Valley Health tells workers to get vaccinated
Nicole Clark wants the nurses she supervises to do everything they can to keep themselves, their patients and co-workers safe from COVID-19. That means wearing personal protective equipment, social distancing, frequent hand washing — and getting vaccinated against the disease. Valley Health, a nonprofit health system that incl[...]
Taking shape
Stu Shea, chairman, president and CEO of Herndon-based national security contractor Peraton Inc., is overseeing the integration of two recently acquired businesses that marked some of Virginia’s most significant business deals in 2021. Shea has been included in both editions of Virginia Business’ annual Virginia 500 issue, a[...]
Pittsylvania, Danville governments see labor gap, too
Businesses aren’t the only organizations finding it difficult to hire employees. Amid dropping state unemployment rates and a nationwide labor shortage, Danville and Pittsylvania County have been seeking new ways to interest people in working for local government. Pittsylvania’s Board of Supervisors approved $1,000 employee [...]
Theater project aims to put Wytheville in limelight
Soon after Todd Wolford became executive director of community revitalization nonprofit Downtown Wytheville Inc. in 2015, he began seeking pictures of the Soda Shop, the Main Street hotspot his grandfather owned in the late ’50s and ’60s. After locating a couple photos of his grandfather’s packed establishment, Wolford had[...]
September For the Record
Roanoke/New River Valley Apex Clean Energy is appealing a decision that it ran out of time for its Rocky Forge Wind project in Botetourt County, a proposed complex of 14 mountaintop wind turbines atop North Mountain that would stand about twice as tall as the Wells Fargo tower in downtown Roanoke. Apex informed the county […]
Political Kool-Aid
Depending on who’s in charge in Dee Cee, plans alternate on what is best for the U.S. economy. The choices are seemingly reduced to tax cuts versus government spending, but things are rarely as they seem. More accurately, these choices are two different sides of the same dollar — or trillions of dollars to be […]
Boosters seek federal protection for Chesapeake Bay recreation
For decades, conservationists have lobbied for the Chesapeake Bay to become a national park. During the past year, a new twist on that old idea has gained momentum: establishing the Chesapeake Bay as a national recreation area, stretching from Hampton’s Fort Monroe north to Annapolis, Maryland. National recreation areas extend[...]
Clean slate
On April 17, 2020, with a flourish of the pen, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam reshaped the future of energy production in the commonwealth. Signing the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) into law last year, Northam declared that Virginia would become a leader in fighting climate change, and, indeed, no other Southern state has passe[...]
The Great American Labor Shortage
At Dough Boy’s Pizza, summer typically brings a steady stream of job applicants seeking work at one of the restaurant’s three locations on the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. But “this year, it’s next to nothing,” says owner George Kotarides. For Kotarides and other restaurant owners, a season that had been anticipated as t[...]
World view
Want to see the world? Head for Blacksburg. Well, at least that’s one way you might look at it. Virginia Tech, which sits in the New River Valley (population: approximately 44,300), boasts the largest number of international students of any college or university campus in the state. In pre-COVID years, about 4,000 internationa[...]
GreenCity arena hopes to draw sports, music acts
When developers unsuccessfully pitched Navy Hill, a $1.5 billion mixed-use project and arena that sought to reinvent Richmond’s downtown, they posed a question: If a major draw like Beyoncé came to town, where would she perform? Now those same developers are aiming to host artists like Justin Timberlake, Green Day and John Le[...]
Tech Innovation Campus sets groundbreaking for Sept. 14
Virginia Tech is set to break ground Sept. 14 on the first building for its $1 billion Innovation Campus in Alexandria. National Geographic Society Chairman Jean Case, wife of American Online co-founder Steve Case, will be the keynote speaker at the groundbreaking ceremony. A graduate school for computer science and computer eng[...]