Bobe to leave Danville economic development for regional foundation

After more than 16 years of working for the City of Danville, Corrie Teague Bobe is stepping down to work at the Danville Regional Foundation, City Manager Ken Larking confirmed Wednesday.

Larking announced Bobe as the city’s director of economic development in 2020. A few years later, tourism was added to her purview. Bobe’s last day will be April 14, according to Larking.

“She’s had a tremendous amount of accomplishment,” Larking said. “So, it’s really hard to pin it down to one particular thing.”

During Bobe’s tenure, Caesars Virginia opened its $800 million casino and resort in Danville. It was the third permanent casino to open in the state.

Other economic wins Bobe helped to secure include Arlington County rocket subsidiary Avio USA‘s $500 million, 860,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Southern Virginia Multimodal Park announced in February, and Tennessee-based Microporous‘ $1.3 billion battery separator manufacturing facility under construction at the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill, announced in November 2024.

A marketing management graduate of Virginia Tech, Bobe joined Danville as a marketing and research manager for the economic development office in 2009. When Larking joined Danville in 2013 as a deputy city manager, he worked on the revitalization of the city’s River District with Bobe, who by then had been promoted to economic development project manager.

“A lot of the River District redevelopment and encouragement of new businesses … she played a huge role in all of that,” Larking said.

In 2023, the River District Association announced the city’s downtown area had leveraged $52 million in public investment to attract $310 million in private investment, creating more than 150 businesses and the addition of over 1,200 residential spaces.

Today, Bobe leads nine full-time employees. “She deserves credit in unseen and very visible ways for the success that we’ve seen,” Larking said.

Bobe was one of 45 women recognized in 2025 for Virginia Business’ Women in Leadership Awards, which celebrates top women executives for their overall professional accomplishments, civic engagement, mentorship and breaking glass ceilings.

“Each and every day, Bobe leads with empathy and creativity,” Hannah Barker, marketing and communications coordinator for Danville’s office of economic development and tourism, wrote last year in her nomination of Bobe. “She is devoted to improving lives and building brighter futures for each small business owner, resident, family, entrepreneur and
visitor.”

At the Danville Regional Foundation, Bobe will be the director of economic development and regional collaboration. She starts May 4.

“We’ve had so many great announcements over the past 10 years,” Bobe said. “And the region as a whole is and will continue to be impacted by these wonderful pieces of momentum, and they felt it necessary to have someone within the foundation to help, on a regional level, …  partner with the communities throughout the region on these larger issues that come along with transformational growth. This includes workforce, other pieces of really important infrastructure. So, this was a great transition to a broader role where I could take all of the experience and relationships and expand to assist larger number of communities.”

Danville Regional Foundation President and CEO Clark Casteel said the foundation created the position following a “mutual conversation” with Bobe.

After a company makes an economic development announcement — Casteel pointed out when describing Bobe’s role — there’s plenty of work left to be done.

“The win is what we build from them,” he said. “And so, like every other community across this state and others, we’ve got some significant challenges around workforce pathways and housing and other things that Corrie has been intimately involved in and talked to all these companies about their workforce development needs and the housing needs in the region, and so creating this kind of civic infrastructure that turns these investments into opportunity for every family to live here that’s what Corrie is going to be working on.”

The nonprofit’s mission is to develop, promote and support impactful activities and programs that address the health, education and well-being of  residents in the Dan River region, which encompasses Danville, Pittsylvania County and Caswell County, North Carolina. The foundation was created in 2005 and later endowed with $200 million from the Danville Regional Health System from the proceeds of the sale of Danville Regional Medical Center to Tennessee-based Lifepoint Health. 

Recently, the foundation partnered with the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority to pay $18.15 million for the North Campus of the financially strapped Averett University, with plans to lease it to the school to provide it with liquidity.

“We’re trying to be useful. That’s how we think about our work,” Casteel said. “The work with Averett ….  it’s going to be absolutely critical that we have a four-year university in this region to serve all of these great companies that are locating here.”