QinetiQ names new president and CEO
Tom Vecchiolla, a longtime defense executive, has succeeded Shawn N. Purvis as president and CEO of McLean security and defense contractor QinetiQ US, the UK-based parent company QinetiQ Group announced Tuesday. Purvis joined QinetiQ in February 2022, having previously worked at Northrop Grumman, Science Applications Internatio[...]
Winchester cabinet manufacturer closing Orange plant
Winchester-based cabinet manufacturer American Woodmark is closing its manufacturing facility in Orange, laying off 131 employees. The company notified the state of the closure Jan. 7 in compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. The layoffs at the plant, located at 281 Kentucky Road, will take effect[...]
Perdue Farms agrees to $4M settlement in child labor probe
Perdue Farms has agreed to pay $4 million in restitution to settle a federal investigation into alleged child labor violations at the company’s poultry processing plant on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. In October 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division announced it had launched a probe into alle[...]
Norfolk airport adding JetBlue service in April
JetBlue will start service from Norfolk International Airport on April 30, offering seasonal daily nonstop flights to Boston’s Logan Airport, Norfolk airport officials announced Wednesday. The airline will be the ninth commercial carrier at Norfolk’s airport, and its 140-seat Airbus A220 aircraft will depart Norfolk [...]
CFPB sues Capital One, claiming bank avoided paying $2B in interest
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has sued Capital One and its McLean holding company, Capital One Financial, alleging the companies cheated millions of consumers out of more than $2 billion in interest payments, the federal agency announced Tuesday. Capital One, the CFPB alleges, promised customers that its flagship 360 [...]
Boston private equity firm to acquire Sauer Brands
Duke’s Mayo and its parent company, Richmond’s Sauer Brands, will change hands in a deal between Boston-based private equity firm Advent International and North Carolina’s Falfurrias Capital Partners, which purchased Sauer a little over five years ago. Terms of the pending acquisition, which was announced Monda[...]
Retired Naval Station Norfolk commander is new Suffolk econ dev chief
Retired Navy Capt. Janet H. Days, who retired last year as commanding officer of Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval station, will be taking on a new tour of duty in February as director of Suffolk’s economic development department, the city announced Wednesday. She’ll start her new job Feb. 7, acc[...]
Richmond water crisis shuts down many restaurants, businesses
Jan. 9 update: Richmond starts water testing, but city remains under boil water advisory “Dry January” became all too literal in Richmond, where most city residents and businesses were struggling with a water outage that started Monday afternoon and was still leaving much of a city with a population of more than 225,[...]
Proposed $8.8B+ Pittsylvania data center campus hits roadblock
So many Pittsylvania County residents turned out to voice their — predominantly opposed — opinions regarding a proposed $8.8 billion-plus data center campus and natural gas power plant that a county planning commission meeting ran about five hours Tuesday, ending around 11:40 p.m. As the meeting neared its end, Steven Gould,[...]
Something in the Water gets extension from Va. Beach
Pharrell Williams’ Something in the Water festival got a bit of a break Tuesday from Virginia Beach City Council members, who agreed to give the Virginia Beach-born music and fashion maven more time to fulfill an overdue part of the festival’s contract with the city. City Council voted 8-2 Tuesday to indefinitely def[...]
Martinsville doctor found guilty of 460+ counts of opioids distribution
A federal court jury in Abingdon found Dr. Joel Smithers, who previously practiced in Martinsville, guilty of 466 federal counts of illegally prescribing Schedule II controlled substances, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Western Virginia announced Dec. 31, 2024. He was also found guilty of one count of maintaining a place f[...]
Smithfield Foods files for IPO
Virginia’s Smithfield Foods announced Monday it has filed a registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for its initial public offering. This is the first step toward the pork and packaged meats giant’s plan of selling common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol S[...]