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byline: Veronica Garabelli

Ferguson adding 434 jobs in Newport News

Plumbing wholesaler Ferguson has announced a major expansion at its Newport News headquarters. The company is investing $82.8 million to add a campus at City Center at Oyster Point, a move expected to create 434 jobs and retain more than 1,000 positions.
       
The new campus will house Ferguson’s information technology (IT) workforce and other corporate functions.

Ferguson is the largest wholesale distributor of residential and commercial plumbing supplies and pipe, valves, and fittings in the U.S. The company also is a major distributor of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment, fire protection systems, waterworks, and industrial products and services. 

Founded in 1953, Ferguson has grown from a local distributor to a $13.8 billion company with more than 1,400 locations and over 23,000 employees nationwide. It employs nearly 3,000 people in Virginia, according to Secretary of Commerce and Trade Todd Haymore.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the City of Newport News to secure the project for Virginia. Gov. Terry McAuliffe approved a $2 million grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist Newport News with the project. The company also is eligible to receive state benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program. Funding to support the company’s employee training activities will be provided through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program.

Huntington Ingalls Industries names director of federal policy

Newport News-based Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) said Wednesday it has named Ashley Godwin director of federal policy.


HII is the nation’s largest military shipbuilding company. Prior to joining HII, Godwin served as the senior defense and government affairs adviser for the Shipbuilders Council of America.


As director of federal policy at HII, Godwin will support legislative and federal policy priorities that will support future shipbuilding programs and initiatives relating to HII’s Technical Solutions division.
From 2007 to 2011, she served as corporate director of government and customer relations for Falls Church-based Northrop Grumman. She also has served as deputy chief financial officer of the Department of the Navy and deputy associate director of presidential personnel in the White House.


In her new role, Godwin will work in HII’s Washington, D.C., office. She will report to Jay Donnelly, vice president of program integration and assessment.


Godwin earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina and a doctorate in political science from the University of Dallas.

Amazon to open 1-million-square-foot facility this fall

Amazon is building another massive facility in Virginia.

Construction is underway on the online retailer’s 1-million-square-foot distribution center and warehouse in Frederick County, which is expected to open in the fall, says Patrick Barker, executive director of the Frederick County Economic Development Authority. Amazon has distribution centers of the same size in Dinwiddie and Chesterfield counties.

“Our ability to expand in Virginia is the result of two things: incredible customers and an outstanding workforce in the state,” Akash Chauhan, Amazon’s vice president of North America operations, said in a statement when the deal was announced in late March.

Amazon is investing more than $100 million in the new facility, which will be located at the White Hall Commerce Center, an industrial park of roughly 100 acres owned by George Sempeles. When the facility becomes operational, it is expected to create more than 1,000 jobs.

Barker says the Amazon deal represents the largest capital expenditure on record in the county.  The jobs being created by Amazon is surpassed only by Navy Federal Credit Union, which plans to create 1,400 jobs in expanding its Frederick operation center.
Barker says “time to market,” the ability to create a facility quickly, was important to Amazon.

“They needed a property that would allow their developer to get the building constructed in a very compressed time schedule,” he says.
In looking for a site, the company already was interested in Northern Shenandoah Valley before Frederick officials became involved, Barker says. Amazon was interested in the region because of its proximity to the Washington, D.C.-area market.

Amazon will not receive local incentives for the project, but the company is eligible for state assistance. That includes a Major Business Facility Job Tax Credit plus funding and services through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program to support employee training. 

The Amazon and Navy Federal deals should help Frederick in its efforts to attract other businesses, Barker says.

“When you have companies of the corporate stature like Amazon [and] Navy Federal Credit Union make significant location decisions, that obviously is going to have a lot of credibility when you’r e out there marketing the community,” he says.

In addition to Virginia, Amazon considered sites in West Virginia for the project.

Consultant helps firms accommodate workers with disabilities

How does your company cater to workers with disabilities?

The goal of Glen Allen-based 6 Wheels Consulting LLC is to help businesses accommodate disabled workers and customers.

“People with disabilities are some of the most loyal, creative, resilient and hard-working people that you’ll ever meet because that’s how they have to be on a daily basis,” says Matthew Shapiro, 26, who started 6 Wheels Consulting in 2014.

Shapiro was born with cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that impacts body movement and muscle coordination.   The condition ranges from mild, where daily activities are not limited, to severe, as in Shapiro’s case, where a wheelchair is needed to move around (hence the name 6 Wheels Consulting).

Shapiro is one of millions of people living in the U.S. with a disability.  According to data from the 2010 U.S. Census, this included 30.6 million people who had trouble walking or climbing stairs, or use mobility devices, such as wheelchairs. Many business owners aren’t tapping into this segment of the population as employees or customers, he says.

“If we set up a world that was not completely barrier free, but had less barriers that somebody had to worry with, you could be getting people coming into your stores and spending money,” he says. “What business owner or what community doesn’t want somebody spending money in their community?”

Shapiro has provided consulting services to a number of organizations, including Henrico County and Goodwill. Shapiro helped Henrico for example, when it wanted to make libraries more accessible to the disabled, the elderly and families with young children. His assessments went beyond the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act compliance, recommending the furniture be rearranged so that people with disabilities can move more easily through the buildings.

“Something can be ADA-compliant, but it doesn’t work to my needs,” Shapiro says.

He adds that accommodating people with disabilities doesn’t have to be expensive. For example, a portable wheel chair ramp can be bought for $160. The rise of America’s elderly population in coming years also will lead to more people needing mobility devices, he says.

“If we are working on this stuff now and on the front end, whether it’s for businesses or society in general, we’re setting up a world that’s going to be better off for everyone down the road,” he says.

Focused on research

As Richard Sharp was driving home from dinner one night with his wife, Sherry, he unintentionally turned in the opposite direction of their Richmond-area house. 

“He didn’t forget how to get home,” says Sherry Sharp.  “It was that he lost the ability to understand what was left and … right … what was up and down.”

Richard Sharp’s trouble with directions that night, roughly a decade ago, was one of the first signs that the co-founder of Glen Allen-based CarMax and former CEO of Circuit City had a rare, early-onset type of Alzheimer’s disease.  He wouldn’t be officially diagnosed as having the disease until approximately three years later. Alzheimer’s eventually would leave him unable to perform simple functions, like sitting calmly in a chair.

“He would become panicked because he felt like he was falling,” Sherry Sharp recalls.

In June 2014, at age 67, Richard Sharp died from Alzheimer’s. He was one of more than 93,000 people who succumbed to the disease that year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). An estimated 5.5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S.

Alzheimer’s is a type of dementia that gradually destroys the brain, leading to memory loss and the disruption of many physical functions.  In the advanced stages of the disease, the brain cannot tell the body what to do, making it difficult for some sufferers to walk, swallow or even breathe.

There currently is no cure for Alzheimer’s. Sherry Sharp is working to change that.  Her causes include the Massachusetts-based Cure Alzheimer’s Fund (CAF), a nonprofit that funds Alzheimer’s research, and the Rick Sharp Alzheimer’s Foundation, launched last year to raise funds to help eradicate the disease.

“I actually had a chance to discuss [CAF] with Richard before he died, and he was very onboard with how they function,” she says. “His endorsement is what encouraged me to become a director in December 2014, after [he] passed away.”

Last summer, the Rick Sharp Alzheimer’s Foundation raised half a million dollars for CAF through its first event, the Rick Sharp Classic golf tournament and auction. The event will be held again June 12-13 at Independence Golf Club in Midlothian. This time, Sherry Sharp hopes to raise $750,000 for CAF. 

Inadequate funding?
Since 1999, she has given countless hours and millions of dollars to Alzheimer’s research, though she prefers not to disclose how much. The majority of her gifts, since joining the CAF board in 2014, have been to that nonprofit.

She is drawn to CAF because 100 percent of the funds raised through the organization go directly to Alzheimer’s research. The seven-member board pays CAF’s overhead and administrative costs — about $4 million per year. Since 2005, the nonprofit has distributed $50 million to more than 100 researchers in the U.S. and Europe, including $450,000 toward Alzheimer’s research at the University of Virginia.


Advocates and scientists in the field say inadequate research funding is a major barrier to finding effective treatment and a cure. Current drugs help mask symptoms but don’t treat the disease or delay its progression, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

George Bloom, a professor of biology and neuroscience at U.Va., who is one of three researchers at the university who have received funding from CAF, says, “The lion’s share of [Alzheimer’s research] funding comes from [the National Institutes of Health], which has been steadily increasing its contribution to Alzheimer’s research over the last handful of years, but it’s still, in my opinion, grossly underfunded at NIH and elsewhere.” Bloom, however, notes that his lab currently is well funded.

The fiscal year 2017 budget, which ends Sept. 30, includes an additional $400 million for research on the disease. That increase brings NIH’s funding for Alzheimer’s research in 2017 to nearly $1.4 billion, despite a proposal by President Trump’s administration to cut the agency’s total funding by $1.2 billion for the fiscal year. Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2018, set to start in October, recommends slashing even more money from NIH, $5.8 billion. (An updated version of the budget proposal had not been released when this issue went to press.)

Rising cost of care
Threats to federal Alzheimer’s funding means private donations will be even more critical, Sherry Sharp says. Even if the disease hasn’t impacted people personally, afflicting a family member or a friend, it will affect their pocketbooks, she says. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates the nation will spend $259 billion this year caring for people with the disease.  Medicare and Medicaid are expected to cover the majority of those costs. The number of Americans age 65 and older with the illness could rise to 13.8 million by 2050. The cost of care for patients with Alzheimer’s and other dementia is expected to reach $1.1 trillion that year.  

CAF funding has aided the Alzheimer’s-related research of Bloom and John Lazo, a pharmacology professor at U.Va. and adjunct professor at the Roanoke-based Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. The researchers are using $200,000 from CAF to reproduce conditions found in the brain of an Alzheimer’s sufferer using cells from humans and mice. Bloom and Lazo hope their research will eventually allow them to test new treatment options for Alzheimer’s and understand the disease better. 

“I can say without any doubt whatsoever that, without this funding, our labs’ efforts to try to approach this problem would be crippled,” says Lazo. “It’s allowed us to do some things that are bold and … that aren’t easily funded by the traditional, slow-moving, federal government-supported research.”

Sherry Sharp would like to see a cure in her lifetime. If she dies before that happens, she would like to know progress is being made. She likens the money now being invested in Alzheimer’s research to putting out a house fire with a bottle of water.

“The most difficult thing about the disease is getting the awareness out to everybody and saying, ‘Let’s pull together,’ because I can’t do it on my own,” she says. “We need everybody to be on board.”

Liberty Tax names new chief operating officer

Virginia Beach-based tax preparation firm Liberty Tax Inc. said Friday it has named Edward L. Brunot as chief operating officer, effective June 1.        


Most recently, Brunot served as president of MDV and executive vice president of SpartanNash, a wholesale distributor and grocery retailer. MDV, a division of SpartanNash, distributes grocery products to military commissaries in the United States and Europe.


Brunot also has held leadership roles in the U.S. Military. He was a captain in the U.S. Army and was awarded the Bronze Star.


He also is involved with the community, serving as president of the board of Vetshouse Inc. and a board member for USO Hampton Roads/Central Virginia and Honor and Remember.


Brunot received a bachelor’s degree from the United States Military Academy, West Point, and a master’s from the University of Scranton.

Sentara Healthcare names new head of human resources

Sentara Healthcare has appointed its first female to lead its human resources department.

Becky Sawyer has been promoted to senior vice president of human resources, effective May 29.

“I think it’s important to acknowledge that 81 percent of the workforce at Sentara is comprised of women,” Sawyer said in a statement. “Sentara has been a positive, supportive workplace for me, and I want to help ensure that we continue to celebrate a diverse, multigenerational team committed to our mission to improve health every day.”

Sawyer currently serves as vice president of human resources for Sentara hospitals in Hampton Roads, South Boston and Elizabeth City, plus Support Services, Sentara Medical Group, Sentara Enterprises, Sentara Life Care and Optima Health. She succeeds senior vice president Michael V. Taylor, who is launching an in-house program to develop future executive leaders for Sentara hospitals and other divisions.

Sawyer is a Virginia Beach resident raised in Montana. She earned her bachelor’s degree in business administration from Troy University and a master’s in public administration from Arkansas State University.

Old Point Financial appoints new CFO

Jeffrey W. Farrar has been named executive vice president and CFO of Old Point National Bank.

Farrar also will serve as CFO and senior vice president of Old Point Financial Corp.

Farrar served for 18 years as CFO of StellarOne Corp. and its predecessor companies. Most recently he was director of wealth management, mortgage and insurance for Union Bankshares Corp. He began his career with BDO Seidman.

Farrar earned a bachelor’s in accounting from Virginia Tech, his MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University and is a CPA.
 
In January, Old Point’s current CFO, Laurie Grabow, announced her intention to retire in the summer of 2017. Old Point engaged Kaplan Partners, an executive search firm headquartered in Philadelphia, to lead the search for a new CFO. Grabow started at Old Point in 1986 as assistant vice president of operations. In 1995, she was named audit director and in 2000, CFO of Old Point National Bank and Old Point Financial Corp. 


 

Parkway Brewing Co. to add 13 new jobs in Salem

Parkway Brewing Co. will create 13 new jobs and invest more than $750,000 to expand its craft brewery operation in Salem, Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced today. The brewery, which opened in 2013, will purchase 56 percent of its agricultural inputs from Virginia farmers.

“Investments like this create jobs, tourism opportunities, and new markets for Virginia’s farmers as craft breweries look to them to source hops, fruit, honey, and other agricultural products,” McAuliffe said in a statement.

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services worked with Salem and Parkway Brewing to secure this project for the commonwealth. McAuliffe approved a $150,000 grant from the Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development (AFID) Fund, which Salem will match with local funds. Additional funding and services to support the company’s employee training activities will be provided through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program.

Union Bankshares acquiring Xenith Bankshares

Union Bankshares is acquiring Xenith Bankshares Inc. in a $701.2 million, all-stock deal. The Richmond-based companies announced the deal Monday, which is expected to close in early January 2018.

Union says the deal will expand its retail footprint into North Carolina and Maryland. The combined company will have total assets of $11.9 billion, based on financial data as of March 31. After the transaction is completed, Union will have the fourth-largest branch network in Virginia.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, each outstanding share of Xenith common stock will be converted into the right to receive 0.9354 shares of Union common stock. This implies a deal value per share of $29.67 per share of Xenith common stock.

Union, the parent company for Union Bank & Trust, has 113 banking offices in Virginia. Xenith, the parent company of Xenith Bank, has 40 branches and two loan production offices in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. In July, Xenith merged with The Bank of Hampton Roads.

John C. Asbury, Union’s president and CEO, will continue to lead the combined organization. Xenith CEO T. Gaylon Layfield III will serve for a transitional period as executive vice chairman of Union Bank & Trust.

Following the closing of the merger, the Union Board of Directors will expand to 20 members. It will be made up of 18 members from the current Union Board and two members from the Xenith Board.  Raymond D. Smoot Jr., chairman of Union, will continue to serve as chairman of the board of the combined company.

The board of directors of each company has approved the merger agreement.  The deal is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory and shareholder approvals.