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100 People to Meet in 2024
Virginia is full of interesting people, and when it comes to this year’s batch of 100 people to meet for 2024, the commonwealth continues to deliver a bevy of fascinating newsmakers, professionals and go-getters worthy of your valuable networking time. In Virginia Business’ fifth annual list of people to meet in the new year[...]
Site selectors conference coming to Virginia Beach
Area Development magazine will bring its national spring conference for site selection consultants and economic development officials to Hampton Roads. The Area Development Spring Consultants Forum is slated for June 10-12, 2024, at the Marriott Virginia Beach Oceanfront. Devoted to corporate site selection and relocation, the m[...]
Warner condemns FBI HQ site selection as ‘corrupt’
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner said Nov. 9 that the General Services Administration’s selection of Greenbelt, Maryland, instead of Fairfax County for the new FBI headquarters was a “corrupt” process, and that he expected better from the Biden administration. Warner’s comments followed an email that day from FBI Director Christoph[...]
100 People to Meet in 2024: Storytellers
Dating back to Edgar Allan Poe and William Faulkner, Virginia has hosted its fair share of writers and creative types, a rich tradition that these Virginians carry into the present. S.A. Cosby Author Gloucester Before his writing career took off, S.A. Cosby, who goes by Shawn, worked a lot of jobs similar to the characters [&hel[...]
100 People to Meet in 2024: Public Faces
From the commander of the world’s largest naval base to a viral, small-town country music sensation, these people are highly visible representatives of their communities and industries. Oliver Anthony Singer and songwriter Farmville You would have had to be living under a big rock not to hear about the splash country-folk sing[...]
2023 Virginia Business Person of the Year: Kristen Cavallo
In 2017, Kristen Cavallo and her son, Matt, then a student on spring break from James Madison University, set out to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with a seven-day window to summit. Statistics from Kilimanjaro National Park, last updated in the 2000s, show a correlation between a route’s duration and success rate: Climbers on seven-[...]
100 People to Meet in 2024: Rainmakers
These are the professionals who attract and grow businesses and funding, making the commonwealth wealthier. Deseria Creighton-Barney Fundraising campaign tri-chair, Virginia Tech Chesterfield County A 1986 communications graduate of Virginia Tech, Deseria Creighton-Barney aims to push 100,000 of her fellow Hokie alums into actio[...]
100 People to Meet in 2024: Innovators
These scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs are leading the way in tomorrow’s industries, from artificial intelligence and drone technologies to biotech research. Michael Beiro Founder and CEO, Linebird Ashland Michael Beiro’s bio on X (formerly Twitter) is to the point: “I make robots that can touch power lines for a li[...]
‘A world of opportunities’
From its founding as a two-year junior college designed to expand higher education opportunities in the Appalachian coal-mining country of Southwest Virginia, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise has expanded into a four-year liberal arts college with an influential impact on regional economic and workforce development[...]
Mining for talent
At the end of October, United Way of Southwest Virginia broke ground on its $25 million project to convert a former Kmart store in Abingdon into a regional workforce development and child care hub. It’s an attempt to address the region’s workforce shortage, one of the most pressing issues among area employers. “There’s a[...]
Tourism gains steam with scenic train tour
Virginia Scenic Railway’s new Shenandoah Valley Limited proved just the ticket for seasonal leaf-peepers and train enthusiasts, drawing thousands of visitors to Goshen this fall. The iconic Norfolk & Western Class J No. 611, known as the “Queen of Steam,” is one of the last extant mainline passenger steam locomotives b[...]
Pot of gold
Placing aside the morality of marijuana use, let’s consider how much money Virginia is currently leaving on the table without a regulated, taxed recreational cannabis market. In 2020, directed by the Virginia General Assembly, which was then under Democratic control, the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission conducte[...]
