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Executive insights
Buffy Barefoot President – Virginia Beach, TowneBank, Virginia Beach What is the most pressing issue facing the Hampton Roads region in terms of its economic health? The ability to attract companies offering shiny employment opportunities for young professionals graduating from college. Having one child who just graduated from col[...]
Questioning the daily grind
Before last year’s pandemic shutdowns, 24-year-old Julia Swanson had been commuting from Newport News to her job as a civil engineer for the Virginia Beach office of Kimley-Horn, a national engineering firm headquartered in North Carolina. It could take 35 minutes to an hour and a half traveling only one way, and Swanson says she of[...]
Virginia Tech Transportation Institute taps new executive director
Zachary Doerzaph will become the next executive director of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, the university’s largest research institute, effective Oct. 1. “Zac Doerzaph is a nationally recognized transportation researcher with extensive leadership experience in large team projects from different sponsors,” Virginia Tec[...]
The Great American Labor Shortage
At Dough Boy’s Pizza, summer typically brings a steady stream of job applicants seeking work at one of the restaurant’s three locations on the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. But “this year, it’s next to nothing,” says owner George Kotarides. For Kotarides and other restaurant owners, a season that had been anticipated as the triumphant[...]
Economic Development
TAYLOR ADAMS DIRECTOR, VIRGINIA BEACH DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, VIRGINIA BEACH Adams’ ability to sell Virginia Beach to both outside and current businesses is evident in the number of expansion announcements he has overseen in the past year. Those announcements include a $15.8 million investment from Acousti[...]
Federal Contractors | Technology
CRAIG P. ABOD PRESIDENT, CARAHSOFT TECHNOLOGY CORP., RESTON Abod has built Carahsoft into a $6 billion company over the past 17 years. With 1,900 employees, Abod has led Carahsoft to become a top-ranked General Services Administration schedule and NASA’s Solution for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) contract holder that provide[...]
CVP acquires D.C. healthcare consulting company
Fairfax-based Customer Value Partners Inc. (CVP), a business and technology consulting company, acquired federal health contractor Atlas Research LLC, it announced Tuesday. Financial details of the transactions were not disclosed. "Atlas’ experience as the trusted transformation partner of clients across the Veteran Affairs and[...]
Bridging the gap
At the beginning of 2020, A Family Affair Event Management had already filled its schedule for the year with an array of weddings and corporate, social and destination activities. Then COVID-19 struck, wiping the Stafford event planning company’s calendar clean. “It greatly impacted us,” says Tortica Anderson, owner of A Family Aff[...]
Rolling out the red carpet
With high-speed subsea internet cables landing on Virginia Beach’s shores and massive wind turbines propelling off its coast, the state’s largest city is primed to welcome new businesses and industries generating high-end jobs. “Virginia Beach is going to be the epicenter of economic development on the East Coast,” says Mayor Bobby[...]
June For The Record
Roanoke/ New River Valley In late April, Salem-based LewisGale Regional Health System broke ground for a new freestanding emergency room in Roanoke. Located on West Ruritan Road, the nearly 10,000-square-foot facility will be named LewisGale Medical Center Blue Hills ER and staffed with board-certified emergency room physicians and[...]
Are big tech firms more like nations?
Roughly two years ago, Facebook announced plans to lead a consortium of companies creating a new digital token currency called Libra. The partners were to include major payment processors Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Stripe, among others. However, strong opposition from financial regulators around the world led to its shelving. Fast[...]
AES to provide carbon-free power for Google’s Loudoun data centers
As part of Google LLC's ambitious "moonshot" to produce all of its energy from carbon-free sources, Arlington-based The AES Corp. announced Tuesday that it has signed a 10-year agreement to provide carbon-free power for Google's data centers in Loudoun County. A Fortune 500 international electrical utility, AES will provide 90% of[...]
VW named to Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential Companies list
Volkswagen Group, with its North American operations based in Herndon, was named this week to Time magazine's inaugural 100 Most Influential Companies list, receiving accolades for its move into electric automobiles. The German automotive corporation has set aside $54 billion for electrified vehicles over the next five years, with[...]
CDW Corp. purchases Norfolk-based Amplified IT
Norfolk-based education consulting firm Amplified IT has been purchased by CDW Corp., an Illinois-based Fortune 500 technological services provider, CDW announced Tuesday. Founded in 2008, Amplified IT focuses on the K-12 and higher education markets and is Google's leading K-12 services partner. CDW offers its services to educati[...]
UPDATED: Va. becomes 2nd state with consumer data protection law
Updated March 2: Gov. Ralph Northam signed the Consumer Data Protection Act on Tuesday. In a statement, sponsor Sen. David Marsden, D-Fairfax, said, “This is a huge step forward. By creating this omnibus bill, we take the lead in data privacy in the United States. This omnibus bill is clear, concise and holds companies accountable fo[...]
A bright spot
The coronavirus pandemic divided Loudoun County into two worlds in 2020 — tech and touch, says Buddy Rizer, the county’s executive director for economic development. While the pandemic devastated in-person “touch” businesses such as restaurants, shops and service providers, Northern Virginia’s tech-related companies continued to for[...]
Brick by brick
The continuing progress on Amazon.com Inc.’s massive East Coast headquarters in Arlington, along with the promise of four new casinos across the state, kept spirits buoyed in Virginia’s construction sector in 2020. Across the country, construction employment decreased in December 2020 compared with December 2019, but not in Northern[...]
Heavy hitters
Just as Zoom conferences and cloud computing have transformed our pandemic-era work lives, so too is technology changing the nature of influence. That evolution is perhaps best evidenced by the addition of Reston-based MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor to Virginia Business’ 2021 list of the 50 most influential Virginians. Saylor may[...]
Talking shop
Charis Jones, by any measure, is a major success. Her online retail brand, Sassy Jones, was the top-ranking Virginia business on the 2020 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing U.S. private companies, based on its 2019 growth. The Richmond-based fashion accessories and beauty e-commerce company reaped $14 million in revenue last year[...]
Virginia leads nation in COVID-19 app use
Amid grim headlines related to the coronavirus, Virginia has one piece of bright news — the commonwealth leads the nation in the percentage of citizens who have downloaded a COVID-19 app to alert users about possible instances of exposure to the coronavirus. According to a Dec. 7 report from The New York Times, a higher percentage[...]
