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byline: Veronica Garabelli

Sweet Briar College to close

Officials at Sweet Briar College announced Tuesday that the college will close on Aug. 25.

“This is a sad day for the entire Sweet Briar College community,” Paul G. Rice, the college’s board chair, said in a statement. “The board closely examined the college’s financial situation and weighed it against our obligations to current and prospective students, parents, faculty and staff, alumnae, donors and friends. We voted to act now to cease academic operations responsibly, allowing us to place students at other academic institutions, to assist faculty and staff with the transition and to conduct a more orderly winding down of academic operations.”

The college’s president James F. Jones Jr. said in a statement that he and Sweet Briar’s board worked to find answers to the challenges the school faced, but to no avail.  “This work led us to the unfortunate conclusion that there are two key realities that we could not change: the declining number of students choosing to attend small, rural, private liberal arts colleges and even fewer young women willing to consider a single-sex education, and the increase in the tuition discount rate that we have to extend to enroll each new class is financially unsustainable,” he said.

Two other liberal arts colleges in Virginia have ceased operations in the past two years—Virginia Intermont College in Bristol and Saint Paul’s College in Lawrenceville. The closing will leave the state with two women’s colleges: Hollins University in Roanoke and Mary Baldwin. in Staunton. According to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, Sweet Briar enrolled 672 full-time students last fall compared to 686 in the fall of 2013. 

Sweet Briar says that after March 15, when Spring Break ends, it will begin efforts to help its students transfer to other colleges and universities.  It also will host on-campus college fairs to help match current students with transfer opportunities and help students admitted for fall 2015 find a new academic institution.

The college, which was founded in 1901,said its class of 2015 will be the final graduating class, and the commencement ceremony on May 16 will be the last one held on campus. A final on-campus reunion will take place May 29-31 and the college will close on Aug. 25 to allow students to finish their summer credit hours. 

Sweet Briar hopes to provide severance and outplacement services to faculty and staff but is still working out the details.

In late 2013, Virginia Business interviewed Jo Ellen Parker, then president of Sweet Briar, about the financial and enrollment challenges faced by same-sex colleges. Parker, who left Sweet Briar the following year to become president of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, said women’s colleges were an important option in higher education.

“What’s not clear is how many institutions in that ecosystem we need to meet the need,” she said. “It’s not clear how many dedicated to that mission will ultimately sustain themselves.”

Norfolk Southern names new CEO

Norfolk Southern Corp. has named its current president James A. Squires as CEO, effective June 1. He will succeed Norfolk Southern CEO Charles W. “Wick” Moorman who will continue as the company’s executive chairman of the board of directors.


The company says the change in leadership is part of its planned succession process. When Squires takes over as CEO, he will continue to serve as Norfolk Southern’s president.


“Building on our record results in 2014, we are entering a great new time of performance and possibilities,” Moorman said in a statement. “Thanks to the dedication of Norfolk Southern people, the support of our customers and business partners, and the outstanding leadership team in place at Norfolk Southern – led by Jim Squires – I am confident that the company is poised for continued growth, success and shareholder value creation.”   


Squires, 53, joined Norfolk Southern in 1992. Prior to that, he served in several legal positions before being named Norfolk Southern’s vice president law in 2003, senior vice president law in 2004, senior vice president financial planning in 2006, executive vice president finance in 2007, executive vice president administration in 2012, and president in 2013.


Squires graduated from Amherst College with a bachelor of arts in Ancient Greek in 1983. After graduating he served as an Amherst-Doshisha Fellow at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan. He then served in the U.S. Army for four years and in 1992, he received a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School.


This year he was named to Virginia Business' list of business leaders making their mark in the state. He also was a recipient of the magazine's CFO Award for Publicly Traded Companies in Virginia in 2011. Squires also served as chairman of Virginia's Transportation Accountability Commission under former Gov. Tim Kaine.

Norfolk Southern’s Southern Railway Company subsidiary operates approximately 20,000 route miles in 22 states and the District of Columbia. It serves every major container port in the eastern United States and provides connections to other rail carriers.

Lumber Liquidators responds to 60 Minutes report questioning levels of carcinogen in its product

Toano-based Lumber Liquidators is defending itself against a 60 Minutes report that aired Sunday that found that the company’s Chinese-made laminate flooring has toxic amounts of formaldehyde – a-known human carcinogen – that may not meet health and safety standards.


“We comply with applicable regulations regarding our products, including California standards for formaldehyde emissions for composite wood products – the most stringent rules in the country — and take our commitment to safety even further by employing compliance personnel around the world and utilizing the latest in cutting-edge technology to provide our customers with top quality and high value flooring,” the company said in an emailed statement. “These attacks are driven by a small group of short-selling investors who are working together for the sole purpose of making money by lowering our stock price.  They are using any means to try and scare our customers with inaccurate allegations.  Their motives and methods are wrong and we will fight these false attacks on all fronts.”

The segment shows how tests sent to certified labs revealed that Lumber Liquidators’ Chinese-made laminate flooring is not meeting California’s standards for how much formaldehyde composite wood products can emit. A national law adopting California’s formaldehyde composite wood products emission standards also is going into effect this year. In addition to conducting its own test on the product in question, the show’s undercover investigators also traveled to Lumber Liquidators’ Chinese mills where employees admitted to falsely labeling the company’s laminate floor products as complying with California’s formaldehyde emission standards.


“As recently as late 2014, testing by independent third parties confirmed that 100 percent of the randomly selected cores used in the laminates from the three factories that 60 Minutes investigated came back as fully safe and compliant with California standards,” Lumber Liquidators continued in its statement. “While we were unable to witness 60 Minutes’ testing methods and have still yet to see a test using validated methods that has come back as anything but completely safe, out of an abundance of caution, we are now reviewing our processes at these three mills. ”


In its statement, Lumber Liquidators concluded that it stands by its products.


“We stand by every single plank of wood and laminate we sell all around the country and will continue to deliver the best product at the best price to our growing base of valued customers,” the firm said in its statement.


The company said in a conference call last week that it was expecting the report to air. It also said it was facing possible criminal charges brought by federal prosecutors in regards to The Lacey Act, which prohibits trade in wildlife, fish, and plants that have been illegally sold.  The news prompted Lumber Liquidator’s stock to fall more than 25 percent on Feb. 25th to $50.63 a share. On Friday, its stock closed at $51.86 per share.

To view the segment, watch the video below:

Big wins

Central Virginia has been at the center of some major economic development wins lately, including a much-coveted craft brewery headed for Richmond, a $2 billion paper plant to be built in Chesterfield County and a chemical plant that is being revived in Petersburg.

This year, the area is expected to get worldwide exposure when the UCI Road World Championships are held in Richmond Sept. 19-27. While many Americans may not be familiar with the cycling competition, organizers expect the event to bring 450,000 spectators from around the world, creating about $158 million in local economic impact and attracting millions of global television viewers. The championships haven’t been held in the U.S. since 1986. Last year, they were in Spain.

Greg Wingfield, president and CEO of the Greater Richmond Partnership (GRP), doesn’t expect the event to have a long-term economic impact, but he believes it’ll create a positive image for the city. “So, the PR value will have more of a long-lasting effect,” Wingfield says.

A craft brewer’s plans to locate in Richmond may also add to its cool factor. After a much-publicized hunt for a location east of the Mississippi, Escondido, Calif.-based Stone Brewing said last year it would establish a brewery and, eventually, a restaurant in the city, investing at least $41 million and creating a minimum of 288 jobs.

Wingfield says the GRP region, which includes Richmond and Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties, now has made up the jobs lost during the Great Recession. “Every new job we’ve added since mid-April has increased the total number of employed individuals, so we now have a net new gain of people working in the region,” he says.

Last year, GRP assisted with projects expected to create 3,172 future jobs and almost $2.2 billion in capital investments. 

The biggest project involved Shandong Tranlin Paper Co.’s plans to locate its U.S. headquarters in Chesterfield County. The Chinese pulp and paper company is investing $2 billion and expects to create 2,000 jobs in the area by 2020.

“That was a deal that, in my mind, was one of the faster economic deals I’ve seen in my 20 years,” says Wingfield, who has headed GRP since 1994 and is retiring in June. (The organization’s current senior vice president, Barry I. Matherly, will take over as president and CEO.) The transaction took about 10 months to complete from start to finish, Wingfield says.

Another big job boost is expected from the federal government’s decision to locate the Foreign Affairs Security Training Center at Fort Pickett in Nottoway County. Jeff Reed, executive director for Virginia’s Growth Alliance, an economic development group that includes Nottoway, says the move is a game changer for his region. The center is expected to train up to 10,000 U.S. State Department staff and foreign-affairs workers. The construction phase of the project is estimated to create hundreds of jobs and bring millions of dollars in federal investment to Nottoway, according to a news release issued by Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s office. 

While the public sector is expected to help the economy at Fort Pickett, defense cuts could affect Fort Lee in Prince George County and its surrounding area. The Army base could lose up to 3,600 military and civilian positions, according to a report by the U.S. Army Environmental Command.

Helen Cauthen, president of the Central Virginia Partnership for Economic Development says project activity last year increased in her region, which includes Charlottesville and Albemarle, Culpeper, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Nelson and Orange counties.

The project list includes two custom apparel makers.  Fairfax-based CustomInk expanded its warehouse in Albemarle County, investing $45 million in the venture and adding 582 jobs. New Jersey-based Green Applications meanwhile plans to set up its first Virginia operation in Gordonsville, investing $9.75 million and creating 323 jobs. Green Applications is moving into a building formerly occupied by American Press, which closed the plant in 2011.


Region 2000, a regional development network that serves the Lynchburg area, also has new jobs in the pipeline.

The biggest announcement last year came from Lindenburg Industry, a subsidiary of a Chinese company. Lindenburg is investing an estimated $113 million in its first U.S. manufacturing operation, creating 349 jobs in Appomattox County.

Nuclear power companies Areva and Babcock and Wilcox (B&W) cut some positions in the region last year, but Megan Lucas, head of Region 2000’s Business and Economic Development Alliance, says the nuclear energy sector still is a major asset in the region.

Lucas notes that the area is home to diverse group of businesses and a number of educational institutions, such as Liberty University, Lynchburg College, Randolph College, Sweet Briar College, Central Virginia Community College and Virginia Technical Institute, which focuses on technical-skills training. 

But Central Virginia isn’t gaining attention just from business prospects — Hollywood is taking notice of the region, too.

This spring, PBS will film a Civil War drama in the Richmond and Petersburg areas. The program will premiere next winter.

“Turn,” a Colonial-era spy drama that airs on AMC, filmed its first and second seasons in the area, and “Ithaca,” a movie directed by Meg Ryan and produced by Tom Hanks, wrapped up production in the Richmond and Petersburg areas last summer. The governor’s office says film productions had an economic impact of $382.5 million in Virginia and provided $19.4 million in state and local tax revenue for the commonwealth in 2013.

In addition to serving as a film site, Virginia’s Gateway Region — which includes Petersburg, Hopewell and Colonial Heights plus the counties of Chesterfield, Dinwiddie, Prince George, Surry and Sussex — welcomed news last year that UniTao Pharmaceuticals would purchase the Boehringer Ingelheim plant in Petersburg. Boehringer  had announced plans to close the plant. UniTao Pharmaceuticals, the subsidiary of a Shanghai firm, is expected to invest $22.5 million in the facility and create 376 jobs.

Renee Chapline, the head of the region’s economic development organization, says it also has seen an uptick in retail activity and community development projects, such as the reopening of the Beacon Theatre in Hopewell in 2013. The theater “has brought a lot of new life to the city,” Chapline says.

As Wingfield prepares to retire, he remains optimistic about Richmond’s future economic growth. “I think the best years are in front of the region as we continue to get accolades, the area continues to attract millennials,” he says, noting that the city’s historic infrastructure is a big draw. “That’s, you know, what people are interested in and live in. You can’t recreate that in a Charlotte or someplace. It’s either you got it or you don’t.”

 

Set on Stone?

After months of controversy, one of the nation’s largest craft breweries is moving forward with plans to start a brewery and eventually, a restaurant, in the River City.


This month, the Richmond City Council approved a land transfer to its economic development authority of an old warehouse, which will eventually serve as the site of a restaurant for Escondido, Calif.-based Stone Brewing. The city plans to fund the restaurant’s construction, a move that has caused contention with some of Richmond’s restaurant owners who say Stone is receiving an unfair advantage. Proponents of the project see it as a public-private partnership that will, among other things, help revitalize one of the city’s blighted neighborhoods.


Stone has said it will invest at least $41 million in the venture and create 288 jobs. The brewery will be located in the city’s Greater Fulton neighborhood, which was mostly torn down during a failed 1970s Urban Renewal plan. The restaurant will be situated by the nearby James River.


While the project wasn’t the largest economic development announcement made last year in Central Virginia, it was one of the most coveted. When Stone put out a request for proposals in early 2014 for a brewery location East of the Mississippi, it received 200 responses from more than 20 states. The company eventually made 40 site visits and narrowed its list to three finalists — Columbus, Ohio; Norfolk and Richmond.


The city’s incentive package is valued at more than $30 million. It includes $23 million in bonds for the facility’s construction, $8 million in bonds for Stone Brewing’s restaurant and beer garden and $2 million in grants, matching contributions made by the Governor’s Opportunity Fund. Stone says it will repay the city’s investment through lease payments on the property, which will include interest, and is matching $7 million in state and local grants.


Michael Byrne, director of operations at the Richmond-based Tobacco Company Restaurant, formed a group with 35 other restaurants aimed at stopping the city’s funding for Stone’s restaurant and beer garden. He says Richmond is not being transparent about the incentives package it is giving Stone in that part of the deal.


“Nobody in my group has ever said that Stone Brewery shouldn’t take the deal,” says Byrne. “No one should ever be offered that deal outside of the brewery itself.”


But Greg Koch, Stone’s CEO and co-founder, says any suggestion that the city’s financial assistance is a gift is inaccurate since Stone will repay the money with interest, making the venture a viable investment for the city. “If it wasn’t, the city wouldn’t be making it, and these kind of deals are not uncommon in the worlds of cities and businesses,” Koch says.


Greg Wingfield, CEO of the Greater Richmond Partnership, also thinks the Stone plan was a good deal for all parties involved. He says that about 10 years ago, Richmond was thinking of giving away the Fulton Gasworks site so it wouldn’t have to deal with environmental concerns. The site is part of the 14-acre parcel where Stone will locate.

Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones also backs the deal. “Mayor Jones views the Stone opportunity as a chance to jump start development in an area that is undeveloped,” said the mayor’s press secretary Tammy Hawley. “The city has also been focused on increasing our tourism draw, and we view increased tourism in the city as to everyone’s advantage. Efforts to expand the city’s tax base, create jobs, and attract other investment will ultimately benefit the whole of Richmond’s economy. A strengthened overall economy will benefit all businesses.”


Stone expects to begin operation of the brewery by early 2016, but the restaurant and beer garden won’t open until a few years down the road, Koch says. The restaurant will include organic, local products and guest taps featuring a large number of local craft beers.


Koch says Stone will need a diverse level of skill sets when it ramps up hiring, from entry level to executive level positions. Jobs will range from brewers to management and sales staff.


“When it’s all said and done, we are going to have quite a place that we believe will bring people in from far and wide to experience our unique characteristics, and also simultaneously people will get to experience the uniqueness of Richmond, Va., bringing people into bars and restaurants and hotels and artisan products and, you know, we’re just glad to be a part of it,” Koch says.

Positive outlook

Encouraged by increasing interest from business prospects last year, Southern Virginia economic development leaders say they are optimistic about 2015 as the region continues to recover from the loss of legacy industries, such as tobacco, textile and furniture.

“I think the economy is improving, so I think businesses are looking at their long-range plans and evaluating where they want to be in 2015, 2016 and beyond and are soliciting … sites and buildings and other things … to prepare for future growth,” says Jeff Reed, executive director of Virginia’s Growth Alliance, an economic development organization that mostly covers South Central Virginia.

The region has benefitted from continuing growth at Microsoft’s data center, which opened in Mecklenburg County in 2010. Last year, Microsoft announced its third expansion in the county, a move expected to inject more than $346 million in the area and add 90 jobs.

The biggest job announcement in the VGA region last year involved The Corsi Group, which plans to invest $5 million in opening a manufacturing facility in Charlotte County. The operation is expected to create 110 jobs.

Henry County already has secured an economic development project this year. Hardide Coatings Inc., an English advanced surface-coatings manufacturer, will invest $7.25 million in its first Virginia operation. Twenty-nine jobs are expected to be created in that deal, with an average salary of $50,000.

Another newcomer to Henry County is aerospace company Kilgour Industries Ltd., which is investing $27.3 million and creating 155 jobs.

The Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp. also continues to see growth from existing businesses. Tennessee-based Eastman Chemical Co., which has a facility in Martinsville, recently acquired another local window film company, Commonwealth Laminating & Coating (CLC).

“We now have more than 35 percent of the world’s window film produced in Henry County,” says Mark Heath, economic development director for Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development.

Other Southern Virginia companies also continue to expand. In late 2014, Memphis-based Monogram Food Solutions announced plans to invest $36.5 million and add 200 jobs at its Henry County facility, which makes processed-meat products.

Danville expects an economic boost from Telvista’s plan to expand its call center in the city, adding 300 jobs and investing $1 million. Telly Tucker, Danville’s head of economic development, says he has seen promising prospect interest in the city since he came on board in mid-2014. The city is continuing its River District Development Project, which is aimed at revitalizing downtown Danville and driving economic development.

“There’s this contagious momentum … that’s brewing here in Danville that, I think, folks who live in the community can feel,” he says. 

Tucker says Danville’s assets include its workforce, its city-owned utilities and the availability of gigabyte infrastructure. The city’s broadband network, nDanville, is partially connected to a regional fiber-optic network, the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corp.

Danville, however, hit an economic development snag last year. It sued GOK International and Web Parts LLC for a total of $2.3 million for their failure to meet performance agreements connected to incentives offered by the city and the Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, which provides formerly tobacco-dependent communities with money to promote economic development. (The GOK International and Web Parts projects were announced in 2012.) According to Danville’s lawsuits, GOK International said it would create 600 jobs and invest $25 million in the area; while Web Parts planned to create 260 jobs and invest $10 million in Danville.

Danville says that it now vets prospective businesses more thoroughly. The Tobacco Commission also may see some changes in the way it handles proposed projects. Legislation was introduced this year in the Virginia General Assembly to reform the commission.

Southern Virginia scored a victory in developing one of its industrial sites. Last year, Henry County received a grading permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for its Commonwealth Crossing Business Centre mega-site. Economic development officials had worked for two years to secure the permit.

Berry Hill Road Industrial Park in Pittsylvania County also has run into regulatory issues with the Corps of Engineers. Local officials still are trying to get a permit to continue developing the site, which is jointly owned by Pittsylvania and Danville.

Meanwhile, Greensville County is looking for a tenant for its Mid-Atlantic Advanced Manufacturing Center, a mega-site that spans 1,600 acres. “It’s as close as it’s going to get without a client,” says Natalie Slate, the county’s director of economic development, about development efforts at the park.

When companies expand or come to an area for the first time, one of their biggest concerns is finding a capable workforce, a growing issue in many areas as baby boomers start to retire.

“The biggest challenge anyone in economic development has, if they’re telling the truth, is finding skilled labor,” says Heath of Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development. “Finding people that have the right blend of skills and work ethic is becoming more and more difficult, and that’s not here; that’s everywhere.”

In dealing with that issue, Southern Virginia has a number of workforce initiatives in place, including the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center in South Boston and New College Institute (NCI), which opened its first new building last year in Martinsville. NCI partners with college and universities to offer bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees and other special programs.

Another workforce training program is the Center for Advanced Film Manufacturing. It prepares workers for employment at Eastman and CLC through collaboration between the companies, Patrick Henry Community College, NCI and the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp.

Another workforce effort is underway to bring more medical students to Southern Virginia. The Tobacco Commission recently awarded an $800,000 grant to the Integrative Centers for Science and Medicine and the College of Henricopolis School of Medicine to help establish a medical school in Martinsville.

The project is expected to funnel $3 million into the area over the next three years and create 111 jobs. The school, which has a target opening date of fall 2016, will educate primary-care physicians for underserved and underprivileged areas of the state.

While workforce development is a big concern, Reed and Slate  also point to a lack of natural gas as another issue in recruiting businesses. There are several efforts underway to bring more natural gas to the area, such as the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which involves Richmond-based Dominion Resources. The 550-mile pipeline would pass through part of Southern Virginia.

Reed of Virginia’s Growth Alliance says he would be thrilled to see the project approved because the region has little access to natural gas. “That’s a huge game changer for our industrial development projects because so many of the projects that we get eliminated from, we’re being eliminated because we can’t supply natural gas,” he says.

Being in a rural area can also pose its own challenges when it comes to securing projects. Greensville County’s Slate, for example, says prospective companies sometimes think they won’t be able to find trained workforce in a thinly populated area. That’s not the case, she says, because workers in rural counties are willing to commute farther to work than employees living in traffic-congested metro areas. “My biggest challenge is overcoming that perception,” Slate says.

 

Ready to grow

By the end of March, The Corsi Group plans to start producing cabinets at its 97,000-square-foot facility called Siteline Cabinetry in the Charlotte County Industrial Park in Keysville.

It’s a solid start for the Indianapolis-based cabinet manufacturer, which announced last spring it would invest $5 million and create 110 jobs in opening its first Virginia operation.

“I think it’s going to be a huge impact,” says Susan Adams, the economic development associate for Charlotte County.

Since rural Virginia employers draw their employees from a large radius, Adams believes job openings at the Siteline Cabinetry plant will have an effect beyond Charlotte County, which had an unemployment rate of 6.3 percent in December when the statewide rate was 4.5 percent. (These figures are not seasonally adjusted, meaning they do not take into account seasonal fluctuations in the labor market.)

The Corsi announcement is the biggest deal made last year in the region served by Virginia’s Growth Alliance in terms of projected number of new jobs. Virginia’s Growth Alliance is an economic development organization serving Amelia, Brunswick, Buckingham, Charlotte, Greensville, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Nottoway and Prince Edward counties and the city of Emporia.

Corsi, which makes and sells kitchen and bathroom cabinets, will produce a new cabinet line at the Keysville facility. The Indianapolis-based, privately owned company was founded by Pat Corsi, its chairman and CEO, 42 years ago. Besides Virginia, it has plants in Indianapolis and Elkins, W.Va.

“We are seeing a lot of growth that’s going on both in the remodel industry and new construction, and we want to take advantage of that and be a part of it,” says Corsi President Ken Pfarr in discussing the company’s expansion into the commonwealth.

Corsi had taken a good look at Southern Virginia several years ago when it was considering an expansion before the Great Recession hit, says Jeff Reed, executive director of Virginia’s Growth Alliance.  Company officials revisited the region when an improving economy again raised the possibility of an expansion.

Pfarr says logistical considerations such as access to East Coast customers and the availability of supplies played a part in the decision to locate in Virginia, but company officials also felt comfortable in Charlotte County. “We just liked the people,” Pfarr says.

Reed believes another reason that Corsi picked the Keysville site was the availability of a building. “The importance of that cannot be understated there,” Reed says. “There is a lack of quality-supply, shell buildings and manufacturing facilities throughout the commonwealth, so it’s hard to find a location that has a suitable building.”

Reed also says Corsi officials appeared to be impressed with the area’s workforce initiatives, like the woodworking training program offered by the South Boston-based Southern Virginia Higher Education Center in partnership with Danville Community College. Pfarr says the company already is in talks with Southside Virginia Community College to devise other employee-training programs.

In addition, Corsi received economic development incentives, including a $100,000 grant from the Governor’s Opportunity Fund and a $375,000 grant from the Tobacco Commission. The factory also is in a Virginia Enterprise Zone, which made Corsi eligible for local grants.

Pfarr says that when a company is expanding, incentives are extremely important. “Without the help of the state and the county, it is extremely difficult to do a startup because … all you’re doing is spending money for one to two years before you … start to see a profit, so it becomes very important to get as much help and incentives as you can find,” he says.  

Besides Keysville, Corsi considered sites in Indiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky.

“This time we did not have a predetermined area. Our interest was more in logistics, labor force and available industrial areas to set up our facility, so that’s why we looked at so many states,” Pfarr says.

He says Corsi’s Keysville facility will have more employees and output than its other plants. He projects the plant will produce about 2,000 kitchen cabinets per week. Positions at the plant will range from machine operators and assemblers to forklift drivers and supervisors. Pfarr estimates that the average wage will range from $12 to $13 per hour.

During the site selection process, vetting of qualifications was a two-way street. County officials also traveled to Corsi’s plant in West Virginia to make sure that the company’s culture was a good fit for its workforce. “They had a great reputation and, I think, what they have there will work here as well,” says Adams, the county economic development official.

Engility completes acquisition of TASC

Engility Holdings Inc. announced Thursday it had completed its $1.3 billion acquisition of TASC Inc. 


Chantilly-based Engility is a government services contractor. TASC, which also is based in Chantilly, provides services to national security and public safety customers. For 2014, the combined company generated estimated revenue of approximately $2.5 billion and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of $210 million. Together the combined company has more than 2,000 contracts and task orders.


In a statement, Engility’s president and CEO Tony Smeraglinolo said the acquisition will among other things, help the company diversify its customer base and improve its cash flow and adjusted earnings.


The combined company will be led by a mix of executives from Engility and TASC. Engility’s CEO is leading the organization, while TASC’s former CEO, John P. Hynes Jr., is now chief operating officer of the merged firm. David Savner and Peter A. Marino are serving as non-executive co-chairmen of the firm, which has expanded its board of directors from seven members to 11 members.

First Bank receives approval to acquire six branches from Bank of America

Strasburg-based First Bank is one step closer to acquiring six bank branches in Virginia from Bank of America.


First Bank received approval to acquire the branches from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and the Bureau of Financial Institutions, a regulatory division of the Virginia State Corporation Commission. The acquisition, first announced in November, is expected to go through April 17.


First Bank plans to obtain retail branches in Woodstock, Staunton, Waynesboro, Elkton, Farmville and Dillwyn. First Bank expects to be the largest bank headquartered in the Shenandoah Valley after the transaction closes with 16 branches and more than $750 million in total assets.


“We are very pleased to receive this approval and excited about expanding deeper into the Shenandoah Valley and central Virginia,” Scott C. Harvard, president and CEO of First National Corp., the bank’s parent company, said in a statement. “This strategic acquisition of an excellent deposit franchise expands our banking presence in Virginia, includes an experienced and talented team of associates, provides core funding for the future, and complements our existing loan production offices in Staunton and Harrisonburg.”


First Bank, which opened in 1907, currently offers loan, deposit, and wealth management products and services.

Homeland Security Solutions adds new member to board of directors

Virginia-based Homeland Security Solutions (HSSI) announced Tuesday that Raymond Geoffroy has joined the company’s board of directors. He is the former assistant deputy commandant, plans, policies and operations (security)at the United States  Marine Corps.

HSSI provides training, technology, and professional services to law enforcement and security organizations at the federal, state and local level. The firm has offices in Hampton and Alexandria.

As senior special advisor to the board, Geoffroy is expected to help strengthen HSSI’s visibility in the security, law enforcement, and public safety sectors.

Geoffroy retired in October after more than 23 years in federal civil service with the Marine Corps. As deputy assistant commandant his responsibilities ranged from being the Marine Corps chief law enforcement officer to protecting Marine Corps installations and operating forces.

He graduated from the Federal Executive Institute, the National War College and the FBI’s National Executive Institute.