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.
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.
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.” ■
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
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.
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.
SHENANDOAHVALLEY
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.
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.
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.
By recruiting at local high schools, emphasizing its affordability and giving itself a timely rebrand focused on its regional roots, Radford University has surpassed what many other schools have struggled to do: It significantly increased its enrollment in a single year.
In fall 2024, Radford enrolled 6,161 undergraduates, up from 5,074 the previous fall — a whopping 20%. President Bret Danilowicz hopes to keep the trend going this year and beyond.
Last year’s enrollment growth marks a turnaround for Radford, which experienced eight years of declining numbers and was one of three public Virginia universities named last fall as having “some viability risks” in a Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission study. Researchers focused on enrollment, finances and appeal to prospective students, and Radford had the state’s highest loss of enrollment at 29% between 2014 and 2023.
Danilowicz joined Radford in 2022 determined to help the school rebound, and in 2023, the university unveiled its new website with rebranding to focus on attracting more commuter students from around the New River Valley.
“One of the things we did was re-engage with the high schools, the communities, the commuters within range here, to show that we are here for them, and specifically we’re trying to help their communities,” Danilowicz says. “And part of our resurgence in enrollment has been from our region. That’s where a lot of our students have come from.”
Money matters
Affordability is another major selling point for Radford, Danilowicz adds. “We leaned into our very hands-on experiences [with] students in the classroom, that we’ve got a very small student-to-faculty profile. We really leaned into being an affordable institution.”
Also, he notes that Radford ranks high on the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia’s list of the most affordable four-year public institutions in the commonwealth.
“We are the fourth most affordable in the commonwealth of Virginia, but we’re only out of third place by a little over a hundred dollars,” Danilowicz says, and over the past five years, other four-year schools have raised their tuitions by 3% to 5%, while Radford’s increases have remained below 2% over the past two years.
“The governor has been saying we don’t want institutions to exceed 2.5% [increases] in tuition, some have still exceeded that. We have not. We are purposefully trying to reduce costs.”
In response to the JLARC study, Danilowicz wrote a letter to JLARC’s director saying that he believed his university deserved a designation of “low risk,” and that the agency’s methodology could be improved by including new transfer students as well as first-year students.
While more students are considering return on investment of attending four-year college, Danilowicz notes that in-state students pay an average of $12,952 in tuition each year at Radford, as opposed to $25,575 for tuition, fees and room and board.
“Our room and board is a little over $12,000 a year, it ranges up to $19,000 with some of the institutions in the state. It’s a wide range,” Danilowicz says. “But if you commute to the institution, you don’t have to pay that. So, when people look at affordability, they often see the bundled tuition, room and board all together, and they say that’s a big price tag. Part of regionalism is if people can commute to Radford from within an hour, suddenly you’re looking at [a decrease] of $12,500, before we’ve given any support.
“So it’s $50,000, more or less, over four years to get a degree. People start saying, ‘I can see how that works.’”
Last fall, the Radford Tuition Promise launched for in-state students with $100,000 or less in household income. If they are full-time undergraduate students — new, transfer or returning — they are eligible for the program, which pays full tuition.
It’s a “purposeful commitment which started this past fall … where we re-bundled our financial aid and we made the commitment for any student that attends Radford University from the commonwealth of Virginia,” Danilowicz says. Students still must pay for room and board and certain fees, but the program represents a significant cost savings for many.
“As I tell students and their parents, if you work a part-time job over the course of the year and the summer, and you qualify for that Radford Tuition Promise, you won’t have any expenses by the time you graduate,” Danilowicz says. “You’ll have covered your full costs. You’re not borrowing money from your parents, there’s no loans, so higher education can be very affordable for students. A part of that is being willing to commute to the institution rather than living on campus.”
As a result, about 41% of all undergraduates in the 2024-25 academic year commuted. Danilowicz says that this has become a key point in Radford’s recruitment efforts at area high schools, which he has personally engaged in.
“I went to the regional high schools — part of a big network — and met with families and students in the evenings,” he says. “Just getting us back out there personally. I tend to be a very personable individual. So for us in this area, because it is more rural, people are more ready for personal connections. [My] being at these institutions was part of this messaging.”
That was a change from pandemic-era recruitment meetings that necessarily took place virtually and then continued that way even after shutdowns lifted.
“That had been a trend for a while,” Danilowicz says. “We pulled it almost all back from virtual and put it back in person. So, our recruiters were almost all back in person, traveling to visit students in their space.”
Another significant change at Radford was to focus less on recruiting out-of-state students, who bring in more tuition money but require expensive marketing efforts. In recent years, Danilowicz says, Radford had “been building more and more marketing out of state. And I get that, but that’s an expensive proposition. We’re an in-state institution, our service is to the state, so we pulled back in almost all that out-of-state expenditure and kind of redoubled our marketing here in the area. We put up regional billboards for the first time in a long time.”
Radford also made its athletic teams much more visible in its recruiting efforts. In May, the university announced it would launch a new men’s indoor and outdoor track and field program as NCAA Division I programs, and discontinue men’s and women’s tennis programs. Women’s flag football will start as a club sport this fall, and possibly become a varsity program later.
Apart from its rebranding and targeted local recruitment efforts, Radford has recently won awards that help attract students, Danilowicz says, including Blue Ridge Outdoors naming Radford its “Top Adventure College” earlier this year. The school won a bracket-style popular vote competition, highlighting its location near the Jefferson National Forest, the Appalachian Trail and the New River, as well as group exercise classes held outdoors. It also was named a 2025-26 military-friendly school by Viqtory, an advocacy organization for veterans.
“We are proud to continue to serve our military-affiliated students, help grow that population and receive this recognition,” says Bill Wilson, director of Radford’s Military Resource Center.
Furthermore, guidance counselors, school superintendents and principals have been invited to campus over the past couple of years, Danilowicz says. “Again, that was trying to re-engage them with the university.”
Radford also took a cue from a partnership between George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College that allows a “seamless transfer process” for graduates of NOVA’s advanced two-year program continuing their education at Mason.
In 2024, Radford launched the “Tartan Transfer Program” with nine nearby community colleges to ease the transfer process for area students.
“When a student signs up to attend Virginia Highland Community College, and they say they’re interested in Radford University, they’ll be able to attend Radford University events, they have another layer of advising that’s also aligned with Radford University, [and] all of their classes will be able to transfer here, so there’s no loss of credit,” Danilowicz explains. “We’re trying to help them feel like they’re part of the Highlander community here before they’ve even graduated from Virginia Highlands.”
Local engagement
The Hub at Radford, meanwhile, helps keep the university engaged in its city. Founded in 2023, the economic development support center is based in downtown Radford and works with local businesses.
“It has several purposes, but one of them is to link businesses to our students and faculty as a talent base,” Danilowicz says. “Part of it is internships; part of it is helping businesses with the projects they struggle with, to get the talent and encouraging our students to stay there once they graduate.”
Like many rural regions, the New River Valley has a “big issue” in keeping a healthy talent pipeline for regional employment, and Radford has a stake in this battle, Danilowicz says.
“Our faculty and many of our departments want to work with businesses and help solve problems for them. They want to take a real-world problem from that company and actually work with their classes on it. That’s not a charge, that’s a free service.”
Meanwhile, students gain experience that could help them find their future careers, he notes. “It’s a complete win-win for us.”
Radford also is less vulnerable to cuts in federal funding, a serious situation for other universities, Danilowicz says. Unlike other Virginia higher education institutions with major research facilities — among them the University of Virginia, Virginia
Tech and George Mason, which are classified R-1 for the number of doctoral degrees they award annually — Radford is less reliant on federal grants and indirect benefits, Danilowicz notes.
“We’re an institution that is focused on education and the research experience … but we haven’t built it around grants,” he says. “For example, 76% of our students graduate having conducted undergraduate research here. That is a really huge number, it is a colossal number. Yet we don’t have the grant infrastructure. We’re largely resilient to the change. It doesn’t change how we teach, the purpose of our teaching.”
Also, Radford has never used race-based or legacy admissions processes, Danilowicz says, which meant it didn’t have to adjust much after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in college admissions in 2023, or when Virginia banned legacy admissions in 2024.
Danilowicz says that he feels positive that Radford’s enrollment momentum will continue into the fall semester.
During a university board of visitors meeting earlier in the year, he acknowledged that Radford “had ambitious goals to stabilize enrollment and initially expected to meet those goals by the fall of 2025. That we are ahead of schedule and exceeded our new student enrollment target by 20% is a remarkable testament to the work that was done across all divisions, and by all our faculty and staff, to continuously raise the profile of Radford University.”
Radford at a glance
Founded
Radford University was established as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Radford in 1910. Later called the State Teachers College at Radford, it went coed in 1972 and became Radford University in 1979.
Campus
Set against the Blue Ridge Mountains along the New River, Radford’s 211-acre main campus includes three quadrangles and a pedestrian thoroughfare. Many of its structures are built in a red-brick Georgian style. Radford also operates Radford University Carilion in Roanoke and within the Southwest Higher Education Center in Abingdon.
Enrollment
Undergraduate: 6,161
Graduate: 1,651
In-State: 7,018 (90%)
Minority: 2,651 (34%)
Faculty
422 full-time
Academic programs
Radford has 76 undergraduate degree programs in 47 disciplines — including economics, biology, criminal justice and theater — as well as 28 master’s programs and six doctoral programs, including health-related professions.
Integer Holdings to add 83 jobs with 13K sq. ft. catheter facility
Novonesis invests $5M to boost spore production, adding 5 jobs
QualiChem to expand office and lab space, creating 12 jobs
Three advanced manufacturing operations with roots in Salem recently revealed plans to expand facilities in the city.
Integer Holdings, which has operated in Salem for 30 years, announced expansion plans in April. The Texas-based medical contract developer and manufacturer of medical devices and components has leased a 13,000-square-foot facility on Electric Road to manufacture catheters.
The company did not disclose the cost, but it plans to create 83 jobs, including engineers, production managers and maintenance technicians.
“This is a multiphased investment over a period of five years designed to increase production of medical device components for Integer’s growing cardio and vascular business segment,” says spokesperson Lauren Ban.
Currently, the company employs about 600 workers at its 110,000-square-foot site on Yorkshire Street.
Also in April, Novonesis (formerly Novozymes), a biotech company with five Salem facilities, announced plans to invest $5 million to expand spore production at three of those sites. The project will create five jobs.
Headquartered in Denmark, Novonesis has ties to Salem dating back to the 1940s with the founding of microbial manufacturer G.A. Jeffreys & Co., which was acquired by Novozymes in the early 2000s.
Its Salem facilities produce biosolutions that support plant growth, animal health and aquaculture systems, as well as products for water treatment and industrial cleaning.
Salem’s third major business announcement came in May when Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced QualiChem, a Salem-based producer of metalworking fluids and water treatment chemicals, will move its administrative offices and laboratory operations into a 48,580-square-foot space on Idaho Street that has been vacant since 2016. Renovations are expected to be completed by the end of the year.
“As our workforce grows year after year, so does our need for additional office and lab space … a positive challenge driven by our success,” says Susie Corey, QualiChem’s brand strategist.
Founded in Salem in 1990, QualiChem has completed two building expansions and added three facilities in the city over the past two decades, according to Corey. The latest expansion — part of a $9 million investment over 10 years — is slated to create 12 jobs and free up space at QualiChem’s Industrial Drive location to increase production.
Port to reach 55 feet depth, becoming East Coast’s deepest harbor
Widening completed in February 2024 for dual ultra-large vessels
$83M rail expansion at NIT doubles portwide capacity to 2M lifts
Seven years after the Port of Virginia launched a $450 million dredging project to become the deepest and widest harbor on the East Coast, the massive endeavor will be completed by the end of this year as the shipping channels are dredged to 55 feet deep.
The port, which is coming off two consecutive years as the fastest-growing American port, completed the widening portion of the project in February 2024.
With the widening, two ultra-large container vessels, each capable of carrying more than 20,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), can safely move through the channel simultaneously.
“It’s a big step forward in efficiency,” says port spokesperson Joe Harris. He adds that the port serves the largest vessels in the Atlantic trade. “We’ve seen vessels up against 18,000 TEUs. A deeper and wider channel keeps the flow of cargo coming into and out of the port and reduces downtime.”
The project is just one way the port is improving efficiency and increasing capacity. In August 2024, the port completed an $83 million expansion of Norfolk International Terminals‘ central railyard to accommodate 1.1 million rail TEUs annually. “It doubled the rail footprint at NIT,” Harris adds. “We can now handle, portwide, 2 million rail lifts per year.”
In addition, the first phase of a $650 million modernization expansion of NIT’s north terminal is expected to be completed in October. The project will create capacity for an additional 1.4 million TEUs with the installation of four new electric ship-to-shore cranes, bringing the port’s complement of ship-to-shore cranes to 33, including four replacement cranes that went into service at Virginia International Gateway in April.
NIT’s container stack yard also will be reconfigured, supported by semiautomated stacking cranes. When the project is finished in summer 2027, NIT will have capacity of 3.6 million TEUs, while the port overall will have a total capacity of 5.8 million TEUs.
In March, the port concluded the $220 million transformation of Portsmouth Marine Terminal into an offshore wind energy hub to support Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project, as well as similar projects that could be built along the East Coast. Dominion Energy leases 72 acres of PMT for staging and preassembly of CVOW components.
“We’re in a very good position,” Harris says. “Our efficiency continues to improve and sets us up for the future.”
Coal remains region’s top-paying industry, with salaries over $100K
Southwest Virginia officials say President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at revitalizing the United States’ struggling coal industry will be a boon to the region.
This spring, Trump signed the “Unleashing American Energy” series of executive orders, which lifted barriers to coal mining on federal lands, allowed some coal-fired facilities scheduled for retirement to continue producing electricity and granted coal-fired plants a two-year exemption from federal regulations reducing emissions of certain toxic chemicals. U.S. coal production was at 1 billion tons in 2014 but dropped to 578 million tons by 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Trump has emphasized boosting coal production as a way to secure the nation’s economic prosperity and national security, while lowering the cost of living and meeting increased electrical demands from emerging technologies. Critics argue that coal is outdated, costly and dangerous, citing illnesses like black lung disease, as well as the fact it contributes to climate change.
The Trump administration‘s support is welcomed in Southwest Virginia, where coal remains an economic staple.
“Trump has always been favorable to the coal industry, and the executive orders will have a very big benefit on the region,” says Jonathan S. Belcher, the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority’s executive director and general counsel. “Coal is the most important industry in southwestern Virginia. Even if the executive orders don’t cause the industry to grow, at least it will be able to sustain itself.”
According to Belcher, the coal industry pays the highest wages in the region, with typical salaries topping $100,000 annually — twice the average pay of other industries in the region.
Ben Beakes, president of the Metallurgical Coal Producers Association, says regulatory changes noted in the executive orders allowing certain coal-fired plants to comply with a more lenient version of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule would make the industry more predictable when it comes to enforcement and permitting.
Most of the coal produced in Virginia is metallurgical coal used in making steel. Beakes says changes in coal regulations would not necessarily increase production of metallurgical coal but would prevent industry struggles that have limited production.
“The industry has been on a rocky road for the past several years as presidential administration changes created unpredictable, confusing regulations,” he says. “Now we’re able to level the playing field.”
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