Sign In
Free Newsletter
Off and running
Updated Jan. 29, 2021 Conventional wisdom used to hold that all politics is local, but that’s not really the case anymore. The extreme polarization on display during the recent presidential and U.S. Senate and House races has infected state and local politics, and Virginia’s November 2021 gubernatorial election promises no r[...]
Help wanted
Meat, coffee creamer, frozen fruits and chocolate. These commodities represent some of the bread and butter business lines, literally, of Devon Anders’ mega storage and supply chain logistics company, which is based in Mount Crawford and has other state locations. The success of InterChange Group Inc. rises and falls on the he[...]
Changing course
For the first time, James Madison University’s College of Business offered spring 2020 students in its MBA program an elective course focused specifically on diversity. By the end of the semester, JMU had hired the course’s instructor, visiting professor Demetria Henderson, as the business school’s director of diversity, e[...]
Representing the underdogs
Although it’s hard to think way back to January 2020, a time before a year of social unrest, pandemic and economic peril, that’s when Virginia’s legislature and executive branch became majority-Democrat for the first time since 1993. However, even if some Virginians forgot about this significant shift, Republican lawmakers[...]
In good health
Virginia’s patient satisfaction rate held steady in a recently released nationwide survey, but just three hospitals in the commonwealth received the highest marks. Overall, Virginia patient satisfaction trails the national average by just 2%. The patient satisfaction scores come from the annual Hospital Consumer Assessment of [...]
Barter Theatre hangs on with Moonlite shows
Abingdon’s Moonlite Theatre is on the National Register of Historic Places and in the lyrics of at least two country western songs, but the drive-in movie theater was closed for most of the last decade. When Katy Brown visited it last spring, “it was a wreck,” she recalls, “but I thought all we’d have to […]
ODU mapping tool to help site wind turbines
The answer, they say, is blowin’ in the wind. In August 2020, Old Dominion University won a $775,000 grant from the Department of Defense that will help create a “wind energy siting solution,” enabling offshore and onshore wind-energy developers to avoid potential conflicts with military operations and trainings. The ODU[...]
The VirginiaBusiness.com Top Five
The top trending stories on VirginiaBusiness.com from Nov. 16 to Dec. 15 included the news that Gov. Ralph Northam was ordering new restrictions based on post-Thanksgiving surges in coronavirus cases. Wise County is first to receive Starlink internet in Va. The pilot program from Elon Musk’s SpaceX will provide broadband via l[...]
Let’s make business cool again
Back in my high school days, I recall longing to be one of the “cool kids.” Guys with names like Matt or Jim. This was a time of jocks and cheerleaders. I wasn’t great at sports, but I liked cheerleaders. I tried following in my older brother’s footsteps by being a yearbook photographer. Maybe I […]
Hotel owners switch focus to residential
Hit hard by the economic effects of the coronavirus, the hotel industry isn’t expected to fully recover until 2023 or 2024. Meanwhile, several hotel properties, including two in Northern Virginia, are being redeveloped into more profitable residential units. Sunburst Hospitality won approval in October 2020 to convert the 187-[...]
2020 Political Roundtable: Trump vs. Biden
The pandemic brought record early voter turnout, stretching official election outcomes for days — but a panel of five statewide political experts resoundingly predicted the day after the election that now-President-elect Biden would be the 46th president of the United States. On Nov. 4, 2020, Virginia Business held its 14th an[...]
For the Record January 2021
Roanoke/New River Valley “Dopesick,” an eight-episode limited Hulu series, will film in Central Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley and the Roanoke region through the spring, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in November 2020. Based on the bestselling nonfiction book “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America,” by Roanoke journalist Beth Macy, the series will […]
