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byline: Veronica Garabelli
Nehemiah Security acquires Rockville-based Triumfant
Tysons-based Nehemiah Security, a cybersecurity services company, has acquired Rockville, Md.-based Triumfant, a company that creates software detecting and preventing cyber attacks.
Financial details of the acquisition were not released.
Nehemiah Security plans to integrate Triumfant’s AtomicEye product into Nehemiah Security’s core offerings.
Nehemiah Security describes AtomicEye as the first cyber software able to automatically detect and remediate stealthy attacks.
“We are focused on changing the game for security operators,” Paul Farrell, CEO at Nehemiah Security, said in a statement.
“By automating anomaly detection and empowering near real-time threat response, we are able to put the power back in the hands of the security operations team. The addition of AtomicEye lets us take our patented approach one step further by allowing our clients to eliminate reliance upon solutions that require signatures, files, indicators of compromise, and a team of analysts to investigate and respond to all threats.”
Iron Mountain begins construction on data center
Boston-based Iron Mountain Inc. has begun construction at its 83-acre data center campus in Manassas.
Kessinger/Hunter & Co. is the developer of the first 150,00-square-foot data center on campus.
“We’re seeing an increase in the customer need for highly secure data centers with flexible design for their precise requirements,” Mark Kidd, senior vice president and general manager of Iron Mountain Data Centers, said in statement. “We continue to manage capacity utilization to stay ahead of this need as the portfolio grows and have benefited from pre-leasing activity in existing markets.”
Iron Mountain’s Northern Virginia data center campus will have 60 megawatts of capacity spread across at least four facilities.
The first building, expected to open next summer, will offer 10.5 megawatts of critical power. It is designed to meet requirements of cloud services providers, federal government agencies, systems integrators, financial services firms and health-care companies.
Iron Mountain is a major provider of storage and information management services. Used by more than 220,000 organizations around the world, the company has a real estate network of more than 85 million square feet involving more than 1,400 facilities in 45 countries.
Dance studio wins $10,000 prize for wellness program
Simply Ballroom Dance Studio is the winner of a $10,000 prize in the first UnitedHealthcare Community Care Award.
The Chesterfield County-based dance studio, owned by Veronica Nugent, was one of five finalists competing for the award, which recognizes programs promoting community health and wellness in the Richmond area.
In collaboration with the Parkinson's Dance Project, Simply Ballroom plans to use the money to offer free classes each week to 40 people with Parkinson's Disease. The money also will fund plans to build a ramp for ease of entry into studio’s facilities and support marketing of the community program.
The five finalists presented their project ideas on Wednesday to a panel of health-care and business officials at BizWorks, a business incubator.
In addition, to Simply Ballroom, the other finalists were:
Emerge Sustainable Solutions
Outside in Ministries
Virginia is for Education
Visitry
The judges for the competition included:
· Beth Bortz, president and CEO of the Virginia Center for Healthcare Innovation.
· Doug Gray, executive director of the Virginia Association of Health Plans.
· Marianne Randazzo, vice president of sales and account management for UnitedHealthcare of the Mid-Atlantic.
· Yedda Stancil, entrepreneur-in-residence at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Project ideas spanned from fitness, mental health, nutrition, and more.
Local business incubators, BizWorks and RVA Works supported the development and promotion of the event.
Endurance IT Services announces plans to add 62 jobs in Virginia Beach
A Virginia Beach-based information technology services-company announced plans Tuesday to build new headquarters and more than double its staff.
Endurance IT Services says it has purchased a 15,000-square-foot facility on Greenwich Road in Virginia Beach for the new headquarters. Currently, the company has 52 full-time employees and an office in Virginia Beach, on Princess Anne Road, and another location in Newport News. The expansion will include an additional 62 jobs, which will have average annual salaries in the range of $85,000 to $95,000.
New positions will include systems analyst, server engineer, network engineer, infrastructure engineer, project managers, fractional IT director, business development, business analyst and help desk engineer.
The company has received a $105,000 Economic Development Investment Program grant from the Virginia Beach Development Authority for the project, based on the number of jobs created. Endurance also plans to invest more than $1.3 million in real estate, fixtures and business equipment.
Endurance, founded in 2008, provides infrastructure services, IT staffing and consulting, project management and managed services for private-sector customers. The company has received several accolades, including spots on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies and Virginia Business’ Best Places to Work list.
Early childhood education project announced
Four Virginia community colleges will collaborate on a project aimed at improving early childhood education in Southern and Southwest Virginia.
The program, the Davenport Early Childhood Development Institute, is being funded by a $1 million gift by philanthropists Ben and Betty Davenport of Chatham.
The institute, announced during a weekend gala celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Virginia Community College System, will partner with Danville, Patrick Henry, Virginia Western and New River community colleges.
The purpose of the project is to create a talented workforce in Southern and Southwest Virginia by ensuring access to high-quality training and education for individuals working in child-care centers or family child-care homes. The institute also will focus on increasing access to high-quality child-care options for working parents.
Programming will include training, a network of professional development opportunities, coaching, and a fellows program, which will provide select students with financial incentives, service opportunities and leadership experiences.
“We believe every child should have the opportunity to have a successful, productive life,” the Davenports said in a statement. “We like to compare childhood development to planting a crop. You would never sow the seeds without first preparing the ground and nurturing the planting until time to harvest. Similarly, children need proper care and educational instruction from the beginning of life. The Virginia Community College System is at the forefront of providing the training to make this happen.”
Davenports are longtime philanthropists with a special interest in education. Betty Davenport has served on the board of Smart Beginnings Danville/Pittsylvania. Ben Davenport is director emeritus and a former board chairman of the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation. He is chairman of Davenport Energy and First Piedmont Corp. in Chatham.
Advance Auto Parts names new CFO
Roanoke-based Advance Auto Parts has named Thomas “Tom” Okray executive vice president and CFO, effective Oct. 31. He will succeed Mike Norona, who will remain with the company in an advisory role until the end of the year.
The move is part of Advance Auto Parts’ previously announced transition plan. Okray joins Advance Auto Parts from Amazon, which he joined last year as vice president, finance, North American operations. In January, he became vice president, finance, global customer fulfillment. He was the finance lead responsible for optimizing key elements of Amazon's Global Fulfillment Network, including transportation and supply chain, capacity and labor planning and cost and productivity of fulfillment centers.
“Tom is very familiar with a supply chain that must respond rapidly to online demand,” Tom Greco, Advance Auto Parts’ president and CEO, said in a statement. “This will be increasingly critical to accelerating our growth at Advance going forward.”
Before joining Amazon, Okray held various leadership positions at General Motors, where he was most recently CFO, global product development, purchasing and supply chain.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
Advance Auto Parts, a major automotive aftermarket parts provider, operates 5,066 stores and 126 Worldpac branches while serving about 1,300 independently owned Carquest branded stores in the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Canada. The company has 74,000 employees.
FCi Federal moves to new headquarters
Ashburn-based FCi Federal (FCi) has moved its headquarters, tripling its office space, to accommodate the company’s rapid growth and expansion plans.
The new office located at 20135 Lakeview Center Plaza in Ashburn was unveiled Friday in a ribbon cutting ceremony.
“FCi’s expanded headquarters space will enable us to increase our capabilities and infrastructure in support of our robust growth in immigration pre-adjudication support services and our strategic expansion plans into new markets,” FCi Federal CEO and President Scott F. Miller said in a statement. “We have a talented HQ team and look forward to expanding our employee base here and at our customer sites across the U.S.”
Earlier this month, FCi Federal was awarded a $25.5 million, five-year prime contract by the Department of State to support mail and diplomatic pouch services. FCi will provide supports services for processing all incoming and outgoing mail at two government sites in Virginia.
In August, FCi Federal was named to the Inc. 5000 list as one of the fastest-growing companies in the nation.
Operating in more than 40 states and territories, FCi Federal is one of the fastest growing government services firms in the industry providing a wide range of managed professional, administrative and technical services to federal agencies.
ODU, Norfolk program aims to aid entrepreneurs
The City of Norfolk and Old Dominion University have formed a partnership to help local entrepreneurs.
Earlier this year they began the Innovation Center – Norfolk. The downtown facility — located at 501B Boush St. — offers businesses work space and assistance.
ODU hopes the center will be one of many in Hampton Roads that will help entrepreneurs, with each location tailored to a locality’s needs, says Marty Kaszubowski, executive director of the university’s Center for Enterprise Innovation (CEI).
“If I’ve learned anything in my 30 years in Hampton Roads, [it] is you have to be relevant to each individual city or else you’re in trouble,” he says.
The Innovation Center is one of several resources that CEI offers new and existing businesses. Other programs include the Hampton Roads Veterans Business Outreach Center, the Women’s Business Center, the Technology Applications Center and GOV2COM, which helps government contractors diversify into commercial markets. Companies at the Innovation Center will have access to CEI’s programs.
Overall, the Innovation Center hopes to work with high growth potential companies that can boost the local economy, Kaszubowski says. The companies can range from startups in the early stages of development to more established businesses trying to tackle new markets.
The Innovation Center has been a useful resource for Rocket Science LLC, a mobile applications developer begun by ODU students. The company, which now is renting office space at the center, began operations about two years ago. Rocket Science initially operated out of the ODU’s Strome Entrepreneurial Center, which offers students free co-working space. The company founders had to find a new location once they graduated from the university.
Franck Tchouambou, Rocket Science’s co-founder and chief operating officer, says the Strome Entrepreneurial Center and the Innovation Center have helped the company generate business leads.
Christopher Shelton, the Innovation Center’s managing director, and Nancy Grden, executive director of the Strome Entrepreneurial Center, have been great mentors, he says. Shelton, who co-founded Cure Coffeehouse & Brasserie in Norfolk, is helping Rocket Science learn the ropes of the restaurant business so it can market an application it’s developing for restaurateurs.
So far, things are going well for Rocket Science, which has three full-time employees and five contractors. From June through August, the company generated $100,000 in revenue. “We’ve been expanding very quickly,” Tchouambou says.
That type of growth is exactly what the Innovation Center is trying to promote. “What I really focus on is … creating a place, and more importantly, a program that helps companies go from where they are to where they need to be,” Kaszubowski says.
The ‘go-to’ for meeting planning
As corporate meeting planner for Newport News-based Huntington Ingalls Industries, the largest shipbuilding company in the U.S., David Hinnant is focused on the details that will make an event a success, such as guests’ dietary restrictions if food is being served.
“All those little things really go a long way when you’re planning a meeting,” says Hinnant, who began his career more than half a century ago with Newport News Shipbuilding and today works for its parent company, Huntington Ingalls Industries. During his tenure, Hinnant has planned hundreds of events, ranging from corporate board meetings to ship christenings, and welcomed notable guests on behalf of the company, including presidents of the United States and members of Congress.
In recognition of his expertise, Hinnant has been named the first ever Virginia Business Meeting Planner of the Year, a partnership between Virginia Business and the Virginia Society of Association Executives, which serves the commonwealth’s association management industry. Hinnant will be honored at VSAE’s 2016 Educational Symposium & Expo Oct. 6 at the Greater Richmond Convention Center in Richmond.
“There are many things for me to worry about in my current role,” HII President and CEO Mike Petters said when nominating Hinnant for the award. “Given Dave’s capability, our ability to host guests and create the right level of hospitality and professionalism for an excellent meeting environment is not one of them.”
Scott Stabler, HII’s vice president of internal audit, notes that part of what makes Hinnant an effective meeting planner is his insight when planning events. “One such occasion was the Christening of the Aircraft Carrier USS RONALD REAGAN (CNV 76) on March 4th 2001,” he says. “Mrs. (Nancy) Reagan came to Newport News (to christen the ship.) The former president (was unable to attend as he was) dealing with the progressive effects of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Dave had a jeweler create a special charm (and bracelet) for Mrs. Reagan, which both commemorated the former First Lady’s participation in the Christening and celebrated the calendar date of March 4th – the Reagan’s wedding anniversary. Mrs. Reagan was quite moved by this gesture.”
The Meeting Planner of the Year award comes at a monumental time for Hinnant, who is retiring Oct. 31. He started working at Newport News Shipbuilding in 1962 after graduating high school. He held several roles before becoming a meeting planner for the company, including pipefitter, marketing representative and a variety of jobs in the production control department.
“In production control my responsibilities were planning and scheduling and sequencing the building of the ships,” he says. “I think that really helped me with the event planning responsibilities — to look ahead and think ahead as to what was going to be needed.”
But Hinnant is quick to credit the entire team tasked with ensuring HII’s events run smoothly, which ranges from two other meeting planning professionals to the company’s security team.
“We try to do a lot of forward thinking and forward planning,” he says in order to have everything covered in case something goes wrong.
That includes being on a first-name basis with senior leaders where events are being held. “He is not reticent to use these connections when necessary,” Stabler says. “He also has an uncanny knack to sense when something is not right and to quietly remedy the situation before anyone is aware that something was awry.”
Hinnant never expected to become a meeting planner.
“I am truly blessed to have been a part of such a great company,” he says. “When I look at where I started and the transformations that have taken place with the company and in my life, in what to me seems such a short time, it’s amazing and nothing short of divine intervention.”
