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This burg has grown
Three-term incumbent Fredericksburg Mayor Mary Katherine Greenlaw recalls when her city moved at a slower pace, as did surrounding Spotsylvania and Stafford counties. All that has changed, profoundly. Fredericksburg’s population has jumped by more than 50% during the past 20 years, from 19,279 in 2000 to an estimated 29,036 in[...]
The mother of innovation
Don’t try to be something you’re not. That’s one way to sum up the approach that Troy Paino has taken to guiding the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg since assuming the school’s presidency in July 2016. “I knew as an outsider that Virginia had a crowded and competitive marketplace for higher education,�[...]
Virginia’s largest conference hotels
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Checking in
The impact of COVID-19 on hospitality was felt almost immediately in Virginia. According to the U.S. Travel Association, in the first week of March, travel spending was at $521 million across the state, but by the last week of the month, it had fallen to less than $120 million. Most conventions statewide have moved online [&hell[...]
Slowdowns ahead
When the COVID-19 outbreak began in March, projects at Howard Shockey & Sons, a Winchester-based commercial construction company, kept moving forward. After all, construction is considered an essential business, and unlike some other states, Virginia did not restrict construction activity at the start of the pandemic. But wh[...]
Nothing to complain about
Virginia’s top-paid CEOs brought home an average total compensation of $6.68 million each in 2019. That’s not too shabby, considering their average annual base salary was $900,218. Conducted by Redwood City, California-based executive compensation firm Equilar, Virginia Business’ most recent top executive pay report examin[...]
Thicker than water
“It isn’t personal. It’s just business.” Those phrases are too often used in the commercial world, but they just don’t apply when talking about most family-run enterprises. The business of running these companies is deeply personal. The priorities of family businesses “go well beyond financial concerns,” says B[...]
Staying strong
No one could have predicted 2020 would bring such dramatic changes. Civil unrest after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, coupled with a once-in-a-century pandemic, is accelerating social and economic changes around the country, including in the Richmond region. Once the capital of the Confederacy, Richmond began[...]
Sailing for the horizon
Tariff wars and the COVID-19 pandemic delivered a one-two punch to the Port of Virginia, but officials are focusing on the positive as expansions are completed at the port’s two largest terminals, and a dredging project to make Virginia the East Coast’s deepest port is running ahead of schedule. The third-largest East Coast [...]
![Lisa A. Bertini, owner of Virginia Beach-based Bertini Law PC, was forced to furlough her associate and receptionist due to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. “It was unsettling,” she says. “I was worried about [paying] rent and meeting payroll.” Photo by Mark Rhodes](https://virginiabusiness.com/files/1/2020/08/Bertini-VaBus-Sept2020-5010.jpg)
Law and disorder
The coronavirus pandemic shutdowns led some Virginia law firms to furlough employees and cut pay. Will an onslaught of COVID-19-related litigation be enough to prevent another wave of cutbacks? Bill Van Buren, president and chairman of Norfolk-based Kaufman & Canoles PC, estimates that staffing levels at law firms throughout[...]
Pipeline to progress?
Although Dominion Energy Inc. has pulled the plug on its $8 billion-plus Atlantic Coast Pipeline, natural gas remains a linchpin in the Richmond-based utility’s plan to shift from coal to renewable energy sources like wind and solar for electricity generation. Dominion announced over the Fourth of July weekend that it was aban[...]
Tech talent factory
Lance R. Collins was hired to lead Virginia Tech’s $1 billion Innovation Campus in one world, but he begins work Aug. 1 in another. But the Innovation Campus’ new vice president and executive director sees the disruption fueled by the pandemic and recession as only sharpening the mission of Tech’s initiative to create a te[...]
