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It’s back!
Of all those whom Pharrell Williams has made happy, Virginia Beach government officials and business owners could be at the top of the list with the return of the music superstar’s Something in the Water this spring. Williams’ three-day music festival debuted in April 2019 at the Oceanfront and was a smash hit, with [...]
ANGELA D. REDDIX
Getting ARDX up and running was not a 9-to-5 job. “It took saying ‘yes’ when others said ‘no,’” says Reddix, who founded her health care management and IT consulting firm in 2006. Her years of heavy lifting paid off, and ARDX has won more than $200 million in government contracts and is planning a $2.4 [&hell[...]
Incubator hopes to grow Virginia winemaking
Tim and Ben Jordan are first-generation grape growers on a Shenandoah Valley farm that has been in their family since the 1700s. Although the brothers “leapt off the ground quite blindly” to pursue their passion, Tim Jordan says — first planting grapes in 2007 — their dream of building a winery on the farm proved [&hel[...]
VICTOR CARDWELL
Hall of Fame member A former University of Virginia defensive back and high school athlete from Lynchburg, Cardwell has built a career in labor law. After graduating from Washington & Lee University School of Law, he worked at the Department of Labor’s Benefits Review Board before joining Woods Rogers, the Roanoke-base[...]
After the crisis
During summer 2020, racial inequities took center stage in the United States as protesters took to the streets after the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by a Minneapolis police officer was captured on video and widely disseminated via social media and news outlets. Corporate America also responded, primarily thr[...]
WARREN THOMPSON
Hall of Fame member A Hampden-Sydney College and University of Virginia Darden School of Business alum who grew up in the town of Windsor in Isle of Wight County, Thompson started his company in 1992 after purchasing 31 Big Boy restaurants from Marriott Corp., his former employer. Today, Thompson Hospitality is the nation’[...]
SHARON SMOOT
Smoot is a unicorn — a Black woman overseeing 4,700 employees in the highly technical field of manufacturing components for nuclear reactors. Named last summer as head of the Lynchburg-based federal contractor’s nuclear division, Smoot spent 30 years as a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy, ultimately serving as executiv[...]
Danville lacks housing options for workforce
Danville is having a “Field of Dreams” dilemma. The famous movie quote, “If you build it, they will come,” rings all too true in the former mill town, which is attracting companies to its industrial parks and old Dan River Mills properties, along with a $650 million casino. It’s good news on paper, but where [&hell[...]
Fort Monroe development moving forward
Apartments, a 250-person event center, a boutique hotel, a 500-seat restaurant, a marina and a firing range will soon dot the landscape at Fort Monroe with the help of historic tax credits, public funds and private investment. Hanover County-based Echelon Resources Inc. was named master developer by the Fort Monroe Authority for[...]
THOMAS HASTY
Although Virginia has had notable Black banking leaders — including Maggie Walker at the start of the 20th century — it’s still a business that has not had a lot of African American representation in the C-suite. In 1999, after working for BB&T, Hasty took control of his fate and became a co-founder of Suffolk-base[...]
Virginia 500 Spotlight: Telly Tucker
BEST ADVICE FOR OTHERS: Take smart risks. You will learn much more from your failures than you will from your successes. PERSON I ADMIRE: Both of my parents, who were public educators in the Lynchburg City Schools system for their entire careers WHAT MAKES ME PASSIONATE ABOUT MY WORK: Seeing the impact and benefit of [&helli[...]
KEN AMPY
Growing up in rural Dinwiddie County, Ampy saw firsthand the power of community. After studying computer science at Old Dominion University, he built a career as a programmer analyst and developer for Dominion Virginia Power and Capital One Financial Corp. before launching staffing and consulting firm Astyra Corp. in 1997 in Ric[...]
