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Moving in
Southern Virginia is laying out the welcome mat for a growing number of companies seeking to locate in areas with lower taxes, better proximity to supply chains, a skilled workforce and improved quality of life. During 2022, a variety of businesses, ranging from an automotive education and entertainment firm to a moving and tr[...]
The 2023 Heavy Hitters list
Virginia Business’ annual list of the commonwealth’s 50 most powerful and influential leaders provides our editors’ take on the heaviest-hitting of heavyweights in business, government, nonprofits and higher education. Think of it as an executive committee for the leaders populating our annual Virginia 500 issue — the top 10% of the state’s power elite. And […]
Defense and defensibility
When it comes to tech and government contractors, Northern Virginia’s national profile continued to rise in 2022. Arlington County, where Amazon.com Inc.’s multibillion-dollar HQ2 is continuing to take shape in National Landing, made headlines around the globe in spring 2022. Fortune 500 companies Boeing Co. and Raytheon Tec[...]
It’s complicated
Going by media coverage alone, you’d be forgiven for thinking that 2021’s Great Resignation turned into “quiet quitting” in 2022, but as always, the national mood is more complicated than any two-word phrase could convey. There are still significant labor shortages in certain sectors — notably health care, education a[...]
Magical moments
2023 BEST PLACES TO WORK — LARGE EMPLOYERS WINNER The pandemic put a damper on workplace culture, which was particularly difficult for service-oriented organizations like Vaco, a Tennessee-based national staffing and consulting firm with an office in Richmond. Recruiters and salespeople are typically more social and outgoing, [...]
13th annual Best Places to Work
This is the 13th year that Virginia Business has compiled the Best Places to Work in Virginia list in collaboration with Pennsylvania-based Best Companies Group. More than 200 companies applied for inclusion in the 2023 Best Places to Work in Virginia cohort. A hundred companies were chosen, divided into three categories: small [...]
Business climate change
It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a revolution in how workers and businesses think about where, when and how we work. And that change is fully reflected in the survey responses we received from the 100 companies selected for this year’s Virginia Best Places to Work cohort. Seventy-one of those 100 busin[...]
Health first
2023 BEST PLACES TO WORK — SMALL EMPLOYERS WINNER SmartEdge IT LLC, a Herndon-based business software development company, places a high premium on employee health and well-being. SmartEdge pays 100% of the premium for its health care package and provides $50,000 life insurance policies for all full-time employees, benefits th[...]
A balancing act
While there was no way to predict that a global pandemic would disrupt office life as we knew it, one Virginia-based company already had a grip on one trend impacting working professionals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, one in five U.S. households adopted a cat or dog, accounting for about 23 million households, according to a [[...]
A challenging year
2023 BEST PLACES TO WORK — MIDSIZE EMPLOYERS WINNER The last couple years have been a trying time for many businesses, but probably not for the same reasons as Patriot Group International Inc. When the U.S. Armed Forces withdrew the last troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, ending a 20-year war, the Warrenton-based federal [...]
Head of the class
Donald Alexander Jr. considered multiple schools, as well as the Air Force, before he landed at Norfolk State University in 2019. The Chesapeake native grew up with strong ties to the university, one of Virginia’s two public historically Black colleges and universities. As an elementary schooler, Alexander went to summer camp [...]
FRED THOMPSON JR.
Thompson is partially retired as Thompson Hospitality’s CAO, but he’s stayed busy by starting two nonprofits: Opportunity Scholars, a Winchester-based organization that provides mentorship opportunities to underserved middle and high school students; and The Global Good Fund, which supports young adults from around the world[...]
