Sign In
Free Newsletter
Kettler opens community in Virginia Beach
McLean-based Kettler Inc., a major Washington, D.C., area real estate development company, has opened Sparrows Point, a 300-unit townhome and apartment community in Virginia Beach.
The newly renovated community offers one-, two-, and three-bedroom homes featuring espresso cabinetry, stainless steel appliances, plank flooring, washers and dryers in select units.
Sparrows Point has completed exterior community upgrades to include new siding on the buildings, a new outdoor resident lounge equipped with welcoming furniture, grills and a kid-friendly splash pad.
Rental price ranges for the community are approximately $900 to $1,225 per month.
Kettler has developed more than 21,000 multifamily units, 5 million square feet of commercial space, more than 46,000 homes in 25 master-planned communities and many mixed-use communities.
Kettler Management manages more than 31,000 apartments for Kettler and third-party clients in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Texas.
Virginia Tech appoints head of business engagement center
Brandy Salmon, a former director and program lead at RTI International, has joined Virginia Tech as executive director of the university’s new business engagement center.
Her appointment was effective June 13, following a nationwide search.
As executive director of the center, Salmon will build a team of business development directors who will serve as primary points of contact for companies interested in partnership opportunities with Virginia Tech.
At RTI, Salmon guided teams through more than 100 projects between researchers and industry with Fortune 500 firms.
Plans to create Virginia Tech’s business engagement center were announced in January. It is a major part of the university’s strategic push to expand and integrate corporate partnerships.
“I’ve been interested in what’s going on at Virginia Tech for some time, and am excited by its commitment to building a best-in-class model for industry engagement,” Salmon said in a statement. “There’s an emphasis at Tech on thinking comprehensively about how to engage industry with a university community. There is tremendous opportunity to bring value to both sides.”
RTI is a nonprofit research institute jointly founded by Duke University, the University of North Carolina, and North Carolina State University to help apply and commercialize research.
Before joining RTI, Salmon served as associate director for the Office of Licensing and Ventures at Duke.
She also previously worked in marketing at Merck & Company and in business development at a startup, Divergence LLC, which was later acquired by Monsanto.
Salmon has a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Virginia, a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from Cornell University, and an MBA from Duke.
The business engagement center has been created to make it easier for companies to partner with Virginia Tech in a variety of areas, including research and philanthropy.
Salmon will be responsible for developing the center and hiring business development directors, who together with industry partners will find new ways to create value. Some of the team members will be based in Blacksburg and others will be in the National Capital Region, where Virginia Tech has multiple research and graduate education facilities.
Virginia Business presents awards to five CFOs
Virginia Business presented awards in five categories to the commonwealth’s top chief financial officers.
The winners at the 12th annual Virginia CFO Awards were:
• Small nonprofit organization or government agency: Sylvia Haines of the Norfolk-based Hampton Roads Chamber.
• Large nonprofit organization or government agency: Sean Barden of Mary Washington Healthcare in Fredericksburg.
• Small private companies: Valerie Wilkinson of The ESG Companies in Virginia Beach.
• Large private companies: James Crowder of HHHunt Corp., which has offices in Richmond and Blacksburg.
• Publicly traded companies: Wayne Rehberger of Engility in Chantilly.
The awards competition attracted 50 nominations from throughout Virginia. The awards banquet was held at The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond.
Profiles of the winners will appear in the magazine’s August issue.
Virginia now home to 206 licensed breweries
Virginia is now home to 206 licensed breweries, moving ahead of North Carolina.
Virginia’s Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control (ABC) says the commonwealth has 206 active brewery licenses, growing 468 percent since 2012, Gov. McAuliffe said Thursday.
Comparatively, North Carolina ABC has 186 active brewery licenses.
The growth in Virginia was spurred by a 2012 law allowing retail sales of beer on premise.
A newly released economic impact study shows that Virginia’s booming beer industry contributes more than $9.34 billion annually to Virginia’s economy.
The Beer Institute report showed that the Virginia beer industry employed over 28,000. In addition, excise and sales taxes on beer consumption contributed another $280 million to Virginia’s tax rolls last year.
“The beer industry is a significant economic driver that spans several sectors including manufacturing, agriculture and tourism,” McAuliffe said in a statement.
Cvent plans to hire 200 employees worldwide
Tysons-based Cvent announced Wednesday plans to hire 200 employees by the end of the year. More than half of those new hires will be in the U.S., according to the event management company, which currently has 2,600 total employees.
“This year, we are looking to hire more than 200 people around the world to meet our increased growth, and we’ve opened new offices in [Asia-Pacific region] in order to meet the demand in that region,” CVent Founder and CEO Reggie Aggarwal said in a statement.
The new offices are in Singapore and Melbourne, Australia. Cvent has 12 total offices across four continents.
Cvent, Inc. is a major cloud-based enterprise management company. The company’s products help clients manage hundreds of thousands of meetings and events. Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners bought Cvent last year for $1.65 billion.
GTT Communications creates three new divisions
McLean-based GTT Communications Inc., a global cloud networking provider, has created three new divisions with the aim of accelerating sales.
The divisions are Enterprise, Carrier and EMEA. Each division is responsible for sales, quoting, ordering, service delivery and collections.
GTT has appointed three division presidents. Eric Warren leads the Enterprise division, including all enterprise clients in the Americas and U.S. government clients.
Jeff Beer leads the Carrier division, including all carrier accounts in the Americas, as well as GTT’s largest web-centric clients.
Martin Ford leads the EMEA division, including enterprise clients in EMEA and carrier clients.
Warren recently joined GTT, previously holding senior executive roles at Windstream and TW Telecom. Beer has held a variety of executive roles at GTT during the last eight years since joining the company through the acquisition of Tinet. Ford joined GTT’s leadership team through the acquisition of Hibernia Networks following an extended tenure with Level 3.
Jack Kent Cooke Foundation makes $135,000 grant to JMU program
The Lansdowne-based Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has awarded $135,000 over two years to the Valley Scholars Program at James Madison University.
The JMU grant is among $855,000 the foundation is awarding under its Cooke Foundation Rural Talent Initiative. The grants support academic enrichment programs serving low-income rural students in elementary and secondary schools in North Carolina, Indiana, Iowa, Maine and Mississippi in addition to Virginia.
The grants are designed to help expand opportunities for rigorous summer and academic year learning and enrichment for students in rural regions where access to educational opportunities is limited.
The Valley Scholars program provides students from rural middle and high schools in the Shenandoah Valley with intensive guidance for high school course selection and support for academic growth.
The program will use its grant from the foundation to expand the number of students it serves from 148 next school year to 192 in 2018-19 while offering more services. Students completing the program are offered a JMU scholarships covering tuition and fees.
The program enables students to participate in career exploration, service projects, financial literacy sessions, summer enrichment courses at JMU and a mentorship program.
Other foundation grants were made to:
• The Belin-Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
• The Mississippi Public School Consortium for Educational Access in Forrest, Miss.
• YES Appalachia in Watauga County, N.C.
• The Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone, Maine.
• The Purdue University Gifted Education Resource Institute in West Lafayette, Ind.
Vandeventer Black partner named president of the Norfolk and Portsmouth Bar Association
Vandeventer Black partner James R. Harvey has been named president of the Norfolk and Portsmouth Bar Association.
He has been on the association’s board since 2011 and served as the head of its charitable foundation.
Harvey serves as the chair of the Norfolk Board of Zoning Appeals, and is a past chair of the Virginia Bar Association's Construction and Public Contracts Section. He also is the chairman of the board of directors for the Tidewater Aquatic Club, which promotes competitive youth swimming.
Harvey’s professional career includes experience in construction, surety, government contracts, land use, defective products, professional liability and business disputes. He served on active duty as a U.S. Army officer and in the Virginia National Guard.
Bedford’s first brewery will open on June 24
Beale’s, the first brewery in the town of Bedford, plans to open on June 24. The 12,000-square-foot facility at 510 Grove St. includes a 30-barrel production brewery, taproom and kitchen.
Beale’s also will have a barbecue restaurant with an indoor capacity of 86 people and an outdoor area with seating for 60.
The $2 million project is expected to create 30 jobs.
It has been in the works since October 2015 when Waukeshaw Development approached Bedford County and town officials about the idea of bringing a brewery to Bedford. Based in Petersburg, Waukeshaw focuses on historic tax credit developments and was the force behind Petersburg’s Trapezium Brewing Co.
The Beale’s project involved a combination of state and federal historic tax credits, along with a $600,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Community and Housing Development’s Industrial Revitalization Fund. “We’ve enjoyed a great partnership with the state and the town of Bedford on this project,” Dave McCormack, president of Waukeshaw Development, said in a statement. “We’re looking forward to seeing those efforts come to life when Beale’s opens later this month.”
Beale’s name comes from a local legend of treasure that some believe was buried in Bedford by Thomas Jefferson Beale back in the 1820s.
The brewery’s flagship beer will be Beale’s Gold, a lager. In addition to lager-style beers, other options will include IPAs and fruit beers. Beale’s plans to distribute its beer locally starting this summer and eventually expand distribution statewide.
Bedford native James Frazer will serve as the facility’s brewmaster. Jared Srsic, the local restauranteur behind Town Kitchen & Provisions and Millstone Tea Room, will lead the taproom’s barbecue program.