Page 72 – Virginia Business

Milestones: Virginia companies celebrating big anniversaries in 2025

Summary

Virginia’s AI sector now valued at $1.71 billion amid global boom
10 Virginia companies celebrate 25 to 175 years in business
Virginia Natural Gas marks 175 years of community service
Colonna’s Shipyard and others show how tradition meets innovation

Even amid the AI revolution currently underway, there are viable signs of stability.

The global AI market could grow twenty-fivefold — from $189 billion in 2023 to $4.8 trillion — by 2033, according to a report this year from the United Nations. Containing the largest concentration of data centers in the world, Virginia, too, has been swept up in the artificial intelligence boom, with tech trade association the Chamber of Progress estimating the state’s AI sector is already worth $1.71 billion.

While predictions about AI’s transform-ative impact on business range from bold to scary, the full extent remains to be seen. But for all that could change, much will remain the same, if history is any guide.

Several prominent Virginia-based companies celebrating milestone anniversaries in 2025 demonstrate that while disruptive technologies will come and go, businesses that provide essential services and build loyal customers can thrive across decades and even centuries.

Through wars and recessions, shifts in politics and consumer preferences, these venerable businesses have found success by offering specialized services and becoming cornerstones of their communities. Here are the stories behind 10 Virginia companies celebrating milestone anniversaries this year, from 25 years to 175 years.

Shannon Pierce was named CEO of Virginia Natural Gas in April. Photo courtesy Virginia Natural Gas

175 YEARS

VIRGINIA NATURAL GAS
Virginia Beach

By the mid-1800s, major changes were afoot in America — railroads and electric telegraphs made the nation feel more cohesive. And perhaps most noticeably, cities across the U.S. were increasingly transitioning to gas lighting. In 1850, the City of Norfolk joined the parade, granting a charter to City Gas Light Co. to illuminate its streets with gas lights.

That deal marked the beginning of Virginia Natural Gas (VNG), a utility serving 300,000-plus customers across southeastern Virginia. While the past 175 years have brought many, many changes, the company’s mission remains the same.

“Even if our words or our mottos may change and evolve over time, the core of who we are and what we do has remained constant — and that is to make sure we are delivering safe and reliable natural gas service to our customers,” says Shannon Pierce, who was named CEO of Virginia Natural Gas in April.

Today’s VNG has evolved out of numerous acquisitions and consolidations, and Pierce says a major company milestone is comparatively recent: In 2000, VNG was acquired by AGL Resources, which then became Southern Company Gas, part of Atlanta-based Southern Co., a gas and electric utility holding company.

“That was a pivotal part in VNG’s history because it allowed us to benefit from resources from a much bigger parent company and to share best practices and leverage those resources locally,” explains Pierce. VNG’s access to resources has grown “exponentially,” she adds, which benefits research and development, charitable giving efforts, and collaborations.

Virginia Natural Gas traces its lineage back to 1850 and City Gas Light Co. Photos courtesy Virginia Natural Gas

Such resources are valuable as VNG strives to serve growing energy demands. Earlier this year, it announced a partnership with the Hampton Roads Sanitation District to build a renewable natural gas facility at the Atlantic Treatment Plant, a sewage facility in Virginia Beach. Converting biogas from wastewater treatment into natural gas will provide an additional source of supply for customers, while honoring the company’s commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability.

“That’s just an example of how we are continuing to make sure that we find innovative ways and use technology to meet the energy demands of the future,” Pierce says. Other recent efforts include modernizing 575-plus miles of pipeline and cutting emissions by 35% since 2012, she adds.

Looking ahead, VNG’s “safety-first” value remains crucial, both for its 1,000-member workforce and the communities it serves. But Pierce says increasing the company’s “exceptionality” around community engagement will create a legacy that will also help the company thrive for years to come.

And it’s already seeing the fruits of such outreach pay off. Before breaking ground on a new operations headquarters in Chesapeake this spring, VNG sought feedback from the broader community. “Frankly, the project was better because of the feedback and the engagement we’ve had with many stakeholders,” Pierce says.

Colonna’s is one of the nation’s largest privately owned shipyards. Photo courtesy Colonna’s Shipyard

150 YEARS

COLONNA’S SHIPYARD
Norfolk

If, by some magic, Charles J. Colonna could visit the shipyard he started in 1875, he’d see Railway No. 3, installed in 1890, still serving barges and fishing vessels in the commercial maritime market. Beyond that, though? “It would largely be unrecognizable,” says Randall Crutchfield, chairman and CEO of Colonna’s Shipyard and Colonna’s great-great grandson.

“But I think he’d be impressed by what the generations have been able to put together in the past 150 years.”

Not surprisingly, much has changed at the shipyard, a mainstay along the Elizabeth River in Norfolk. As one of the nation’s largest private shipyards, Colonna’s now operates three dry docks and a 1,000-metric-ton travel lift, supplies on-site welding services, and has expanded its reach to San Diego and Kentucky.

While the variety of work and customer base have broadened, building and repairing ships is work that’s still done mostly by hand. And the company’s core values of respect, pride, truth, and family continue to permeate the work culture.

“We have this sense that we’re a family business, and it’s not just the Colonna family,” says Crutchfield, who became CEO in 2024 and marks the fifth generation of Colonna descendants to lead the shipyard. “There are many instances of folks who have chosen to make this their family’s business over multiple generations.”

Though Colonna’s strives to stay true to its roots, the company constantly seeks ways to improve and expand. Technology, Crutchfield notes, is an increasingly important component of the time-intensive projects undertaken by the shipyard’s 700-plus employees.

“We are doing the things we can do to get more advanced so that our work processes can be done quicker with the tools that are at our disposal,” Crutchfield says. Whether serving the military or the fishing and maritime industries, the company prides itself on “never saying no to a customer who has a need.”

Crutchfield hopes to leave his mark through long-term plans to modernize the waterfront and by continuing to expand operations beyond Norfolk. While his philosophy might not sound “super lofty,” he says doing enough things well now and continuing along this path to moderately grow the company will set it up for the next generation, whenever that time comes.

But even as he looks toward that future, Crutchfield draws upon lessons from the past, including how Colonna’s navigated “really scary” times and the wisdom of his great-great grandfather, who put everything into motion.

“His main mantra was hard work, good value and fair dealing,” Crutchfield says. “Those are things that we hold near and dear and ascribe to and rate ourselves against any chance we get.”

The Bank of Southside Virginia’s deep local roots stretch back to 1905. Bank photo courtesy Bank of Southside Virginia;

120 YEARS

BANK OF SOUTHSIDE VIRGINIA
Carson

At least 10% of the accounts at Bank of Southside Virginia were created in the leather-bound ledger days that predate when the bank began computerizing records in the 1970s. This illustrates the longevity of a bank with roots dating back to 1905 that, for nearly a century, hasn’t changed names, locations, or even its kinetic-motion vault.

As the latest to helm this multigenerational company, BSV Chairman and CEO Will Clements feels tasked with honoring the bank’s long-standing commitment to the communities it serves. Managing the bank with longevity in mind, he says, means following a simple philosophy: “Take care of employees, take care of customers, take care of your neighbors — and don’t forget that.”

The biggest turning point for BSV happened between the 1970s and 1990s, when the bank doubled its number of branches while Clements’ grandfather was sitting in his same office. Though interstate banking was becoming popular at the time, BSV never left Virginia and instead focused on deepening its regional presence.

“That really cemented our current footprint as it exists today,” Clements says. The bank’s 15 branches now stretch north-south from Chesterfield to Southampton and east-west from Isle of Wight to Dinwiddie.

With such deep local roots, Clements says he’s been fortunate to work with customers spanning four generations during his 20-year career at the bank, along with BSV’s longest-tenured employee, who joined 60-plus years ago. While he’s proud of BSV’s advanced technological and security investments, especially for a bank its size, Clements also sees opportunities to grow through digital channels while continuing to help customers during their best and hardest times.

As automated systems become increasingly streamlined in the future, banking will become even more of a people business, Clements says.

“We’ve done well here so far,” he says. “Why mess with the formula?”

Andrew Kidwell bought his family’s window treatments business, MannKidwell, from his father in 1997. Kidwell photo by Jay Paul

75 YEARS

MANNKIDWELL
Richmond

After graduating college in 1993, Andrew Kidwell was contemplating heading out west when his father invited him to lunch. “I need you to come help in the business,” Kidwell recalls his father, Andy Kidwell Jr., saying. “I immediately said yes.” In 1997, Kidwell bought the small family-owned interior window treatments company from his father.

“Here I am,” Kidwell says, 32 years after that lunch, “and I still love what I do every day. That’s a great feeling to express.”
For 75 years, MannKidwell has served customers in Richmond with blinds, shutters and other window treatments.

Ted Mann founded the window shades business in 1950 and sold it in 1967 to Kidwell’s father and grandfather (Andy Kidwell Sr.), who rebranded the company as MannKidwell. Under the third generation of Kidwell ownership, the variety of window treatments the company sells has grown, particularly as motorization has become more standard.

The personal touch and a customer-first approach have long been hallmarks of an experience designed to be seamless and pleasurable from start to finish — and why MannKidwell serves so many repeat and multigenerational customers, Kidwell says. “I have been very, very emphatic about maintaining what we do as a great experience,” he notes, crediting the service provided by the company’s five employees.

What’s more, Kidwell is “extremely proud” that MannKidwell is one of only 39 businesses designated as a Legacy Company with Gold Status by the Henrico Economic Development Authority. “I’m confident that this business will always be a staple here in Richmond.”

The company E. Rhodes Carpenter founded in 1950 has become Carpenter, the world’s largest vertically integrated manufacturer of flexible polyurethane foam. Photo courtesy Carpenter

75 YEARS

CARPENTER
Henrico County

In 1950, E. Rhodes Carpenter launched a latex foam distribution business in Richmond. Today, that company bills itself as the world’s largest vertically integrated manufacturer of flexible polyurethane foam. The modern-day Carpenter, with more than 8,000 employees worldwide, makes proprietary foams found in mattresses, pillows and other products, as well as polyester fibers and insulation materials.

All of that growth didn’t happen overnight. A key year on the company’s timeline was 1954. That’s when E. Rhodes Carpenter hired Stanley F. Pauley and the pair pivoted from manufacturing latex to polyurethane. In 1972, Carpenter launched Carpenter Chemical Co., which makes a key raw material needed for polyurethane foam. When E. Rhodes Carpenter died in 1980, Pauley became the company’s chairman and CEO as well as its majority shareholder.

Moving forward to the 1990s, Carpenter expanded to Europe. Today, the company has also branched out to the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Pauley died at the age of 93 in 2020, weeks after relinquishing the title of CEO to Brad Beauchamp, the company’s present-day leader.

Even while celebrating a landmark anniversary, Beauchamp is thinking about the company’s future. “Carpenter is a world leader today because our founding leadership was always thinking of the years ahead,” he said.

Richmond architecture firm Glavé & Holmes was founded in 1965 on principles of historic preservation and adaptive reuse. Top photo courtesy Glavé & Holmes;

60 YEARS

GLAVÉ & HOLMES ARCHITECTURE
Richmond

In the 1960s, while many Richmond architects favored tearing down old buildings, Jim Glavé went against the grain: He championed historic preservation and adaptive reuse projects. Sixty years later, Glavé’s vision continues thanks to a historic preservation studio established within the firm in 2019.

Whether designing new buildings or reimagining existing structures, the current iteration of Glavé & Holmes is defined by an ethos of contextual design, says Lori Garrett, president and senior principal of the now-women-owned firm. “Our whole focus — and what gets us up in the morning — is creating places where people can thrive and grow and flourish.”

Drawing upon physical surroundings and the culture and identity of clients means one building’s design won’t work if transplanted elsewhere, Garrett says. It’s a design philosophy that’s proven successful:

Revenue has grown 50% since 2020, while the firm’s headcount has nearly doubled during Garrett’s 22-year tenure to around 60 employees.

Several projects spanning decades of relationships are also key to the firm’s success and growth, including work for the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, The Valentine museum and Christopher Newport University.

Looking ahead, Garrett’s goals include expanding the firm’s presence in destination hotels, building upon its specialization in education, and adding to its tally of 34 out-of-state projects in the past decade. “We can take our vision to elevate the human spirit and bring that to communities throughout Virginia — not just Richmond — and even throughout the East Coast.”

It’s hard to remember a time when Kings Dominion’s one-third-scale Eiffel Tower didn’t loom over the trees along Interstate 95 in Doswell. The amusement park celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025. bottom photo courtesy Kings Dominion

50 YEARS

BUSCH GARDENS WILLIAMSBURG
Williamsburg

KINGS DOMINION
Doswell

If you’ve got the cash and a strong stomach, you could ride Apollo’s Chariot at Busch Gardens Williamsburg and then drive roughly 71 miles north to Doswell to succumb to the 300-foot plunge of Kings Dominion’s Pantherian — all in a single day.

The two theme parks opened 13 days apart in May 1975. By keeping the coasters rolling for 50 years, the rival attractions have proven there are more than enough thrill-seekers to support two major amusement parks in the commonwealth for generations.

Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens Williamsburg are part of what makes Virginia a “premier tourism destination,” says Eric Terry, president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging and Travel Association. “These landmarks don’t just draw millions of visitors each year — they fuel economic growth, support thousands of local jobs, and showcase the diversity and vibrancy of our commonwealth.”

Developed at a cost of $50 million as a joint venture between Taft Broadcasting and Top Value Enterprises, Kings Dominion officially opened on May 3, 1975. About 52,000 visitors were let in that first day, and thousands of disappointed thrill-seekers had to be turned away. In a video made for Kings Dominion’s 40th anniversary, Dennis Speigel, the park’s first general manager, recalled letting many visitors in without charging admission because he feared a riot.

Those first visitors enjoyed thrills that included Rebel Yell, a wooden roller coaster, the Shenandoah Lumber Co. log flume and the Eiffel Tower, a one-third-scale replica of its Parisian big cousin.
That opening year also offered an air-conditioned monorail through Lion Country Safari, an African wildlife preserve that opened to visitors in 1974 as a drive-thru park preview. (For that single season, guests were allowed to drive their Ford Pintos alongside elephants and lions.)

As for Busch Gardens Williamsburg, its existence can be credited to the fact that beer magnate August A. Busch Jr. wanted to build a brewery in Virginia. Winthrop Rockefeller, a Colonial Williamsburg Foundation board member, convinced Busch to buy a 2,500-acre tract in James City County. The Anheuser-Busch development grew to include not only a brewery but a resort and residential community and the theme park.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s beloved Loch Ness Monster roller coaster debuted in 1978, three years after the park opened under its original name, Busch Gardens: The Old Country. Photo courtesy Busch Gardens Williamsburg

Busch Gardens: The Old Country officially opened on May 16 with an appearance by TV personality Ed McMahon. At the European-themed park, early visitors enjoyed attractions such as a replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, a monorail to the brewery and the Glissade, a German steel roller coaster.

Both theme parks have also changed hands over the decades.

In 1984, Taft Broadcasting sold Kings Dominion, along with Kings Island in Ohio and Carowinds in North Carolina, to Kings Entertainment. And in 1993, Kings Entertainment sold its parks to movie studio Paramount. That led to new theming at Kings Dominion, including an area paying tribute to “Wayne’s World” with a roller coaster dubbed The Hurler. CBS ended up with the parks, which it sold in 2006 to Ohio-based Cedar Fair Entertainment. In 2024, Cedar Fair merged with Six Flags Entertainment in an all-stock deal valued at $2 billion.

Busch Garden Williamsburg’s ownership change followed the 2008 merger between InBev and Anheuser-Busch. The new company promptly moved to sell Busch Entertainment Corp., a collection of 10 theme parks including SeaWorld Attractions and the Busch Gardens parks in Tampa and Williamsburg. In 2009, the Blackstone Group acquired the bundle of attractions, rebranding it as SeaWorld Entertainment, which debuted in 2013 on the New York Stock Exchange. Last year, it changed its name to United Parks & Resorts.

Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens Williamsburg have also followed each other’s twists and turns closely over the decades, lest one gain an edge on the other.

For example, in 1992, Busch Gardens’ parent company purchased the neighboring Water Country USA water park. That same year, Kings Dominion opened Hurricane Reef, which has expanded over the years into present-day Soak City.

In 1999, Busch Gardens launched Howl-O-Scream, its Halloween season event. By 2001, Kings Dominion followed suit with FearFest, redubbed Halloween Haunt after Cedar Fair took over.

Busch Gardens introduced Christmas Town in 2009, featuring more than a million twinkling lights. Nine years later, Kings Dominion launched WinterFest, a holiday season that saw its Eiffel Tower decorated like a 331-foot Christmas tree.

In 2021, Busch Gardens announced it would be open year-round, followed by Kings Dominion, which opened for year-round operations in 2023, but axed that plan after a single year. In 2025, Kings Dominion also discontinued its WinterFest.

To celebrate their golden jubilees, both parks introduced new roller coasters this year.

For Kings Dominion, that’s Rapterra, the world’s tallest and longest launched wing coaster. And Busch Gardens unveiled a new inverted roller coaster, The Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge, a sequel to its popular roller coaster that closed in 2009.

Will Paulette (center) succeeded his father, KBS founder and chairman Bill Paulette, as president of the 50-year-old construction firm in 2022. Top photo courtesy KBS;

50 YEARS

KBS
Richmond

Achieving a half-century of success in any industry is difficult, which is why long- lasting relationships are so vital. Even as the work itself may change, Will Paulette hopes one thing will forever be woven into the fabric of the construction firm he’s presided over since 2022: “I always want KBS to be a great place to go to work.”

Inside KBS’ Richmond headquarters, walls celebrate about 70 past and present employees with 20- or 30-year tenures. Today, the company’s nearly 120 employees work on projects ranging from constructing new manufacturing facilities to renovating a local YMCA.

Projects inevitably bring problems for which there’s no playbook, requiring KBS to be both creative and flexible while working with clients. This relationship-building aspect is as gratifying as the construction itself, particularly because clients often return to KBS again and again, Paulette says. “They feel almost like part of our company.”

Paulette’s father, Bill, remains chairman of the company he founded in 1975 with a $1,000 investment from the late George B. Clarke III, then president of Kenbridge Construction in Lunenberg County. Originally named Kenbridge Building Systems and started as a Richmond partnership with Kenbridge Construction, KBS has since become one of the largest contractors serving Central Virginia, and multifamily housing is now a major focus of its work, Paulette says. “That evolution of our organization has been good for us.”

While working at KBS as a laborer in the late 1990s during high school and college summers, Paulette saw firsthand the variety of work and diversity of people he could work with, which made joining the firm attractive. “I’m glad I did,” he says. “I think it’s a great industry to work in.”

Commence CEO Pat Feliciano (right) founded the government contracting firm formerly known as Doma Technologies in 2000. bottom photo courtesy Commence

25 YEARS

COMMENCE
Virginia Beach

In the same year Doma Technologies celebrated its 25th anniversary, it merged with Livanta and Advanta Government Services, rebranding as Commence. Amid so much change, Doma’s leadership remains intact within Commence, and Doma’s roughly 250 employees have quickly adapted to the new company’s future, says Ian Checcio, Commence’s chief growth officer.

“This is exciting to see the new brand take shape,” Checcio says. “Even something as simple as the new signage on our facility looks great, feels great, and I think everybody’s just gotten very comfortable moving forward.”

That’s because the mission embedded into Doma since its 2000 founding won’t change — providing cloud-based document management services specifically tailored for health care. Long-time contracts with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Defense Department have helped veterans and active-duty military members receive health care benefits sooner. In the case of veterans, Doma’s technology has cut processing time from 40 days to less than 12, Checcio says. “That was a metric that we were significantly proud of.”

Doma founder and CEO Pat Feliciano carried over as leader of Commence, which aims to have 1,000 workers and an expanded headquarters in the next year.

Commence’s goal now is to become the “go-to modernization partner” for all government health programs, Checcio says. More than a new name, he adds, it’s a new platform for impact, drawing on combined expertise to focus on what’s next: Greater data for the greater good. “The heart of the company has been unwavering: that deep care for the mission.” ■

Reimagining regulations

Summary:

Virginia banks, credit unions back Trump administration‘s rollback of financial regulations.
Federal Reserve’s Bowman pledges “pragmatic reforms” tailored to institution size.
Overdraft fee cap rule nullified under Congressional Review Act.

Banks and credit unions in Virginia are celebrating some early victories as President Donald Trump’s new administration has begun rolling back regulations and reconsidering the future of finance.

“Under the new administration, there is a relook at a number of these policies that were objected to by the industry,” explains Atlantic Union Bankshares CEO John Asbury, who also chairs the American Bankers Association, the Washington, D.C.-based trade group. Thus far, he says, the new administration’s focus has mostly been reversing “this tsunami of regulation which has been swamping the industry.”

While such changes are welcomed, there are reasons to be optimistic about a more “pragmatic” approach to regulation to come, adds Asbury.

Industry experts had a better sense of what to expect in Trump’s second administration, though there was also “a very clear signal” things would be different this time around, says Samantha Beeler, president of the League of Credit Unions & Affiliates, the regional trade association representing nearly 400 credit unions in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Virginia.

The league’s first meeting with the new administration came in February, and Beeler says it offered positive indications for the future. “We were excited to hear that they know that the financial environment is changing rapidly and that the government can’t just catch up with that, that they have to help us pioneer it safely for consumers.”

Overdrafts overruled

One early change came in March, when Trump nominated Michelle Bowman as vice chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve following a stint as a central bank governor. As a former community banker, Bowman understands why tailoring is so important — that regulations should be attuned to the complexity and the size of banks, Asbury says.

During her first speech after starting her new role in June, Bowman outlined the principles that will guide her approach to supervision and the bank regulatory framework, saying she intends to “pursue sensible and pragmatic reforms.”

It was heartening for people in the industry to hear Bowman echo their concerns about tailoring banking regulations in lieu of a one-size-fits-all approach, says Matthew Bruning, executive vice president of government and member relations for the Virginia Bankers Association in Glen Allen. “That is a positive because we’re seeing some industry messaging line up with what’s happening on the agency side.”

Tailored regulation is likewise an important theme in the community banking world because these institutions have a fundamentally different model than too-big-to-fail banks, credit unions, or fintech players, notes Corey Connors, president and CEO of the Virginia Association of Community Banks. “We need regulation that understands who we are — not just how big we are.”

The administration got a faster start out of the gates because it had a “clearer plan” for action than during Trump’s first term, Bruning notes. And that plan has already facilitated some wins for the industry.

The White House and congressional Republicans have deployed a previously little-used tool to overturn rules issued by federal agencies — and particularly any pushed through toward the end of President Biden’s term. In May, Trump signed a Congressional Review Act resolution that nullified a rule that had not yet taken effect that would have limited overdraft fees to $5 for financial institutions with more than $10 million in assets.

The banking industry had opposed this rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Asbury says, arguing that it would cost banks more for overdrafts than it would be permitted to charge
and was an example of regulatory overreach.

Changes at CFPB

While the topic of much news and legal wrangling, the CFPB still exists, and its future policy agenda will look much different than in the recent past.

A realignment at the agency is good, says Beeler, because it might not have been most effectively championing consumer protections. “We’re pretty optimistic about changes that are being made at the CFPB, as that agency had grown outside of its original intentions.”

In May, the CFPB indicated in a court filing that it planned to rescind Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which would have mandated that banks make personal financial data available to consumers.

While this rule had an assets threshold of $850 million, thereby exempting most members of the Virginia Association of Community Banks, Connors says, the costs would have been considerable for smaller banks, while there were also concerns about consumer privacy, liability and third-party information breaches.

In June, the CFPB also announced that it pushed back compliance deadlines and will revisit its Section 1071 rule of the Dodd-Frank Act. This rule would have required financial institutions to compile, maintain, and submit a whole host of different data about credit applications by small businesses.

The rule delays and reconsiderations are positive developments for community banks as this would have created undue burdens, along with privacy concerns, Connors says. What’s more, the information banks would have been required to collect was “really intrusive” for small business owners and could have put banks in a “terrible position,” adds Asbury.

Crypto considerations

Beyond regulatory reform, there are positive developments brewing elsewhere that have implications for banks and credit unions. Take, for example, cryptocurrencies. Both chambers of Congress have worked on legislation this year that’s focused on establishing federal regulations for U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins.

It’s encouraging that Congress is considering the future of currency, particularly as we’re headed toward an almost completely digital economy, Beeler says. “It’s smart of the government to be thinking about these digital currencies,” she says. “We as credit unions want to help custody those funds to help consumers keep them safe but also look at the future of transactions.”

The banking industry is also keeping tabs on these developments. While supportive of the innovation around cryptocurrencies and ensuring there’s a role for cryptocurrencies in the economy, both Bruning and Asbury note that regulatory oversight is necessary.

“What we don’t want to see is for this to essentially become some sort of loosely regulated alternative to bank accounts,” Asbury says. “If we were to see a big movement toward that, then what’s going to happen is that there’ll be less capital available to finance people in business, which will be bad for the American economy.”

But for an industry that favors consistency, the changes thus far in Trump’s second term, while mostly expected, still amounted to “a bit of whiplash,” Bruning says, adding that a flurry of activity at the tail end of the Biden administration was also a factor.

Looking ahead, the industry’s goal is to promote more stability with future regulations.

“We are not antiregulation; we are pro-balanced regulation,” Bruning says. And Connors adds that “good, smart, targeted reforms” are necessary to help community banks do what they do best — serve their communities: “We’re really interested in working with our partners at the federal level on smart reform — not reform for reform’s sake.”

While so much has already been accomplished, advocates have some other items on their wish lists.

Asbury, for his part, wants the government to look at what he terms “super” credit unions. The banking industry, he says, believes these types of credit unions are going “way beyond” what they were legally commissioned to do and operate almost like regional banks — but without the same regulatory oversight or tax requirements.

“We have no issue with small, traditional credit unions that are doing what they’re supposed to be doing: meeting the needs of people of modest means,” he says. But “act like a bank? Be regulated like a bank, be taxed like a bank, so that you have a level playing field.”

Meanwhile, Beeler says, the credit union industry is also open to further change, including the opportunity to modernize its federal charter. It’s important, she adds, for credit unions to be adaptable in an industry that’s rapidly evolving.

“The administration has pretty clearly signaled that they do want to evolve, rein in and change the regulatory landscape in D.C.,” Beeler says. Such changes shouldn’t be perceived as a “doomsday” for credit unions if they eventually happens, she says, because for issues like cybersecurity, credit unions need to be just as safe as the biggest banks. “There are some shared resources that we all shouldn’t balk at.”

Virginia expands rural broadband with fiber focus

Summary

Virginia has connected over 250,000 rural locations with state and federal broadband funding
133,000 addresses remain unserved, mostly in hard-to-reach areas
Officials criticize federal shift toward satellite over fiber internet
State invests in pole upgrades, permit reforms to speed fiber deployment

A student in class on a snow day. An elderly couple checking in with their doctor instead of driving to an office. A dairy farmer coordinating automatic milking machines hooked up to cows.

All three examples include a commonality in today’s increasingly digital world: internet access.

“It’s quality of life, it’s work, it is health care,” says John Putney, broadband director for Bedford County, which crosses from Virginia’s Piedmont region to the eastern edge of the Shenandoah Valley.

About 80,000 people live in largely rural Bedford, and in 2022, the county received $25 million from the state’s Virginia Telecommunications Initiative (VATI) to expand broadband access to approximately 12,000 homes and businesses without reliable and affordable internet.

Slowly but surely, three internet service providers are completing fiber networks to these customers, and Verizon completed its work in 2024. Bit by bit, ISPs in Virginia are making progress in connecting the most remote locations to the internet with the help of state and federal funding.

“Virginia truly has led the way in the nation, not only [in] public policy, but [with the] approach to get it resolved,” says Ray LaMura, president of the VCTA Broadband Association of Virginia, a lobbying organization made up of eight internet providers in Virginia, including Cox, Comcast, Shentel and others. “We have a broadband advisory council that is chaired by Sen. Jennifer Boysko, whose focus is to help with the understanding of where barriers exist, and also initiatives to help us resolve that connectivity.”

The state has been considered a nationwide leader in deploying broadband access and has made steady progress even in some of the most far-flung communities in Southwest Virginia and the Northern Neck, and even western Loudoun County, which lacked reliable internet despite its proximity to “Data Center Alley” in Ashburn.

In 2017, the state created VATI, which is run through the state Department of Housing and Community Development, to extend broadband access to more than 388,000 addresses in 80 cities and counties. The state and federal governments provided $935 million and received $1.2 billion in matching funds from local governments and ISPs for VATI’s mission, which has continued under two Democratic governors and Virginia’s current Republican leader, Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

In 2024, the state had about 160,000 underserved locations that were not yet in a state or federal funding program, the governor’s office said last year, but it is using nearly $1.48 billion in additional federal funding to expand internet access to those areas. Currently, the state has about 133,000 addresses left to connect, state officials say.

However, there is a potential fly in the ointment: The federal government and its aims to increase the use of satellite technology to provide internet access, as opposed to more reliable fiber cables.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, who made his fortune by investing in wireless service operator Nextel, is wary of President Donald Trump’s motivations in focusing on satellite technology at the expense of fiber.

He smells a rat — specifically a Musk-rat, given billionaire and erstwhile federal employee Elon Musk’s ties to Starlink, a satellite internet constellation operated by Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX.

In 2019, SpaceX began launching Starlink satellites, and the company has made some headway in rural pockets of Virginia. Earlier this year, the Health Wagon in Wise County began connecting patients in Southwest Virginia to telehealth diagnosticians with internet provided by Starlink.

However, Warner and others are concerned about the reliability, cost and security of satellite-based internet providers, as well as the likelihood of Musk benefiting financially from what they view as a major conflict of interest. In March, NBC News reported that multiple federal agencies were considering adopting Starlink as their internet provider, while Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was busy slashing agencies’ budgets.

Evan Feinman, Virginia’s chief broadband adviser during Gov. Ralph Northam’s term, was director of the federal Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program under President Joe Biden but left in March after the Trump administration did not reappoint him. In a farewell email to his colleagues, Feinman blasted the shift from fiber to satellites as a move that mainly benefits Musk.

“Stranding all or part of rural America with worse internet so that we can make the world’s richest man even richer is yet another in a long line of betrayals by Washington,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, says Warner, “We were sitting pretty. I worry that this one other example where government policy is being bent to provide benefit to an Elon Musk company. I’ve got nothing against satellite…but even as a wireless guy, I know fiber is a better long-term solution.”

Making connections

With VATI’s founding in 2017, Virginia got a head start on broadband expansion, but after 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, the federal government dramatically upped its investment in nationwide expansion. With school, work, worship and everything else moving online during the pandemic, the need for reliable internet was clear, and its growing availability has allowed some people who work from home to move to more rural regions.

“Of course there’s an economic benefit,” says Donna Smith, general manager of Citizens Telephone Cooperative, an internet service provider based in Floyd County. “The housing market in Floyd is just crazy.”

Because of the enormous scope of the federal project, Biden created the $42 billion BEAD program aimed at bringing high-speed internet access to everyone in the United States as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. As Virginians well know, it costs money to lay cable in remote homes with mile-long driveways, and ISPs don’t build networks in areas with very few customers unless they have serious incentives to do so.

Hence, Virginia’s BEAD grants are helping cover that gap funding to internet providers who otherwise wouldn’t see a return on investment. The state’s underserved locations today are the hardest to reach, experts say.

“The low-hanging fruit has already been taken. What’s been left in Virginia are the hardest to reach, most expensive locations,” explains Tamarah Holmes, director of the DHCD’s broadband office, which coordinates the state’s efforts to provide internet to addresses that are not currently part of a publicly funded broadband access program. The state estimates about 133,000 locations are not served, but a recent federal report suggests there are fewer unserved addresses.

“We’re going to do our due diligence to make sure every one of those locations gets a connection to broadband. BEAD will allow us to do that,” Holmes says. “That may look a little different than what we thought based on the [federal] rules changing, but we think that every location will still end up with a technology solution.”

Static on the line

Despite deserved accolades in getting ahead on internet access expansion, Virginia has had to contend with some challenges to the project, starting with low-tech utility poles that are straining from overuse.

Under regular services, poles throughout the commonwealth are up for their job of carrying electricity distribution wires. But with the addition of broadband fiber cables, poles are now out of compliance with safety standards. The question is, who pays to upgrade the poles: the utilities that own them, or the people attaching broadband fiber?

Enter state Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax, whose legislative fix in 2024 allocated $30 million for pole upgrades, as well as creating a forum at the Virginia State Corporation Commission to resolve cost disputes between broadband installers and electric utilities. The Federal Communications Commission also set rules to speed up attachment of broadband cable to poles nationwide, taking effect in July 2024.

Nonetheless, delays in approval and added costs mean that some ISPs have gone underground with their cables — although that can be a costlier and more invasive endeavor that requires right-of-way access with permission from the Virginia Department of Transportation.

“You have to be patient,” acknowledges Citizens Telephone’s Smith.

“It’s a tough thing to wait for,” adds Ed Diggs, manager of electric distribution grid solutions at Dominion Energy. “If you’re investing…you want to make sure it’s done right.”

Over the past fiscal year, which ended June 30, VDOT has issued 4,575 underground fiber permits with an average turnaround time of 12.5 days, going through 31 permit offices across the state. Right now, the agency is working closely with

DHCD to improve its overall permit approval process, including prioritizing BEAD and VATI projects.

Yet another challenge is the need for fibers to cross railroad tracks occasionally, and who pays for that. In 2023, the state passed a law capping the fees that ISPs have to pay to cross tracks, but this year, the Supreme Court of Virginia struck down the law.

Meanwhile, the feds are creating more questions.

Like many other policies, federal internet access priorities have changed with Donald Trump’s return to the White House. He and Howard Lutnick, the U.S. secretary of commerce, say that they are using a technology-neutral approach to increase access.

However, Lutnick appears to strongly favor low-lying satellite orbit technology offered by Starlink and Project Kuiper, which has a familiar backer: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Founded in 2019, Project Kuiper has launched two prototype satellites and 54 production satellites, out of 3,236 satellites it plans to operate.

Citizens Telephone Cooperative’s Donna Smith notes that Floyd’s real estate market has benefited from broadband access. Photo by Don Petersen

Although Musk is more publicly identified as a supporter (and occasional adversary) of Trump in his second term, Bezos attended the president’s inauguration after Amazon donated $1 million to the event, and he too has a lot at stake. Beyond their competing satellite internet businesses, both billionaires own aerospace companies: Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’ Blue Origin.

However, there are many people who consider satellite technology a valid option for hard-to-reach homes. Rustberg-based Shenandoah Telecommunications, better known as Shentel, covers much of the Shenandoah Valley and Southern and Southwest Virginia with fiber-based internet.

Bryan Byrd, Shentel’s government and community affairs specialist, acknowledges that Virginia’s unserved addresses as of 2025 are the hardest to connect.

“There’s just not a lot of locations left to serve,” he says. “There may be some of those final locations that are best suited for something like satellite.”

Still, notes Chris Kyle, Shentel’s vice president of programming, regulatory and business development, satellites require funding. “There isn’t an economic model to build those out without BEAD.”

Holmes says that the DHCD has always been tech-neutral when selecting projects to receive funding through VATI and to be passed along for federal approval. Internet service providers are currently rebidding for BEAD grants during a 90-day window that started in June, with the state’s recommendations coming by the end of the year, she says.

Out on the Northern Neck, where residents get internet access through coaxial cables that predate fiber, Lancaster Broadband Authority chair Keith Kidd says that satellites aren’t very effective there, because of “these things in Virginia called trees.”

Unlike a fiber that directs electrical signals to a house, satellites need an unblocked signal to beam down internet access.

Kidd also adds that fiber is built for the long haul, is more able to handle increases, and subscriptions are not as costly as satellite services. What’s more, there’s a finite number of satellites or “birds,” as Kidd calls them, that can be launched into orbit, and reports estimate that Starlink’s satellites have an average lifespan of five years and must be replaced.

“They’re going to have to account for the entire cost of their celestial orbits when they come up with a price,” Kidd says. “But I don’t know how the math works on that.”

For the Record: August 2025

Central Virginia

In late June, Bow Tie Partners unveiled its $5 million overhaul of BTM Movieland at Boulevard Square, which opened in 2009 inside a 53,000-square-foot former locomotive factory near Richmond’s Scott’s Addition neighborhood. The new attractions from the renovation projects are open, including two new large-format auditoriums, reclining seats throughout the auditoriums, an expanded kitchen and an arcade area. The large-format theaters have 50-foot-wide screens and a new Dolby Atmos sound system. Richmond’s only first-run movie theater within city limits, Movieland also relocated its bar to build a larger one and added a lounge space. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Denver-based data center developer EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure has purchased 697 acres in Louisa County to build a 3.9 million-square-foot data center campus capable of supporting more than 1.1 gigawatts of power, with a total expected investment of $17 billion, according to a June 25 announcement. The campus will be developed in multiple phases over the course of several years, with size depending on customer demand. EdgeCore purchased the land for $42 million, according to a June 24 announcement by the county. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Google signed an agreement to buy electricity from Commonwealth Fusion Systems‘ planned Chesterfield County facility — expected to be the world’s first grid-scale commercial fusion power plant. The Massachusetts-based fusion energy company announced in December 2024 its plans to build the 400-megawatt facility, dubbed ARC, in Chesterfield. The power plant will likely cost more than $2.5 billion, according to Chesterfield’s economic development director, Garrett Hart. CFS expects ARC to begin generating carbon-free power for the grid in the early 2030s. Google signed a power purchase agreement for 200 megawatts (half the facility’s expected electric power output), according to a June 30 announcement. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

On June 27, University of Virginia President James E. “Jim” Ryan wrote that he was resigning his post at the state’s flagship university due to pressure from the federal government. Ryan’s sudden departure was the culmination of mounting pressure at universities nationwide from the Trump administration to dissolve diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives or risk losing federal funding. On June 26, The New York Times reported it learned through three sources that the Justice Department demanded Ryan resign as a condition of settling a civil rights investigation into U.Va.’s DEI initiatives. Ryan will return as a professor to teach at the schools of law and education. (VirginiaBusiness.com; The Daily Progress)

UVA Health announced June 26 that two anonymous donors have given $25 million estate gifts to support the University of Virginia’s Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology, funds that will go toward developing cures for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. Mark Esser, the Manning Institute’s head and chief scientific officer, said the two gifts are unrestricted and will help move medical research to the market stage, when patients can benefit from new treatments. The Manning Institute was launched in 2023 with a $100 million gift from Paul and Diane Manning, Charlottesville-area philanthropists, along with $150 million from U.Va. and $100 million from the state. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Virginia State University started construction on two buildings and held a ribbon-cutting for a third
in late June. The Ettrick university is building a $75 million residence hall and a $26 million admissions building. It’s putting the final touches on the $134 million Alfred W. Harris Academic Commons, which will be both an academic facility and a student commons. The 110,000-square-foot dormitory will have 450 beds and is expected to be finished in spring 2026. The 30,000-square-foot admissions building will have a conference space, a media center and a balcony overlooking the football stadium. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Eastern Virginia

Virginia Beach-based Acoustical Sheetmetal Co. announced that it will invest $45.8 million to expand its operations, with plans to add 350 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced in June. Acoustical Sheetmetal is a manufacturer of steel and aluminum enclosures for the power generation industry, providing on-site power integration for large-scale data centers. It plans to build an additional 250,000-square-foot building and add significant machinery on 21.1 acres of land it purchased at the Virginia Beach Innovation Park from the City of Virginia Beach. Once construction is complete, ASC will have more than 550,000 square feet of production space. (Virginia Business)

Following an outcry from hundreds of residents, Chesapeake City Council unanimously voted in June to deny a rezoning request that would have allowed the construction of Hampton Roads’ first major data center. Developer Doug Fuller, president of Emerald Lakes Estates, sought to construct a 350,000-square-foot data center on a 22.6-acre property in Chesapeake’s Great Bridge area. Some council members cited objections to the center’s proposed location, which would be near residential properties, echoing concerns raised by many citizens. Fuller said he is considering alternative sites for the project. (Virginia Business)

Sentara Health and Virginia Wesleyan University plan to establish a new health sciences degree program at the Virginia Beach private college, according to a June announcement. The Norfolk health system and VWU signed a letter of intent to create the Sentara College of Health Sciences of Virginia Wesleyan University. The announcement comes after Sentara said in April it would end its degree programs at the Sentara College of Health Sciences in Chesapeake, instead transitioning those programs to state and regional universities. Details of the proposed collaboration between Sentara and VWU are still being worked out. (Virginia Business)

Smithfield Foods — the nation’s largest pork producer — announced in June that it plans to bring about 115 jobs to Virginia’s Tidewater region over the coming months. The Smithfield-based company is relocating the positions from regional offices in the Midwest to the company’s headquarters in Smithfield. Positions include finance, procurement, human resources, IT and other support functions. A company spokesperson said the relocation of employees is expected to occur by the end of next year. The publicly traded company employs about 33,000 people nationwide. (Virginia Business)

PEOPLE

Martin Sjolund became PRA Group‘s president and CEO on June 17, succeeding Vikram “Vik” Atal at the Norfolk-based global debt purchasing and collection company. Sjolund was previously president of PRA Group Europe. According to a PRA spokesperson, Sjolund will split his time between London and Norfolk. Atal plans to serve as a senior adviser through the end of the year. Sjolund served as PRA’s Europe president since 2018, overseeing 15 markets in Europe, Canada and Australia, where PRA has nearly $3 billion in portfolio investments. Sjolund graduated from the University of Chicago’s business school and Georgetown University. (Virginia Business)

Susan Bradford Tarley, a Williamsburg attorney and partner at Tarley Robinson, was chosen as the 2025-26 president-elect of the Virginia State Bar on June 13 during the organization’s annual meeting in Virginia Beach. Tarley focuses her practice on real estate, business matters and creditors’ rights. She has also been an adjunct professor at William & Mary Law School and a substitute judge for the Ninth Judicial Circuit. Tarley was among Virginia Lawyers Weekly’s inaugural Leaders in the Law class in 2006 and was a 2023 inductee into the Virginia Lawyers Hall of Fame. (Virginia Lawyers Weekly)

Northern Virginia

Casa del Fuego Family Office and Trust, an investment and asset management firm, acquired Tysons-based Digital Global Systems for $5 billion in an all-stock deal in June. DGS, which provides technology to optimize radio frequency signals, will operate independently as a subsidiary with its leadership team unchanged. Casa del Fuego is an investment entity led by Oliver Patterson, a Canadian entrepreneur and founder of esports businesses Meta Game and Shockwave Holdings. The firm has more than $30 billion in assets under management, including Oeno Group, a high-end line of wine and whiskeys. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

There are at least 33 companies scouring the Northern Virginia office market for 50,000 square feet or more, according to CBRE‘s second-quarter office report, but their options are severely limited regionwide and there’s literally nothing under construction that would fit their requirements. Across all of Northern Virginia, Kite Realty Corp.’s 35,000-square-foot boutique office at One Loudoun is the only project currently underway. The construction pipeline is at 30-year lows, if not more than 30 years. (Washington Business Journal)

The CIA purchased a 10-story office in Chantilly for $246.4 million in late May from Peterson Cos., according to Fairfax County tax records. However, the agency has yet to reveal its plans for the building, known as Dulles Discovery 2. A 434,000-square-foot Class A office building constructed in 2010, the building is at Air and Space Museum Parkway. According to Peterson, the CIA had already been leasing the building for office space, and the building was built to serve the intelligence agency’s needs. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

In July, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced it is investigating George Mason University for racial discrimination. According to the DOE, several professors alleged in a complaint that the university has favored employees of underrepresented races in hiring and promotions. President Gregory Washington is specifically mentioned in the complaint, saying he has directed the university to consider race and diversity in employment decisions. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The European Union’s antitrust watchdog organization announced in late June that it has opened an in-depth investigation into McLean candy and pet care giant Mars‘ proposed $35.9 billion acquisition of Kellanova, the producer of Cheez-It, Pop-Tarts, Pringles and Eggo. The European Commission said it is concerned about Mars’ increased bargaining power leading to higher prices for consumers. The commission has 90 working days to conduct its probe and decide whether to approve the deal on Oct. 31. This will mean a delay for the closing of the acquisition, which was previously scheduled for August. Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission cleared the deal following an antitrust review (VirginiaBusiness.com)

McLean-based federal contractor and IT services company 22nd Century Technologies plans to invest $1 million to expand its headquarters in Fairfax County and offices across Virginia, adding 880 jobs, it announced in late June. Founded in 1997, 22nd Century operates in 14 regional offices nationwide and has more than 6,000 employees. It has multiyear contracts with federal agencies, state governments and local governments. Since moving to Northern Virginia in 2008, the company has grown from a $6 million business to more than $600 million, CEO Anil Sharma says. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Roanoke/ Lynchburg/ New River Valley

Carilion Clinic has nearly reached its $100 million goal to build a six-story cancer center in Roanoke. During Roanoke’s annual Freedom Festival July 3, Carilion launched the public phase of its “Reaching Far, Caring Close” campaign. The Roanoke-based health system announced it has raised $96 million for the planned 257,000-square-foot cancer center, but the health system is now asking for the public’s help to close the final $4 million gap. Carilion broke ground on the new center in October 2024, and it is on track for completion in October 2027. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Google has purchased a 312-acre parcel for $14.06 million at Botetourt County’s Botetourt Center at Greenfield industrial park for data center development, county officials announced in June. Additionally, the Menlo Park, California-based Big Tech company has pledged to give $4 million over the next five years to support community projects in Botetourt, which encompasses Roanoke suburbs and rural farmland. Botetourt County Administrator Gary Larrowe could not provide the number of jobs the project will create or a timeline for the construction. Representatives from Google will make a separate announcement about the project later, according to the county. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Illinois-based Packaging Corporation of America announced July 1 that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the containerboard business of Ohio-based Greif for $1.8 billion. The containerboard business includes two mills, one of which is in Amherst County. Greif is one of the largest private employers in Amherst, with nearly 300 employees. The transaction is expected to close by the end of PCA’s third quarter, subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals. (The News & Advance; WSET-TV ABC 13)

For overseeing illegal prescriptions of drugs, overbilling and rampant health care fraud, the former chief operating officer of five pain clinics was sentenced July 7 to three years in prison. Jennifer Ann Adams had “full knowledge” of what was happening at the practice, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Dillon said in imposing the sentence. L5 Medical Holdings, a now-defunct company that did business as Pain Care Centers in Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Lynchburg, Madison Heights and Woodlawn, “valued deceiving the government and patients to make a quick buck for its upper management more than providing genuine and helpful medical care for those in need,” prosecutors said. (The Roanoke Times)

A recent fire department report on the two-alarm blaze that destroyed a custom van company at Roanoke’s Riverdale development this spring says that the valve connecting the sprinkler system’s water supply had been turned off. Workers at Riverdale had turned off all the valves at some point “because the historic system was broken and inoperable,” according to a statement from Riverdale Southeast LLC. Because the fire suppression system was inoperable at the time of the fire, the owners of Noke Van Co. said they’re fighting with several insurance companies to be compensated for millions of dollars in lost inventory and equipment. (Cardinal News)

There is just no more room at the 15-year-old Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. A new headquarters under formal consideration would change that and solve a space issue for the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, which shares the same building located off Reserve Avenue. Officials said the solution could be building a new medical school complex and giving the school’s current space to Fralin researchers after renovations, for a combined estimated cost of $165 million. Tech divulged the concept last year. But it wasn’t until May 5 that it filed a preliminary proposal with the city. (Roanoke Rambler)

Shenandoah Valley

The Frederick County Board of Supervisors in June voted by consensus to reject further study of two proposed data center projects: the 644-acre Meadow Brook Technology Park, which was to be located on farmland just south of Stephens City, and the 105-acre Winchester Gateway 2, which was to be located at the intersection of Virginia State Route 37 and Middle Road south of Winchester. Concerns were raised about the proposed centers’ water usage and locations. Frederick Supervisor Judith McCann-Slaughter said the board should make up its mind about data centers so the county’s economic development authority doesn’t keep trying to attract them for no reason. (The Winchester Star)

President Donald Trump on July 1 nominated former Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert of Shenandoah County to serve as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, the top prosecutor role for the western side of the state. A former assistant commonwealth’s attorney, Gilbert eventually rose through the ranks to become the Virginia House Speaker and then minority leader before stepping down in May in anticipation of the nomination. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he must resign as a state legislator, prompting a special election to fill his seat. (Cardinal News)

Plein Smith Ventures has pulled out of a $6.2 million contract to purchase 149 acres of property in the Happy Creek Technology Park from the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority. The company informed the EDA on June 20. The property had been under contract since May 2024, but Plein Smith had concerns about a covenant the EDA placed on the property, which the town had stake in, related to the future extension of Progress Drive. EDA Board of Directors Chairman Robert MacDougall says Plein Smith indicated it still has interest in the property. (The Northern Virginia Daily)

Winchester Acquisition Partners, headed by investor John Wesley Gray Jr., in June broke ground on Cedar Valley Square, a mixed-use development occupying 19.6 acres in the 2200 block of Valley Avenue. Located at the former Ward Plaza shopping center, the project will feature 453 apartments, condominiums and townhouses. It will also have retail stores, offices, parking lots and a four-story, 376-stall parking garage that will be available for public use. Publix, a full-service grocery store, is the only commercial tenant announced for Cedar Valley Square so far. Publix signed a lease for a 50,325-square-foot facility projected to open late next year. (The Winchester Star)

PEOPLE

On July 1, James C. Schmidt became James Madison University‘s new president. The former chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire was appointed to the position by JMU’s board of visitors in March. He has worked in higher education for more than 30 years. He succeeds interim president Charlie King, who had served in the role since July 1, 2024. King, who had been JMU’s chief financial officer, came out of retirement to serve as interim president after Jonathan Alger left JMU’s presidency after a dozen years to lead American University. (News release, Virginia Business)

United Bank announced on July 1 that it had promoted Peter Warren to president of its Winchester market, which has eight branch locations, and covers Frederick, Clark, Shenandoah and Warren counties and Winchester. Warren succeeds former market president Harry Smith, who retired after 10 years with United Bank. Warren has 17 years of banking experience and holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from Virginia Wesleyan University. (News release)

Southwest Virginia

Appalachian Power canceled its plans to build a battery energy storage system on two sites in Grayson and Smyth counties, citing factors including storm damage brought by Hurricane Helene last year. State regulators last year approved Applachian’s plan to build the system to serve around 2,790 customers on the utility’s Glade-Whitetop circuit. It would have stored electricity drawn from the grid and deployed it during high-demand periods and outages. Appalachian spokesperson Ashley Workman said in late June the utility will instead focus on relocating power lines in two areas and will implement technology to automatically pinpoint outage locations and reroute electricity as needed. (Cardinal News)

A state judge agreed with the city of Bristol, Virginia, and its industrial development authority, rejecting a church’s bid to acquire the former Cabela’s building at The Falls commercial center in a final order issued on June 27. Circuit Judge Sage B. Johnson ruled that operating a church on the property “is impermissible under the easements, covenants and conditions for Phase I of The Falls development.” Simple Rhythms Church attempted to acquire the 85,000-square-foot building last year for $5 million to establish a church there. (Bristol Herald Courier)

Emory & Henry University was placed on probation by its accreditor, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, in June due to concerns about its fiscal responsibility. The private institution remains accredited but is on “probation for good cause” for the following 12 months. The association started monitoring Emory & Henry two years ago after detecting compliance issues at the university, according to documents released in late June. The school was placed on probation because it was still out of compliance with a financial responsibility requirement of accreditation that states that “the institution manages its financial resources and operates in a fiscally responsible manner.” (Cardinal News)

The Kroger in Abingdon is one of at least two Virginia Kroger stores that will be among the 60 locations the Cincinnati-based company plans to shutter over 18 months to improve efficiency and profitability. Kroger announced the plan during a corporate earnings call June 20. A news release distributed that day by United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400 noted that in addition to a Charlottesville store, a location at 466 S. Cummings St. in Abingdon will close Sept. 19. Mike Cochran, Abingdon’s town manager, said he was notified June 20 that the store is closing. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Two state grants will support work to bring one of the nation’s first advanced nuclear reactors — compact, factory-built systems designed for rapid deployment — to Southwest Virginia. With a $100,000 grant from the Virginia Clean Energy Innovation Bank and a $97,500 grant GO Virginia grant, Wise County, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise and the Virginia Innovative Nuclear Hub will lead the effort to prepare the region to apply for private investment and federal funding. The LENOWISCO Planning District Commission will manage the initiative on behalf of Wise County, and VIN Hub will oversee technical planning and strategic coordination. (News release)

White Rock Truss & Components, a company that manufactures yellow pine trusses for residential and commercial use, will invest $1.5 million to expand their operations in Lee County, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced June 30. The company’s expansion is expected to create 27 jobs and will entail building a lumber shed and upgrading saw equipment to double production. Established in Lee County in 2005, White Rock Truss & Components manufactures construction products like trusses and engineered lumber, which it supplies to home construction companies and home improvement retailers. (News release)

Virginia’s Fortune 500 companies

Freddie Mac, the federally sponsored mortgage business headquartered in McLean, continues to be the top-ranked Virginia-based company at No. 38, down two spots from last year, with $122 billion in annual revenue Arlington County-based defense contractors RTX and Boeing were the second and third highest ranking companies based in Virginia, with RTX moving up one spot from last year to No. 54, with $80.73 billion in revenue. Meanwhile, Boeing slid from No. 52 last year to No. 63, a reflection of the aerospace giant’s woes last year, which included a midair panel blowout in a passenger jet and a CEO swap. Last year, Boeing lost $11.8 billion in profits, a 14.5% decrease from 2023.

Notably, Ferguson Enterprises, the Newport News-based plumbing and heating products distributor, debuted on the Fortune 500 at No. 146, following a corporate reorganization. The company, which has about 35,000 employees, reported $29.6 billion in revenue for 2024.

Also notable among Virginia companies this year, Reston federal contractor CACI International moved back on to the Fortune 500, ranking No. 484, and Henrico County insurer Genworth Financial dropped off the Fortune 500, slipping to No. 507.

The Manager Multiplier: How Engagement Turns Into Margin

You don’t need a billion-dollar strategy to boost your bottom line. You need a manager who gets it.

Here’s the math: move a team from meh to energized, and you’ll see profits rise 23%, sales climb 18%, quality jump 14%. No new software. No flashy rebrand. Just people doing their best work.

Yet most executives treat people leadership like a side project. “Our VP is perfect — except for people skills.” That’s a punchline in the boardroom. Except it’s not funny. Imagine praising a chef for amazing recipes — “just don’t trust them with the oven.”

Seventy percent of engagement lives in a manager’s daily choices. Strategy sets the stage, but culture happens in the small moments: the quick thank-you, the on-the-fly coaching, the one-on-one that feels more like a conversation than a checkbox.

Here are the three habits that matter:

Feedback Weekly: Not vague pep talks. Concrete suggestions. “Here’s what’s working. Here’s where to go next.” Do it every week.
One-on-Ones as Production Meetings: These aren’t remedial. They’re an ongoing project plan for people. What’s your priority? What’s in your way? What do you want next?
Recognition in Plain Sight: A private email is nice. Public praise is powerful. Link it to your team’s values. Watch behaviors spread.

None of this costs extra. It costs attention. It costs discipline.

So, why don’t we do it? Because we promote top doers into roles they’re not trained for. The brilliant engineer becomes the frantic manager. They default to solo heroics: late-night firefights, last-minute demos, trying to do it all. Feedback dries up. Recognition goes on hold. Engagement drifts. Turnover ticks up. Profit slips away — quietly, until you notice a gap in your forecast.

It doesn’t show up as “people problems.” It hides behind “market shifts,” “supply chain noise,” or “changing customer tastes.” But the source is always the same: skipped conversations, unmet appreciation, ignored potential.

What if you treated engagement like a product? You’d iterate. You’d test. You’d measure the metrics that matter. You’d ask: Did the feedback land? Did the one-on-one uncover a blocker? Did that shout-out spark more of the same behavior?

At Best Companies Group, we built the Management Fundamentals Bootcamp to do just that. We gave managers a playbook — tactics that work. We handed them agendas — frames that focus their time. We showed them how to spotlight wins — publicly, immediately, often. Whether they follow our training or not, the principle holds: engagement is the outcome of manager behavior, not an HR checkbox.

In a tight labor market, the cost of turnover doubles. One lost engineer costs you twice her salary when you count hiring fees, lost knowledge, ramp time. A high-engagement team halves that risk.

Technology and AI automate tasks, but they can’t replace the simple magic of “I noticed you did that.” They can’t replicate the spark in a manager’s eye when they ask, “What do you want to do next?” Those moments still outpace any algorithm.

Your secret lever isn’t in the C-suite. It’s in the half-hour blocks on your frontline managers’ calendars. Fill that time with purpose, and watch your margins grow. Ignore it, and watch them leak away, one skipped conversation at a time.

Want to learn how our bootcamp can level up your managers? Reach out to me at [email protected] to set up a time to talk.

Jaime Raul Zepeda is EVP, Principal Consultant for Best Companies Group and COLOR Magazine, part of BridgeTower Media.

Wondering whether your organization is on the right path to win? Talk to us at Best Companies Group so we can analyze your organization’s health, your team dynamics, and your leadership’s effectiveness. We’ve helped over 10,000 companies understand and improve their workplace using data-driven strategies.

Virginia logistics space squeezed by data center boom

Summary:

Demand for warehouse space cooled after 2022 boom, but vacancy rates remain low.
Data centers increasingly compete with logistics firms for limited land.
Richmond and Hampton Roads remain top logistics hubs with low vacancy.

After the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Virginia experienced a surge in demand for warehousing and distribution space driven by consumers shifting to the convenience of online shopping.

In 2022, at the height of this boom, developers responded by rapidly adding new supply, with Richmond and Hampton Roads seeing dramatic increases in development of industrial spaces like warehouses and distribution centers. But by 2023 and into 2024, demand for distribution space began to taper as consumers became more cautious with their spending and markets cooled down.

Nevertheless, vacancy rates for logistics sites are unlikely to spike anytime soon in Virginia, as it remains a challenge in many parts of the state to find suitable land for them. And where there is suitable land, logistics companies are increasingly finding themselves in competition with another fast-growing industry — data centers.

Leasing remains strong for industrial spaces, says Lang Williams, an executive vice president at Colliers, but there will likely be a slowdown of spec warehouse construction because much of the available land has already been absorbed in recent years.

Ben Luke, a vice president in Colliers International’s Northern Virginia office, says that in the greater Washington, D.C., area, data centers are absorbing many of the parcels that would have otherwise hosted distribution facilities. As a result, construction of distribution and fulfillment facilities has slowed in recent years due to the scarcity of developable sites.

There are rising land costs to consider, much of which is driven by competition with data centers. (Northern Virginia is home to more than 250 data centers, many of which are located in Loudoun County‘s Ashburn area, which has the world’s largest concentration of data centers.)

It’s not that there isn’t still demand for logistics centers, Luke clarifies, but developers and localities are likely to get more bang for their bucks with data centers. For instance, data centers generate 38% of Loudoun County’s general fund revenue.

Bo McKown, senior vice president for Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s Capital Markets Group, notes that Richmond has one of the strongest markets on the East Coast for industrial buildings like warehouses and distribution centers, with his firm reporting a vacancy rate of 3.7% for industrial buildings in metro Richmond area at the end of 2024.

And that’s reflecting the same trend with data centers competing for space with logistics operations.

As Northern Virginia’s data center market has become more expensive and built out, the industry is trickling down to the Richmond area, where, McKown says, data centers are also gobbling up land that previously would have been used for distribution and logistics. The shift has not only reduced available land in the region for traditional industrial uses but has also attracted ancillary businesses supporting data centers — such as HVAC and piping contractors — making the market even more attractive to data center developers.

Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer reported earlier this year that Richmond’s industrial inventory has expanded by 20.7% since 2020, with 20.2 million square feet delivered in that time, including 3.8 million square feet for data centers.

From Richmond to the beach

Geoff Poston, a senior vice president and managing broker with Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, describes Richmond as a “national darling” in the distribution space, noting that the presence of various major highways like Interstate 64, I-85 and I-95 make the region attractive from a logistical standpoint.

Based on active projects and planned construction starts, Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer reports that 4.5 million square feet of speculative industrial space is anticipated to be delivered in Richmond before the end of 2026, with just over 1 million square feet scheduled to be delivered this year.

Some notable current and planned logistics projects under development in the Richmond region include the 582,437-square-foot I-895 Logistics Center at 7001 S Laburnum Ave. being developed by Ashley Capital; PNK Group’s 846,260-square-foot speculative development at 1653 Ashton Park Drive; and the Lego Group’s $366 million, 2 million-square-foot Prince George County warehouse and distribution center slated to open in 2027.

McKown says the Richmond market has avoided overbuilding that has plagued markets like Charlotte, North Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, where vacancy rates have recently exceeded 10% due to excessive post-COVID development. Land constraints, difficulty in obtaining government approvals and wetland issues in Richmond have kept spec construction in check, he says. As a result, Richmond’s existing industrial properties have benefited from the constrained supply and are expected to continue doing so, with Thalhimer forecasting industrial vacancy rates in the region will likely remain stable or even dip over the next year.

Hampton Roads had a similarly low industrial vacancy rate of 4.4% percent in 2024, with much of the region benefiting directly from logistics activity tied to the Port of Virginia.

However, McKown said, development in Hampton Roads is more geographically challenging than in Richmond due to the difficult soils and proximity to water. Furthermore, Poston added, industrial land in Hampton Roads has often been rezoned or redeveloped for multifamily or retail use over the years, substantially reducing the number of suitable parcels for distribution centers.

“I think the challenge in Richmond and Hampton Roads has been that we’re running out of viable land sites to build,” says Liz Greving, an associate director of research for Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer. “So, the pipeline is shrinking a little bit because of that, but there’s still a decent number of projects coming.”

More than 6.4 million square feet of industrial space is scheduled to be delivered in Hampton Roads this year, according to Thalhimer. And much of it will be devoted to logistics projects.

Earlier this year, Kansas City, Missouri-based NorthPoint Development wrapped up construction on the two-building, 840,000-square-foot Phenix Commerce Center in Hampton. In May, it was announced that e-commerce fulfillment, warehousing and logistics provider Cirro Global would be the first tenant to move into the site. And Amazon.com plans to open a 3.2 million-square-foot robotics fulfillment center in Virginia Beach later this year, following a 200,000-plus square-foot delivery station the e-commerce behemoth opened in the city last year.

One Logistics Park in Frederick County offers area logistics providers additional leasing options. Photo courtesy The Meridian Group

Shenandoah constraints

Newmark’s executive managing director, Grant Bates, says that west of Richmond, potential users have struggled for years to build new logistics or distribution centers due to various obstacles and barriers to entry.

The Shenandoah Valley is a challenging location for distribution centers due to its rocky terrain and topography. The cost of moving dirt and grading land is often cost-prohibitive, and vacant land parcels usually lack utility infrastructure.

“These barriers have led to zero speculative development,” Bates says. “With speed to market so important to users, the region often loses out on opportunities.”

Even land costs in areas like Louisa County or Charlottesville are expensive, he adds, with markets around Charlottesville often charging $16 per square foot in rent. “So, if a business doesn’t have to be in those localities, they move on to markets with lower land basis.”

Furthermore, the only sites that are actually “ready to go” for development are owned by the local economic development authorities, which would rather the land go toward manufacturing projects that bring bigger numbers of jobs and more tax revenue, Bates says.

Bates has pitched numerous logistics and distribution deals to economic development authorities west of Richmond, he says, but they generally aren’t interested.

While there are notable distribution centers on the western side of the state operated by big companies like Amazon, Target and Walmart, the “low hanging fruit has been picked,” Bates says, and there are no more shovel-ready large industrial sites with utilities readily available beyond the existing ones owned by local EDAs.

While Luke “somewhat” agrees there are challenges with logistics development in Western Virginia, he still believes there are opportunities in that region and notes that land costs are “a fraction” of what they are in major Northern Virginia markets.

During the first quarter of the year, Colliers reports, The Meridian Group delivered a roughly 1 million-square-foot spec facility at One Logistics Park near Winchester, providing leasing options for logistics providers in an area where logistics space has been limited. Still, the report notes that there are no other speculative developments currently underway in the Winchester region.

Meanwhile, uncertainty surrounding President Donald Trump’s trade war and tariffs has been a mixed bag for the logistics industry, McKown says. On the tenant side, “deals aren’t stopping,” he says, “but they’re certainly pausing. … So, we’re not seeing deals die, but we’re certainly seeing deals take longer and go on pause.”

Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer forecasts that uncertainty surrounding the impact of tariffs, coupled with the increase of construction deliveries, is likely to push industrial vacancy rates in Hampton Roads up through 2025, which the firm says is “still healthy” but above the historic lows hit during the pandemic. Poston believes the tariffs won’t likely have a long-term impact on leasing, noting that building sites is a multiyear process and adding that many believe the tariff concerns will be a short-term issue. “Everybody’s kind of in a wait-and-see mode,” he says.

Despite the distribution industry facing a few challenges, Poston remains generally optimistic about the long-term outlook. There’s a general expectation among industry players that activity will pick back up by the end of the year, he says.

McKown is similarly optimistic about the market.

“You know, all the recent surveys are showing that all of the retailers and consumers want their products with next-day delivery or two-day delivery,” he says. “So, in order to do that, you have to warehouse those goods somewhere close to those rooftops. So, the long-term trends for industrial space, I’m very bullish on, and a lot of other institutional investors and folks much smarter than I am are as well.” ■

Fredericksburg weighs impact of federal job cuts

Summary:

Nearly 59,000 federal jobs cut nationwide under Trump
Local officials see mixed economic signals but prep for fallout
Data center expansion seen as key to regional revenue growth

Northern Virginia politicians, all Democrats, started sounding the alarm immediately about federal job cuts and slashing of federal agencies’ budgets at the start of the second Trump administration in January.

And there have been significant impacts in Fairfax and Arlington counties, as well as Alexandria, where the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is moving its headquarters — and displacing the National Science Foundation.

As of June, the federal government reports that it has gotten rid of about 59,000 federal jobs through layoffs and buyouts, a far cry from the approximately 10% of the two million-plus workforce that Trump said he aimed to cut.

Meanwhile, the state has reported since January that nearly 1,500 private-sector employees in Northern Virginia have been laid off by companies that perform contract work for the government, such as McLean-based Mitre, which laid off 442 people in early June, and Reston-based Leidos and its subsidiaries, which have shed more than 100 jobs related to the loss of contracts.

Job cuts and related economic woes, Virginia Democrats warned, weren’t going to stop at the beltway. They were coming for Fredericksburg and surrounding counties, too.

At a February ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Department of Veterans Affairs‘ health care center in Spotsylvania, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner had a serious message to deliver about laid off VA employees, part of the Trump White House’s cuts. The clinic where he stood, the VA’s largest health care facility in the nation, was “close to 500 employees short,” Warner said during his comments.

Fellow Democratic lawmakers U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and U.S. Rep. Eugene Vindman, on hand at the ceremony, also criticized the administration for halting new hires at the clinic, at the expense of access and service for patients.

“These attacks have destabilized the job market, strained local businesses and disrupted economic stability on communities like Fredericksburg that have relied on a federal presence,” Warner said in a statement this summer.

However, employment conditions don’t seem as bad as some predicted, at least in the Fredericksburg area. Six months into the new presidential administration, officials in Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania and Stafford counties say there have not been any major layoffs locally.

“We were told to anticipate a large number [of layoffs], and we haven’t seen it,” says Kevin Marshall, a Spotsylvania supervisor as well as the county’s business development manager. “Personally, I think federal workers who took the buyouts are happily retired. The ones who were laid off are educated folks. They have skills. I think they’re putting in for jobs within the private sector, and they’re getting hired.”

And a VA representative dismissed the notion that cuts have impacted service at the Spotsylvania clinic, which is expected to serve 35,000 patients annually.

Joshua Summits, Fredericksburg’s economic development director, says downtown is thriving thanks to city-sponsored events. Photo by Jay Paul

“There is a lot of disinformation circulating about the VA Fredericksburg Health Care Center,” Tara Ricks, a regional VA spokesperson, wrote in an email. “The clinic’s staffing is right on track with its phased opening plans. We started with approximately 230 team members, we’re now up to 289 employees, and another 266 are in various stages of recruitment.”

Still, says Joshua Summits, director of economic development and tourism for the city of Fredericksburg, “I think everyone here knows someone who has been affected by the [Department of Government Efficiency] cuts or the dropping of contracts from offices up north.”

The full impact of the cost-cutting efforts in the region may not be felt until later this year, says João Ferreira, a regional economist with the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, which released a report in April anticipating the loss of 32,000 jobs statewide this year and an average 4.7% Virginia unemployment rate in 2026. As of May, the state’s unemployment rate was 3.4%, and it was the same in Spotsylvania and Stafford, with Fredericksburg slightly higher at 3.6%.

Uncertainty about jobs, tariffs and the stock market, however, will likely lead to greater economic volatility, Ferreira says. “If less money is poured into the Virginia economy, that will have an impact that will end up affecting everyone in Virginia. If people have less money, they go less to restaurants, they also travel less and they buy fewer things in the grocery stores.”

Ferreira says he’s not worried about a full-blown recession related to job losses. “Many people are speaking about this being like the great crisis of 2008 or COVID in 2020,” he says. “I don’t think it is even close to that. Let’s be honest.” But he says there will be “winners and losers” in certain sectors, with finance and defense contractors likely to come out on top.

And that leaves local officials in the Fredericksburg region working to assess and guess the current and future impact to their economies.

That fed life

About a quarter of all workers who live in Stafford are employed by the federal government or a private-sector government contractor, says Liz Barber, Stafford’s economic development authority director, and Marshall, her counterpart in Spotsylvania, cites similar stats. Summits estimates that fewer Fredericksburg residents work for the federal government, but it’s still a major employer, along with contractors.

Democratic state Del. Joshua Cole, who represents Fredericksburg and parts of the two counties, notes that many of his constituents commute to Washington, D.C., the Pentagon or military bases at Quantico, Dahlgren and Fort Belvoir. For decades, local commuters have picked up riders from so-called “slug lines” that allow them to access faster high-occupancy-vehicle lanes on Interstate 95.

“They commute every day, whether it’s in a slug line or van line. People are up and down the road,” Cole says. “And we can’t forget that there are a bunch of government contractors here in this region, too.”

Meanwhile, Barber says her office has heard little from local businesses about adverse effects from Trump’s economic policies and federal spending cuts, although she’s noticed an unusually high number of federal employees applying for administrative roles in her office.

On the other hand, she says the local real estate market has remained strong with high prices and low inventory, despite fears that many federal government workers would sell their homes in a hurry to leave the region and find jobs elsewhere — a trend noted in other parts of Northern Virginia, where real estate stats have remained steady this year.

Despite all the headlines about federal job cuts, some employees’ layoffs were rescinded under judges’ orders or after administration officials acknowledged they needed certain workers for their agencies to function.

The fluctuation has led to confusion about where things truly stand, even for researchers.
“Others are contesting the layoffs, and others are simply trying to find a new job,” Ferreira says. “These things take time.”

Meanwhile, there are other matters that people are focusing on, whether it’s the impact of potential Medicaid cuts, off-and-on tariffs, the Middle East conflict or something completely outside of politics.

“People aren’t talking about the layoffs anymore, but it’s still happening,” Cole says. “And I think also, besides the job cuts, it’s about what’s going to happen to services, whether it’s cuts to SNAP [food assistance] and housing benefits.”

Speaking in June, Barber was putting finishing touches on a survey to be sent to Stafford’s businesses to find out what’s happening on the ground.

“At this time, we are finalizing a survey that will go out to the business community to best gauge those effects,” she says. “It’s really important to our department and the county to determine those effects so we can create programming, events or resources to best target what the business industry is saying that they need at this time.”

Marshall says he has not heard from business owners about any significant problems from the federal cuts so far — and they aren’t shy about letting him know when the chips are down.

“If they’re experiencing any issues or problems, they pick up the phone and call. And they’re very quick to do that,” he says. “I did talk to one of them recently who has a testing facility for some of our government programs, and their business has increased. They’re doing a lot of stuff for our Space Force now.”

Regarding the VA clinic, Marshall says that it has been difficult to fill some positions due to a lack of qualified applicants, and in February, a VA spokesperson said that the federal hiring freeze would delay filling all 750 to 900 jobs there.

In Fredericksburg, Summits says there haven’t been too many indications of significant economic pain locally. He says sales tax and meals tax revenues were down by about 4.5% in the first couple months of the year, but business has improved through the spring.

Summits suggests that city-sponsored events like a weekly farmers market and a new summer “twilight” series that encourages businesses to stay open later on weeknights stimulates local spending.

“If we stay on track, it’s not going to be the dramatic drop that I think everyone was forecasting in those first two or three months of the year,” he says.

Data center solution?

Meanwhile, data centers remain a reliable source of tax revenue, even with controversies over their growth around the state. They could become even more critical to the local economy if there is a serious economic downturn related to federal budget and workforce cuts, officials say.

“We have to look at other sources of revenue and income that we can tap into if we lose federal funding,” Cole says, suggesting that higher taxes on the state’s growing casino gaming industry could also be part of the solution.

Earlier this year, Fredericksburg leaders approved zoning supporting a data center campus expected to generate $60 million in annual tax revenue upon completion. In Spotsylvania, four sites have been approved for data centers to be built, Marshall says, and although construction will take years, the county projects about $50 million in annual tax revenue, about one-eighth of the county’s general fund budget for the current fiscal year.

“It gives us an opportunity to possibly reduce our tax rates in the future,” Marshall says.

Meanwhile, developers are currently looking to build 25 million square feet of data centers in Stafford, with nearly half a billion dollars in tax revenue possible, Barber says. Crucially, though, many proposed projects lack full zoning approval from the county, so they’re not exactly a sure thing.

Prince William County, just up the road from Stafford, is still involved in a lawsuit brought by residents who feel that the massive Prince William Digital Gateway data center campus, approved in 2023, would be harmful to historic lands and green spaces, and are aiming to stop the project.

In recent months, Chesapeake turned down what would have been the Hampton Roads region’s first major data center project, and numerous Virginia counties and cities have instituted limits on data centers.

“Will all of them come to fruition? Likely not,” Barber says of Stafford’s proposed data centers, but “even if you consider half of them, that’s still a really significant economic impact for our community.” ■

Fredericksburg at a glance

One of Virginia’s most historic cities, Fredericksburg was founded in 1728 and was a prominent port during Virginia’s Colonial era, positioned on the Rappahannock River midway between Richmond and Washington, D.C. Many residents commute to Northern Virginia and Washington for work, although local opportunities are growing. Fredericksburg is the home to the University of Mary Washington and Mary Washington Healthcare, both named for George Washington’s mother, who lived in Fredericksburg until her death in 1789. Also the site of two major Civil War battles, Fredericksburg continues to be a strong tourism draw. Stafford County abuts the city on its northern side and is one of the fastest growing and highest income counties in the United States, as well as home to part of Marine Corps Base Quantico.

Regional population¹

Fredericksburg: 28,029
Spotsylvania: 149,920
Stafford: 167,455

Major employers

Mary Washington Healthcare
City of Fredericksburg
Walmart
Wegmans
GEICO
Stafford County
FBI
U.S. Department of Defense
Spotsylvania County
HCA Virginia

Major Attractions

Civil War aficionados have plenty of sites to visit, including Chancellorsville Battlefield and the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. Those interested in George Washington’s family history can check out Ferry Farm, his boyhood home, and Historic Kenmore, where Washington’s sister and husband lived. Belmont, the country estate of artist Gari Melchers, offers walking trails, gardens and art galleries. For baseball fans, the Single-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals, the Fredericksburg Nationals, are at Virginia Credit Union Stadium, and Caroline Street in downtown Fredericksburg offers a pleasant stroll past restaurants and antiques shops. The massive Kalahari Resort water park and convention center in Spotsylvania County is under construction and set to open in late 2026.

Regional hotels

The Publisher, Downtown Fredericksburg, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel
Hyatt Place Fredericksburg-Mary Washington
Holiday Inn Fredericksburg | Conference Center
Courtyard Fredericksburg | Historic District

Notable dining

FoodE (pronounced foodie) | Chef-driven American cuisine | foodefredericksburg.com
Carl’s Frozen Custard | Curbside ice cream stand | carlsfrozencustard.com
Sammy T’s | Fancy pub food | sammyts.com
La Petite Auberge | Upscale French | lapetiteaubergefred.com

1 July 2024 population estimates from University of Virginia Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service based on 2020 U.S. Census Bureau data

Big Deals: Virginia lands billions in new business investments

Anticipated to create at least 100 jobs apiece, these economic development announcements were some of the largest in Virginia in 2024 and 2025.

CENTRAL VIRGINIA

Goochland County: Washington-based retail giant Amazon.com announced plans in May to build its fourth Virginia robotics fulfillment center, which will involve a $500 million investment and is expected to create at least 1,000 jobs in Goochland County. Employees at the 3.1 million-square-foot facility will be assisted by advanced robotics in picking, packing and shipping small items to customers.

Prince George County: Danish toy maker Lego announced in May a $366 million investment in a new distribution center and warehouse in Prince George County. The 2 million-square-foot facility in the county’s Crosspointe Business Centre site is expected to create 305 jobs and will complement Lego’s $1 billion toy factory under development in Chesterfield.

Albemarle County: Charlottesville-based Afton Scientific, manufacturer of sterile injectable pharmaceuticals, announced in October 2024 that it will invest more than $200 million to expand its biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Albemarle County. The project is expected to create 201 jobs that support the company’s work advancing critical, life-saving therapies and chronic disease treatments.

Richmond: In May, Nightingale Ice Cream Sandwiches announced it’s investing $5.8 million to move to a new 29,000-square-foot location that will function as its corporate headquarters and production facility, with expectations of adding 166 jobs. Nightingale’s products are sold in more than 5,000 chain and independent groceries, including Whole Foods Market and Kroger.

EASTERN VIRGINIA

Chesapeake: Texas-based financial services company USAA announced in June it will expand into a larger space in Chesapeake, with plans to add more than 500 employees over the next two years. The building at 1341 Crossways Blvd. will span nearly 200,000 square feet and feature a claims technical training center, a cafeteria, a fitness center and market.

James City County: Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, a Norwegian missile manufacturer, announced in September 2024 plans to build a 150,000-square-foot facility that it anticipates will create 180 jobs in James City County. In addition to investing $71 million to establish the facility, the company will also invest $30 million in necessities like engineering and software.

LYNCHBURG/ ROANOKE/ NEW RIVER VALLEY

Lynchburg: Lynchburg-based Delta Star, manufacturer of power transformers and mobile substations for the electrical grid, announced in April that it will invest $35 million to expand its Lynchburg operations. The company anticipates that the project — its second expansion in two years — will create 300 jobs.

Botetourt County: Swedish company Munters, maker of refrigeration and cooling equipment for the data center industry, announced in March that it will invest $29.95 million to expand its HVAC manufacturing facility in Botetourt County. The company anticipates that the 200,000-square-foot expansion project will create 270 jobs.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA

Fairfax County: Fairfax-based Unison, provider of AI-enabled software and insights to government agencies and others, relocated to Tysons Corner in Fairfax County from Loudoun County in September 2024. The new headquarters, which is designed to accommodate and nurture a hybrid workforce, is estimated to bring 283 jobs to Fairfax.

Arlington County: Technomics, a provider of data-and analytics-driven decision support services, announced in June it would invest $5.3 million to expand its operations in Arlington. The project, which will add 25,200 square feet of office space, is expected to create 248 jobs.

SHENANDOAH VALLEY

Frederick County: Wisconsin-based Clasen Quality Chocolate announced in February that it will invest $230 million to build a production facility in Frederick County that is expected to create
250 jobs. The facility is set to be the company’s fifth, in addition to locations in Wisconsin and Nevada. Clasen manufactures chocolate and confectionary coatings typically used by candy companies.

SOUTHERN VIRGINIA

Pittsylvania County: Tennessee-based Microporous, a manufacturer of lithium-ion battery separators for electric vehicles, broke ground in November 2024 on its $1.35 billion, 1 million-square-foot production facility at Pittsylvania County’s Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill. The project aims to create 2,015 jobs.

Pittsylvania County: United Kingdom company RBW Sports & Classics/Electric Cars, a manufacturer of hand-built electric classic sports cars, announced in August 2024 it would invest $8 million to establish a manufacturing facility expected to create 144 jobs at Cane Creek Centre, an industrial park jointly owned by Danville and Pittsylvania County. The facility will manufacture RBW’s first left-hand-drive sports cars for the U.S. market.

SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA

Carroll County: British company Oasthouse Ventures, maker of low-carbon greenhouses, announced in February it would invest $104.8 million to build a controlled-environment agriculture operation in Carroll, its first in the U.S. The operation is expected to support 118 jobs and aims to produce and package more 45 million pounds of tomatoes over the next three years for distribution to major retailers across the nation.

Washington County: Bristol-based Electro-Mechanical, a manufacturer of switchgear and other electrical elements, announced in October 2024 that it will invest $16.5 million to expand its operations in Washington County. The project will create the company’s sixth manufacturing plant, which will measure 200,000 square feet and is expected to generate 109 jobs.

Virginia 500 spotlight August 2025: CHARLES ‘CHUCK’ KUHN

WHAT I DO FOR FUN: I am an avid outdoorsman. This passion for nature has shaped my interest in conserving land for future generations.

WHAT I WAS LIKE IN HIGH SCHOOL: I’ve always liked to work, and this was true when I was a kid. In fact, I launched JK Moving from the basement of my parent’s home while I was 16.

HOW I CHOSE MY CAREER PATH: I was exposed to the industry after working for my uncle’s moving company when I was a teen. My parents then inspired me. They worked hard, supported our interests — including helping build JK Moving — and loved unconditionally. In fact, I named JK after my dad (Jim Kuhn).

ONE THING I WOULD CHANGE ABOUT VIRGINIA: We have a beautiful state with a strong workforce that is good for raising families and running a business. I would protect even more land to better balance future development.

DID YOU KNOW? In 2018, Kuhn launched Loudoun County‘s JK Community Farm, a nonprofit run by his daughter, Samantha, that donates its produce to area hunger relief organizations.

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