development, market research, intellectual property protection, marketing and pilots.
Target sectors include agriculture and environmental technologies, autonomous systems, clean energy, cybersecurity, data science and analytics, life and health sciences and space and satellites. Projects are expected to last approximately six to 12 months.
Applications will be due April 14 and award announcements will be made by mid-June. Qualified applicants must be for-profit companies headquartered in Virginia; founded after Jan. 1, 2016; and Virginia must be the place of business for the CEO, project manager and majority of the company’s staff.
Reston-based government services company Maximus announced Thursday the planned retirement of Chief Financial Officer Richard J. Nadeau, effective Nov. 30, 2021. David Mutryn, senior vice president of finance, will succeed Nadeau on Dec. 1, 2021.
Nadeau, who joined the company in 2014, will continue to serve as CFO through the transition.
“It has been a privilege working alongside Rick,” Maximus President and CEO Bruce Caswell said in a statement. “His valued leadership and partnership in driving the long-term strategic direction of Maximus have been critical as we continue our journey of digital transformation, clinical evolution and market expansion.”
Mutryn joined Maximus in 2016 as global corporate controller and became senior vice president of finance in 2020. He is also a member of the company’s executive committee. Before his time with Maximus, he served as vice president of finance at CSRA. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and his master’s degree in business administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“Having worked with David for over a decade, I am confident that Maximus is well-positioned for the next phase of its transformation,” Nadeau said in a statement. “David Mutryn will be an exceptional addition to the senior management team.”
Founded in 1975, Maximus provides business process management and technology services. The company employs more than 30,000 people worldwide and in 2019 reported $2.9 billion in revenues. Maximus promotes itself as the nation’s largest administrator of Medicaid enrollment.
Tysons-based Fortune 500 IT services company DXC Technology confirmed Thursday it received an unsolicited, preliminary and nonbinding proposal from French information technology company Atos to buy all of the company’s shares.
DXC will evaluate the proposal, according to a company statement.
“Prior to receiving this proposal Wednesday night, DXC Technology had no knowledge of any such interest from Atos,” says a DXC statement. “We remain focused on delivering for our customers, people and shareholders as we execute our transformation journey.”
Based in the Parisian suburbs of Bezons, France, Atos also confirmed the proposal on Thursday, saying it approached DXC with a “potential friendly transaction between the two groups in order to create a digital services leader benefiting from global scale, talent and innovation.”
Neither company confirmed whether the proposal would result in an agreement or transaction.
DXC Technology was formed in April 2017 as a result of the merger of Computer Science Corp. and the Enterprise Services business of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The company has 138,000 employees worldwide and last year had revenues of more than $21 billion. Atos employs 110,000 people and has annual revenues of more than the equivalent of $14 billion.
McLean-based Fortune 500 global management consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. announced Wednesday it demoed the use of an in-flight artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm for the U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command’s 9th Reconnaissance Wing U-2 Federal Laboratory.
This marks the first time that a pilot has teamed up with AI to successfully complete a “complex mission,” according to Booz Allen.
“The threats facing our national security are increasingly sophisticated and it will be critical to move new innovations from the lab to the real world to combat them,” said Dick Johnson, Booz Allen senior vice president and leader in the firm’s national security business, in a statement. “This U-2 flight is an important step, demonstrating the ability of AI to work in coordination with highly skilled operators to propel complex missions forward.”
In less than 40 days, Booz Allen team members modified an open-source reinforcement learning algorithm and developed a web-based pilot interface with two-sensor sharing.
“Together, our Air Force and Booz Allen U-2 Federal Lab teams successfully operationalized artificial intelligence, enabling the AI to emulate control of sensor systems on a U-2 Dragon Lady in a training flight, marking one of the first known uses of AI on board a U.S. military aircraft,” Jesse I. Angle, Booz Allen senior lead technologist, said in a statement.
Booz Allen has 27,173 employees, with 10,245 in Virginia.
Dynetics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reston-based Fortune 500 government contractor Leidos Holdings Inc., announced Wednesday it has submitted its proposal for the Human Landing System (HLS) that is planned to take the first woman and next man to the man’s surface for NASA‘s Artemis Program by 2024.
In late April, Dynetics was one of three companies tapped (including Amazon.com Inc. and SpaceX) to design the human lunar landing system . The total combined value of the awarded contracts is $967 million. During a 10-month period, each of three companies are developing competing designs for the HLS, and one will be selected to build it.
“Our team is making great progress on our system design and analysis, hardware development, and testing,” Kim Doering, Dynetics vice president of space systems, said in a statement. “The incredible volume of technical data and outstanding products delivered to date speak to the power of the swift, yet rigorous, engineering approach with which the team has executed.”
Dynetics provided NASA with early design efforts, mission plans as well as details about hardware, software and test activities. The company is currently performing tests of the main engines at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
“We believe this body of work lays a solid foundation for our crew-centric, sustainable solution to become NASA’s choice for safe human transportation to and from the lunar surface,” Doering said in a statement.
Leidos acquired Dynetics for $1.65 billion in February 2020 in an all-cash transaction. Dynetics is also working on NASA’s Space Launch System Core Stage, Exploration Upper Stage and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle as well as the International Space Station.
The number of initial joblessclaims filed last week jumped a staggering 64.3% to more than 19,000, according to Virginia Employment Commission data released Thursday. This is the highest number of initial claims reported since August 2020.
For the week ending Jan. 2, 19,530 Virginians filed initial claims for unemployment, an increase of 7,640 claimants from the previous week.
Last week, 63,588 Virginians remained unemployed, a 0.2% increase from the previous week but 41,417 higher than the 22,171 continued claims from the same period last year. People receiving unemployment benefits through the VEC must file weekly unemployment claims in order to continue receiving benefits.
“Over half of claims were in the accommodation/food service, health care, administrative and waste services and retail trade industries,” according to the VEC. “The continued claims total is mainly comprised of those recent initial claimants who continued to file for unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The regions of the state that have been most impacted continue to be Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads.
Below are the top 10 localities, listed by number of initial unemployment claims, for the week ending Jan. 2:
Nationwide, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims for last week was 787,000, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week’s revised level, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. There were 335,480 initial claims during the same week last year.
Virginia’s COVID-19 cases have continued to surge while the first wave of vaccines are administered, and Gov. Ralph Northam has placed further restrictions on some businesses, as well as directing state authorities to discipline businesses that don’t obey the ban of alcohol sales after 10 p.m., or social distancing and mask mandates.
Northam also ordered in late December that Virginia businesses that laid off employees in the first three months of the pandemic will be held harmless for the layoffs, allowing businesses to avoid paying about $200 million in payroll taxes to replenish the VEC’s Unemployment Insurance Trust, which ran out in October. Currently, the state is relying on federal money to pay state unemployment benefits.
Virginia Commonwealth University announced Thursday that Pamela D. Lepley, who has served as vice president for university relations since 2014, has been promoted to senior adviser to VCU President Michael Rao. Grant J. Heston will succeed Lepley as the university’s chief communications officer starting Jan. 10.
Lepley has been with the university since 2002 and previously served as executive director of VCU’s Division of University Relations and as director of the VCU Office of Communications and Public Relations, now known as University Relations.
Grant Heston. Photo courtesy VCU
“I am very grateful for the hard work, dedication and difference Pam made during her time leading university relations,” Rao said in a statement. “And I look forward to continuing to work together with her.”
Heston, who will serve as chief communications officer for VCU, from 2007 to 2019 served as vice president for communications and marketing and chief of staff at the University of Central Florida. In 2020, he worked as vice president of communications and marketing for Florida Southern College.
“Grant is an excellent addition to the leadership team at VCU,” Rao said in a statement. “He brings a wealth of higher education communications leadership experience and strategy, which is essential to strengthen and advance the unmatchable story of the VCU enterprise brand.”
Heston received his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Florida and his master’s degree in business administration from the University of Central Florida.
CarLotz, which is valued at $827 million, will combine with Miami-based Acamar Partners Acquisition Corp. to make it a public company. At closing, the company name will remain CarLotz Inc. and will be listed on the Nasdaq and trade under LOTZ. Acamar Partners is scheduled to hold a stockholders meeting to approve the proposed merger on Jan. 20, and the transaction is expected to close on Jan. 22.
Linda Abraham, Sarah Kauss, Kimberly Sheehy and James Skinner were nominated to sit on the board.
“Linda, Sarah, Kimberly and James are all pioneers in their industries and bring a wide diversity of thinking and experience to CarLotz,” CarLotz co-founder, CEO and Chairperson Michael Bor said in a statement. “We look forward to their energy, passion and wisdom as we continue our rapid growth.”
Abraham is the managing director of international investment bank and management consulting firm Crimson Capital and invests in and advises early-stage technology companies. She also founded digital measurement and analytics company comScore and Paragren Technologies, which was acquired by Oracle. She also serves on the boards of Site Centers, Tiger 21, Upskill, Zum and Humanest. She will serve as the chair of the compensation committee on CarLotz’s board.
Kauss is the chairwoman of New York-based reusable water bottle and insulated products company S’well, for which she served as CEO for 10 years. Before S’well, she worked in international real estate development and accounting. On the CarLotz board, she will serve as a member of the audit and compensation committees.
Sheehy most recently served as chief financial officer of Texas software company ResMan LLC and also previously served as chief financial officer of Lori’s Gifts and CyrusOne Inc. She will serve as the chair of the audit committee and a member of the nominating and corporate governance committee with CarLotz.
Skinner is the retired vice chairman of the $4 billion fashion retailer Neiman Marcus Group, where he also previously served as chief operating officer and CFO. He currently serves on the board of directors for Acamar Partners. Skinner will chair the nominating and corporate governance committee and be a member of the audit committee for CarLotz.
Founded in 2011 by Richmond-area entrepreneurs Bor, Aaron Montgomery and Will Boland, CarLotz opened its first store in Midlothian and later expanded to Henrico County, Richmond, Chesapeake as well as North Carolina, Florida, Texas and Illinois. The company now has eight locations and sells vehicles via its online platform.
Norfolk-based Sentara Healthcare announced Thursday a $10 million investment to be split among grants to local universities as well as public health and health equity improvement initiatives.
“We can only do so much to improve the health and well-being of our community inside the walls of our facilities,” Sentara Healthcare President and CEO Howard P. Kern said in a statement. “In order to drive lasting change, we must work together to extend our impact beyond our walls to the environment in which people live, work and learn.”
ODU and NSU will each receive $2 million to support the development of a School of Public Health, $3 million will go to support collaborations among ODU, EVMS and NSU for public health and health equity initiatives and the remaining $3 million will go to improvement grants for community organizations in Hampton, Newport News, Williamsburg and Suffolk to address underserved communities.
Grant recipients are intended to use funds in the following ways:
Create, enhance partner university capabilities to improve public health, health equity in underserved communities
Promote collaboration among ODU, NSU and EVMS
Support community organizations to improve public health, health inequities
Support the establishment of a School of Public Health
Promote long-term public health, health equity activities’ sustainability
“A public health school in Hampton Roads will be a tremendous benefit to the region and the state,” said Dr. Richard V. Homan, EVMS president and provost, in a statement. “We have a long history of collaborating on public health programs with ODU and look forward to the expanded partnership opportunities with Old Dominion and Norfolk State University made possible by Sentara’s gift.”
In August 2020, Sentara announced that it had signed a letter of intent to combine organizations with Greensboro, North Carolina-based Cone Health by mid-2021. Financial details were not disclosed, but the two health systems have a combined revenues of $11.5 billion. Their headquarters will remain separate, according to Sentara, and the merger is subject to state and federal regulatory review. Kern will lead the combined organization from Norfolk. Some of the health systems’ goals for merging include increasing health insurance options, building technology platforms and growing community impact.
Colliers International Virginia announced Thursday it has hired Prashant Merchant as senior vice president of the company’s capital markets team and Nic Wade as assistant vice president.
Merchant and Wade most recently led the hospitality division for California-based real estate brokerage Marcus and Millichap Inc. In their new role, they will focus on hotel and motel analysis and disposition in the mid-Atlantic region, specifically on seller representation.
“Recently, the pandemic has had a profound impact on hotels and as a result, we see conversion opportunities which should bring investors from various real estate asset types to the hotel space,” Merchant said in a statement. “Having teamed up with Colliers now allows us to add value to our investors by bringing an entire new asset type to the table.”
Merchant graduated from the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University and Wade graduated from Christopher Newport University.
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