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Out of balance

Kate Austin had a job waiting for her when she graduated last year from Christopher Newport University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

“I love it,” she says about her work as a tax associate at Keiter, a certified public firm in Henrico County.

Unlike two of her friends, who are still looking for work — one with a degree in marketing and the other in graphic design — Austin, 22, is gainfully employed within her chosen career path.

“Outside of accounting, it’s very hard to find jobs, so I am very lucky,” she says.

While the tech industry is busy laying off workers, accounting firms are hustling to find people to fill their ranks, an ongoing problem.

According to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the staffing shortage of CPAs has been brewing for more than a decade, driven by an aging workforce and fewer young professionals entering the industry. In April 2023, the institute reported that 75% of CPAs working then were expected to retire in the next 15 years. What’s more, the number of exam candidates dropped 36% from 2010 to 2021.

Upping the ante to entice more people into accounting jobs, firms are offering higher wages, flexible work options and financial assistance to pass the notoriously difficult professional licensing exam.

Austin took accounting classes in high school and worked as an intern during college, cementing her future. She had a full-time job offer before starting her senior year of college.

Although her goal is to become a CPA, Austin needs to complete extra college credit hours and pass the Uniform CPA Examination. Keiter has reimbursed her for study materials to take the exam. In the meantime, she plans to pick up extra coursework at a community college.

“It’s not unusual to hire people who haven’t passed the exam,” says Gary Wallace, managing partner at Keiter, adding that in the past, however, workers were typically hired only after earning the extra credit hours. Now, Wallace says, “we are more flexible.”

Keiter has one office, where most of its 200 employees work, except for 15 remote workers across four states, including Virginia.

“We have been very aggressive in hiring,” Wallace says. Keiter employs two full-time recruiters: one for entry-level associates and the other for experienced CPAs.

‘Still critical’

Wallace tells students contemplating accounting careers that it’s “a great profession that offers job security and the opportunity to learn a lot about business.” He notes that the heads of two Virginia-based Fortune 500 companies — CarMax President and CEO William D. Nash and Markel Group CEO Thomas S. Gayner — are CPAs.

Accounting “is just as prestigious as other marquee professions such as law and medicine,” says Jennifer Wold, Virginia managing partner for Forvis. Photo by Shandell Taylor

The staffing shortage has been challenging for years, says Stephanie Peters, president and CEO of the Virginia Society of CPAs (VSCPA). “We’re seeing a little more stability,” she says. “It’s less of a crisis of capacity, but still critical.”

The number of newly issued CPA licenses in Virginia has slid about 35% since 2008, when 1,434 licenses were issued, compared with 940 licenses in 2023, according to the Virginia Board of Accountancy. During the same time period, the number of first-time CPA exam takers in the state fell nearly 49%, from 1,823 to 931 candidates.

Despite the drop in Virginians becoming CPAs, licensing requirements remain basically the same. CPA candidates must pass a four-part, 16-hour exam within a 30-month period (extended from 18 months in December 2023). They also must accumulate 150 college credit hours, the equivalent of a master’s degree (30 more hours than needed for a bachelor’s degree). Starting this year, CPA candidates will also choose a specialty category within the exam: tax, audit or information technology.

About half of all first-time test-takers fail the exam.

“The CPA exam is really difficult to pass,” says Gary Thomson with Richmond-based Thomson Consulting. “Your first couple years [in the workforce] are consumed with not only trying to learn a new job but getting the CPA exam passed.”

Austin hopes to complete her exam by 2025 and accumulate the necessary course credits by 2026.

The accounting industry staffing shortage stems not only from fewer students pursuing degrees in accounting — a problem exacerbated by a persistent false image of accounting as boring or nerdy — but also by the wave of retiring baby boomers, shrinking the pipeline at both ends.

The problem is so acute that some public companies have disclosed potentially weakened internal controls in their financial reports, including Raleigh, North Carolina-based Advance Auto Parts (formerly based in Roanoke). The car parts provider said it had identified a potential material weakness in its internal financial controls because of accounting staff turnovers during the fiscal quarter ending April 22, 2023.

Payroll spikes

The short supply has led to high demand.

According to a January report of the top remote jobs in the nation from hiring site FlexJobs, more companies were advertising remote jobs for accountants in 2023 than any other position, with employers willing to pay $100,000 to $200,000 salaries for more experienced workers.

In Virginia, the mean salary for entry-level accountants was $51,121, according to the Virginia Society of CPA’s 2020 Compensation & Benefits Survey, which was conducted before more recent wage spikes. “Salaries increase from there,” the report states, “with first-level supervisors making a mean of $75,110 and partners a mean of $210,780.”

The payoff comes from working a few years and gaining experience, industry experts say. But all levels — from entry to experienced — are seeing wage increases.

The profession has awakened to higher wages, Thomson says. “Payrolls are up 38% over the last three years.”

Respondents worked in tax services, followed by audit, consulting and outsourced accounting or bookkeeping (a growing field in response to shortages)

“A lot of accounting firms are offshoring work,” says Peters. Most offshore workers hail from India, South Africa and the Philippines, she adds, and firms are putting safeguards in place to protect clients’ financial information.

While the accounting industry is seeking to fill gaps, it is also wrestling with “the age-old ‘all-they-do-is-taxes’ assumption,” according to a 2023 Stockton University report. 

“A major challenge we are working on is the image that the profession is boring,” Peters says. “That image isn’t true, and we are trying to counter it with new messaging.”

Dozens of programs have been implemented in the past couple years at the state and national levels — including a VSCPA scholarship program — to attract more students into the profession. 

Jennifer Wold, managing partner in Virginia for Forvis, one of the nation’s largest public accounting firms, says accounting is a noble occupation. “It is just as prestigious as other marquee professions such as law and medicine.”

However, it is misunderstood.

“We have not done a very good job of explaining what accounting is all about,” says Royce Burnett, professor and chairman of the School of Accountancy at Old Dominion University.

“Trust me, accounting is not about math,” he says. “It is about connecting the dots. It’s taking data, transforming that data into information and providing that information to stakeholders so they can make value-oriented, social- and business-related decisions.”

Accountants are not solely number crunchers as they were in the past, experts say. Technology has taken over a lot of the grunt work. Rather, today’s accountants are data analyzers, business consultants, risk advisers, financial records managers and tax preparers.

Entry-level salaries may be low compared with what workers might see in other sectors, such as technology, “but they grow exponentially compared to other majors,” Burnett says.

The message is difficult to convey when college graduates see their peers in other jobs initially making more money, though.

“The historical perception of the type of work and how we work — 70 to 80 hours a week during the peak tax season — is not necessarily the coolest picture to someone in high school,” Thomson says.

“It’s much more advisory in nature,” Thomson says. “Being a CPA is like being a priest or rabbi for a firm. You know the inner workings and become trusted advisers and, in many cases, close family friends.”

Accounting firms are heavily invested in technology, automation and process improvements, which may be more attractive to younger workers and help bridge productivity gaps among a reduced workforce. Artificial intelligence in particular will play a part in the industry going forward, experts say.

It may redefine roles, but it will not replace CPAs, Peters says. AI will be used in accounting to gather more information and analyze large amounts of data.

“It will help with expectations of regulators and others who want more and better information,” she says. However, “you still need human beings to make judgments, look for anomalies and make sure programs are doing what they are supposed to be doing.”

Recruitment drive

The question remains, nevertheless, about where the industry is going to find those human beings.

Academia is reaching out to students who may be looking at other career fields, Burnett says, even to liberal arts and STEM students. “We are engaging in ways never done before to reach individuals and go beyond traditional business students.”

Mark Lehner, who grew up in Chesapeake, had his sights set on becoming a lawyer. As an undergraduate at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, he sought courses to develop skills in preparation for law school. He vacillated between taking engineering classes or general business classes but settled on something more technical — accounting. He hasn’t looked back.

“I enjoy the logic of it, the puzzle-solving,” he says. In effect, he applies financial rules in a business setting as opposed to legal rules in a courtroom.

Lehner, now 24, graduated in 2021 with 150 credit hours for his bachelor’s degree in accounting; he then passed his CPA exam in less than a year. He works as an audit associate for Forvis in Norfolk. “I enjoy the analysis,” he says. “There is an art to business.”

For many, the barriers to becoming a CPA are daunting, considering the extra time and cost on top of a college education and, in many cases, a heavy student debt load.

“The economic price to get 150 hours can be a barrier when you compare it to other industries,” Thomson says.

Rather than tacking on a fifth year of college as many did in the past, candidates often can work for a firm while taking classes.

Lehner took a different approach. He crammed as many credit hours as he could into each semester. “It was a packed schedule, but you get into the rhythm.”

Forvis, which employs about 6,000 people in 38 states, hired 500 people nationwide in January, including 350 interns — who will stay with the firm through mid-April during the busy tax season — and 150 associates.

Wold credits Forvis’ stepped-up recruiting efforts and rapid growth among the reasons for its success in attracting talent. Created from the 2022 of BKD CPAs & Advisors and Dixon Hughes Goodman (DHG), Forvis is acquiring Paris-based Mazars’ U.S. operation in June to become Forvis Mazars, a top 10 global professional services network.

However, Wold allows, recruiting still “is not easy in this environment” of heated competition for top talent. Forvis has particularly relied on internships as an outreach vehicle to give students an opportunity to experience public accounting firsthand while the firm can evaluate their performance and build a relationship with them.

“Our goal,” Wold says, “is for everyone to be successful and return to campus with a full-time job offer of employment after graduation.”  

Capital One-Discover deal faces federal scrutiny

-based Financial announced plans in February to buy Financial Services for $35.3 billion in an all-stock deal that would mark Capital One’s largest ever and make it the nation’s biggest lender.

The transaction is expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025, according to the banks. At close, Capital One shareholders would own about 60% of the combined company, and Discover shareholders would hold approximately 40%.

However, the deal must receive federal regulatory approval to move forward, and the Biden White House has fought consolidation of large corporations, including the proposed $3.8 billion of JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines, which was called off in March after the airlines lost an antitrust lawsuit. Although it’s the first merger of this size proposed during President Joe Biden’s term, he enacted an executive order in 2021 encouraging federal agencies with authority over banks, including the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., to update their guidelines on mergers “to provide more robust scrutiny.”

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement following the Capital One-Discover announcement that “a rubber-stamped merger that makes powerful financial companies even bigger and more powerful will do nothing for families.” From both sides of the aisle, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, and U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, urged the Biden administration to block the deal, with Hawley charging it would grant Capital One “unprecedented powers to extort American consumers.”

If the merger goes through, Capital One would use Discover’s credit card payment network to process transactions, instead of relying on Visa and Mastercard platforms. Also, with Discover’s banking business included, Capital One would have more than $450 billion in deposits.

“From Capital One’s founding days, we set out to build a payments and banking company powered by modern technology. Our acquisition of Discover is a singular opportunity to bring together two very successful companies with complementary capabilities and franchises, and to build a payments network that can compete with the largest payments networks and payments companies,” Capital One Chairman, CEO and founder Richard Fairbank said in a statement.

Illinois-based Discover has a market value of about $27.6 billion. Capital One has a market capitalization of about $52.2 billion and reported $34.25 billion in 2022 revenue.  

Deputy Editor Kate Andrews contributed to this story.

April 2024 FOR THE RECORD

CENTRAL 

Charlottesville-based geospatial analytics firm Astraea was acquired by Nuview, a Florida-based company developing a satellite imaging constellation, the companies announced Feb. 27. Financial terms of the deal were not available. Founded as a for-profit benefit corporation in 2016, Astraea applies data science and artificial intelligence to analyze imaging and sensor data gathered from Earth-observing satellites. Founded in 2022, Orlando, Florida-based Nuview is developing a constellation of satellites planned for launch in 2025 that will use lidar technology to scan and map large areas of Earth terrain from space, creating 3D imaging. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Petersburg-based Atlantic Strategic Minerals will invest more than $50 million to restore and reopen a mining operation in Dinwiddie County and a concentrator plant and mineral separation plant in Sussex County, producing critical minerals that are used in various supply chains, the governor’s office announced March 11. The project is expected to create 71 jobs at the Sussex County facility. Founded in 2020, ASM is majority-owned by Appian Capital Advisory, the London-based investment adviser to private capital funds investing in mining and mining-related companies. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Richmond-based Atlantic Union ‘s parent company announced Feb. 26 that the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors has approved its of Danville-based American National Bankshares, holding company of American National Bank and Trust. The Fed’s signoff was the last regulatory approval needed for the — announced in July 2023 — to close on April 1, according to Atlantic Union CEO John C. Asbury. The impending merger is expected to create a bank with total assets of $24.2 billion as of Dec. 31, 2023, $18.5 billion in deposits and gross loans of $16.5 billion. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Richmond-based Fortune 500 Dominion closed on its sale of East Ohio Gas to Canadian pipeline and energy company Enbridge in a $6.6 billion deal, the utility announced March 7. The sale was first announced in September 2023 as part of a deal for Dominion to sell its three distribution companies. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved the sale to Enbridge. The Cleveland-based natural gas company, which will now be known as Enbridge Gas Ohio, has 1,500 employees and serves 1.2 million homes and businesses in the Buckeye state, according to Dominion. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Virginia Commonwealth University plans to build a new dental school on its existing health system campus, the university announced March 4, ending its pursuit of the Public Safety Building that was the site of a failed development project VCU Health paid $73 million to exit. VCU now wants to build a dental school at 900 Turpin St. VCU’s dental school — the only one in the state — has three buildings that are more than 70 years old, and maintenance on the facilities will cost $75 million, according to VCU. The new building would house classrooms, patient clinics and laboratories, but the university needs approval from lawmakers before it can move forward with planning. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

PEOPLE

Hill

Travis Hill, former CEO of the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority and a former Virginia deputy secretary of agriculture and forestry, has joined Richmond-based Hunton Andrews Kurth, Virginia’s second-largest law firm, as of Feb. 27. Hill is a counsel for the firm’s Global , Commerce and Government Relations Group (GECON), according to a news release, and works out of the firm’s Richmond offices. Hill stepped down as Virginia ABC’s CEO in September 2023 after nearly a decade with the authority. He served as deputy secretary of agriculture under Govs. Bob McDonnell and Terry McAuliffe. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

 

 

EASTERN

Canon Virginia laid off 55 employees from its Newport News manufacturing plant in late February. The layoffs, which constituted less than 6% of the plant’s workforce, affected salaried employees across the organization, spokesperson Rhonda Bunn said. “A very difficult decision to lay employees off was primarily due to economic challenges and overall slower growth this year,” she added. Canon’s Newport News plant employs about 1,000 people and employed as many as 2,300 in the mid-1990s, according to Daily Press reporting, but that number has declined over the years. (The Virginian-Pilot)

Newport News Shipbuilding reached the catapult testing phase in construction of the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier, the company announced Feb. 20. Carlike structures weighing up to 80,000 pounds are being launched off the front of the ship and into the James River to test the electromagnetic aircraft launch systems, one of the much-touted technologies unique to Ford-class carriers. The testing ensures the aircraft carrier is capable of launching fighter jets. (The Virginian-Pilot)

Norfolk no longer plans to build a new arena after Military Circle Mall is torn down, and instead is seriously considering renovating two city-owned venues downtown: Scope Arena and the nearby Chrysler Hall. Despite the change, Norfolk is still seeking to redevelop the property. On Feb. 20, the Norfolk Economic Development Authority issued a new request for proposals for an architectural firm to come up with multiple adaptive reuse plans to redevelop the Military Circle property “for office, retail, residential, open space and other public amenities,” with a March 4 deadline for proposals. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Port of Virginia‘s shipping channel is now wide enough for two ultra-large container vessels to pass at the same time, concluding a significant part of the $450 million dredging project to make the port the widest and deepest harbor on the East Coast. According to the March 1 announcement, the port expects to finish the deepening segment of the project in fall 2025, a delay from its previously announced deadline of late 2024. The dredging project began in 2019. The shipping channels are up to 1,400 feet wide in some areas, and the commercial shipping channel and the Norfolk Harbor will be 55 feet deep, while the ocean approach is set to be
59 feet deep. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

PEOPLE

Rigney

Charles E. “Chuck” Rigney Sr. was named Virginia Beach‘s economic development director on Feb. 2, after serving as interim director since June 2023. Rigney has worked in economic development all over Hampton Roads: in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Hampton. He joined Virginia Beach’s economic development team as a business development administrator in February 2023. One of his initial focuses as the permanent director will be to build out Virginia Beach’s economic development team, filling at least three critical vacancies, he said. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Virginia Beach real estate investment trust Armada Hoffler expects to name Chief Operating Officer Shawn Tibbetts as its CEO in spring 2025, when current CEO Louis Haddad plans to retire. Tibbetts was promoted to president on Feb. 15 and will remain COO. Daniel Hoffler, the company’s founder and executive chairman, will relinquish his chairman role in June, and Haddad will become executive chairman, while remaining CEO, until his retirement. Hoffler will continue to serve as chairman emeritus. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

NORTHERN

Virginia Democratic state senators dropped all mention of the proposed Alexandria sports arena authority in their amended 2024-26 state budget in March, leaving uncertain the fate of the $2 billion plan to move Monumental Sports & Entertainment‘s Washington Wizards and Capitals NBA and NHL teams to Virginia. Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been an ardent supporter of the 9 million-square-foot entertainment campus, which he says would generate 30,000 jobs and billions of dollars in economic impact. Opposition to the project was led by Sen. Louise Lucas, powerful chair of the Senate and Appropriations Committee. Youngkin, who said Democrats were making a “colossal mistake” by blocking the arena, still has a chance to save the project if he reaches a deal with legislative budget negotiators before the General Assembly’s April 17 reconvened session. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Falls Church-based BAE Systems Inc., the U.S. arm of British defense giant BAE Systems, completed its $5.6 billion acquisition of Colorado-based Ball Aerospace on Feb. 16. The company first announced the deal, which it’s funding through a mix of cash and debt, in August 2023. BAE Systems will form a new business division, Space and Mission Systems, and 5,200 U.S. employees from Ball Aerospace will join the company. Ball Aerospace supplies spacecraft, mission payloads, and optical and antenna systems to the intelligence community, the Department of Defense and civilian space agencies. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Justice Department has begun a criminal investigation into Arlington-based Boeing after a panel on a Boeing 737 Max 9 jet operated by Alaska Airlines blew out in midair on Jan. 5, exposing passengers to the outside air thousands of feet above ground. In 2021, the DOJ settled a federal criminal charge against Boeing stemming from two fatal crashes aboard its 737 Max 8 plane, but after the January incident, the department said it was reviewing the settlement terms. Under the agreement, the DOJ agreed to drop a charge accusing Boeing of defrauding the Federal Aviation Administration in return for paying $2.5 billion to its customers. (The New York Times)

In February, Microsoft purchased 124 acres in Gainesville for $465.5 million from Loudoun County data center mogul Chuck Kuhn, marking perhaps the most expensive data center deal yet in the region. The tech giant’s new acquisition includes two parcels immediately south of where Prince William County lawmakers approved the gargantuan and controversial Digital Gateway data center campus. The price tag works out to $3.75 million per acre. (Washington Business Journal)

Tysons-based tech company MicroStrategy, the world’s largest corporate holder of bitcoin, benefited at least briefly from a price surge in the cryptocurrency, which hit an all-time high of $69,324.58 on March 5. As of Feb. 25, MicroStrategy and its subsidiaries held a total of 193,000 bitcoins, worth $13.38 billion at the peak price, more than twice the approximate $6.09 billion for which they were purchased. The company’s gamble hasn’t always been so profitable. Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, then MicroStrategy’s CEO, pursued bitcoin as an investment strategy beginning in 2020, and at points in 2022, the currency’s value fell below $20,000 per bitcoin. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

PEOPLE

Mary McDuffie retired Feb. 28 as president and CEO of Vienna-based Navy Federal Credit Union, the nation’s largest credit union with $168.4 billion in assets and more than 13 million members. Dietrich Kuhlmann, Navy Federal’s chief operating officer since 2022, was promoted to succeed McDuffie, as of March 1. McDuffie became the credit union’s first woman CEO in 2018, leading more than 22,000 employees. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

ROANOKE/NEW RIVER VALLEY

A state report released at the end of February found significant deficiencies in the cleaning of surgical instruments at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital between March and September 2023. The facility was found to be in “immediate jeopardy,” a serious indicator that patient safety was at risk. Without correction, the hospital could have lost funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Virginia Department of Health recently signed off on Carilion’s detailed action plan to correct the issue, and new measures are now in place. There is no fine associated with the report. (Cardinal News)

Floyd County was awarded a $2.7 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration in early March to develop infrastructure to support the growth of a business park. The 170-acre Floyd Regional Commerce Center has about 59 acres still available for prospective businesses, but only 6.4 acres are graded with access to roads and utilities. The grant will help extend a road and utilities into that undeveloped area, which will take about a year. Due to the commerce center’s terrain, officials expect that area to eventually yield about 27 buildable acres. The federal grant will be matched with $680,000 of local money. (Cardinal News)

The U.S. Department of Education has fined Liberty University a record penalty of $14 million for underreporting crime on campus, including sexual assaults, in a settlement announced March 5. The amount far outstrips the department’s previous highest such fine, $4.5 million, assessed in 2019 against Michigan State University for the gymnastics sexual abuse scandal involving Dr. Larry Nassar. According to the DOE, Liberty either omitted or erred in reporting 93% of all criminal incidents that took place on university-owned property from 2016 to 2023 on daily crime logs that are required to be made public under federal law. (For more, see Page 24.) (VirginiaBusiness.com)

North Carolina-based Mack Trucks, a division of Sweden-based Volvo Group, will invest $14.5 million to expand its Roanoke County manufacturing operation, a project expected to create 51 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Feb. 9. Mack Trucks, a medium- and heavy-duty trucks producer, will add 72,000 square feet to its current facility to increase capacity for its medium-duty truck line, including “an emerging medium-duty electric truck line.” The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Roanoke County and the Roanoke Regional Partnership to secure the project for Virginia. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

An international environmental group has been removed from a sweeping lawsuit filed by Mountain Valley Pipeline that seeks injunctions and civil penalties against foes of the hard-fought project. Mountain Valley failed to show how Rising Tide North America was involved in protests by opponents who chained themselves to construction equipment, stood in worksites and took other actions against the natural gas pipeline, a judge ruled. The company “has only provided conclusions and vague allegations regarding Rising Tide’s support of allegedly unlawful acts by other defendants,” Montgomery County Circuit Judge Robert Turk wrote in a Feb. 23 opinion that granted the organization’s motion to dismiss. (The Roanoke Times)

The U.S. Supreme Court will not wade into a conservative group’s legal battle against what it calls the “speech police” at Virginia Tech. In an opinion March 4, the high court decided not to hear the case because Tech has discontinued an anti-bias program that was challenged by Speech First, which filed a lawsuit in Roanoke’s federal court three years ago. Speech First, a national advocacy organization, has challenged a number of university policies and programs that it says trample on the First Amendment rights of conservative students, whose views conflict with the “prevailing campus orthodoxy.” (The Roanoke Times)

SHENANDOAH VALLEY

Alexandria-based Logan’s Sausage is expanding into Strasburg with a food manufacturing facility. The company agreed in October 2023 to purchase a roughly 25-acre property in the Northern Shenandoah Business Park for $500,000. The project is still in its early stages, and Cliff Logan, the company’s vice president of operations, said the facility will not be ready to start production for at least two years. Logan’s Sausage expects to hire up to 30 workers at the facility initially and may add more later. Plant operations will be similar to those of a small butcher shop and will not include slaughter, Logan said. (Daily News-Record)

Modine Manufacturing, a manufacturer of cooling equipment for data centers, will invest $18.1 million to expand its Rockbridge County operation, creating an estimated 211 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced March 5. Wisconsin-based Modine, which had $2.3 billion in net sales in fiscal year 2023, opened its manufacturing facility in Buena Vista in 1963. It has about 11,000 employees globally. Modine currently employs 75 workers at the Rockbridge County plant and more than 300 workers at the Buena Vista plant, according to a company spokesperson. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Shenandoah Telecommunications (Shentel) has entered into an agreement to sell its portfolio of cellular towers and associated operations to Vertical Bridge Holdco for $310.3 million in cash, the Edinburg-based company announced March 1. The move appears to largely transition Shentel out of the last remnants of its cellular phone business. The Shentel Tower Portfolio consists of 226 tower portfolio sites, including 218 macro cellular towers and eight small cell sites. Shentel will keep one macro cellular tower that is not included in the sale. T-Mobile USA was the primary customer for Shentel’s cell towers. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Winchester City Council’s Planning and Economic Development Committee voted unanimously on Feb. 29 to recommend that the full council approve a rezoning request for the Ward Plaza property. Winchester Acquisition Partners, an investment group headed by resident John W. “Wes” Gray Jr., purchased the 22-acre property on Valley Avenue in June 2023 and plans to redevelop the site with 453 housing units, plus retail stores, offices, parking lots and a four-story parking garage with rooftop pickleball courts. One retail store would be a grocer. Gray has not named the prospective grocery tenant but said he was confident
a lease would be signed soon.(The Winchester Star)

Third-party logistics warehousing provider WCS Logistics, a Winchester Cold Storage subsidiary, will invest $27 million to expand in Frederick County and create an estimated 15 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Feb. 20. WCS Logistics will build an 83,000-square-foot cold storage facility with the capacity for more than 13,000 pallets. The facility will include 68,750 square feet of freezer space, an 8,750-square-foot cold dock, 12 dock positions, insulated metal panel construction and a carbon dioxide cascade refrigeration system, according to a news release from Arco National Construction, the project’s design-build contractor. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

PEOPLE

The Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority has lost its chairman, and two more board members announced plans to resign. EDA Chairman Scott A. Jenkins said that he would not seek reappointment when his term ended Feb. 29 because his role took too much time away from work on his family business, Mountain Home B&B. On Feb. 23, board treasurer James “Jim” Wolfe and board member Marjorie “Jorie” Martin announced they planned to resign. Martin, whose term was set to expire at the end of February 2026, planned to resign March 31. Wolfe, whose term would have expired at the end of February 2025, did not commit to a resignation date. (The Northern Virginia Daily) 

SOUTHERN 

A group calling itself Citizens for the Halifax Hospital wants Sentara Health to shelve its plans to tear down the 71-year-old hospital building and instead gift the facility to the community for a yet-to-be determined use. In a roll-out meeting in late February at Edgewood Townhomes in South Boston — fronted by Edgewood developer John Cannon and retired South Boston Town Manager Ted Daniel, the group’s spokesperson — the citizens group outlined its vision for saving what it calls an iconic Halifax County landmark. Sentara has said the new hospital will be roughly one-third the size of the original and will be built on the site of the old Fuller-Roberts Clinic, next to the existing hospital. (SoVa Now)

In March, Danville City Council voted to rezone property at 1700 W. Main St. to make way for a 204-unit apartment development and 24 single-family homes. Some residents opposed the project, saying that contaminated dirt from the former Dan River Inc. site where the Caesars Virginia casino resort is being built is being moved to the West Main Street property, posing health risks to residents. (Danville Register & Bee) 

Henry County will begin a yearlong effort to bring internet access to all its residents. March kicked off a broadband expansion project in the county that could bring more than 3,000 homes online. “Our county adopted a slogan in 2022 that we would be ‘community connected,’” County Administrator Dale Wagoner said. “We see this project as an extension of that promise.” Project contractor RiverStreet Networks is currently pursuing similar broadband construction projects in other parts of the state, including Franklin and Patrick counties. Internet access is inconsistent in Henry, where 15% of residents are unconnected. (Cardinal News)

Natural gas company Williams Cos. plans to add just over 26 miles of 42-inch-diameter pipeline adjacent to its existing Transco pipeline corridor in Pittsylvania County as part of a larger upgrade to increase how much gas the multistate system can carry. The work would be part of the company’s proposed Southeast Supply Enhancement project to add nearly 1.6 million dekatherms of gas per day — enough to supply 8.6 million homes — to the southeastern portion of the nearly 10,000-mile Transco system, which runs from Texas to New York. The Southeast Supply Enhancement would begin at an existing Transco compressor station in Pittsylvania County, where it would connect with the Mountain Valley Pipeline and continue as far south as Alabama. (Cardinal News)

PEOPLE

Alex Gottschalk was sworn in Feb. 29 as Mecklenburg‘s new county administrator by Clerk of the Circuit Court Michelle Gordon. Gottschalk took over from longtime County Administrator Wayne Carter as of March 1. Gottschalk had been serving as the county’s deputy administrator for the past two years. Prior to that, he was a legislative policy and budget analyst for Virginia Beach from 2017 to 2021. (SoVa Now)

Tracy Fink has been named vice president of the Institute Conference Center and operations at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville. Fink started the job March 1, succeeding Leslie Dobbins, who retired after more than 20 years with the institute. Fink brings two decades of experience in strategic event management to the role. She was previously director of events and marketing for Mayfair Hospitality, overseeing hotels and venues in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. (Danville Register & Bee)

SOUTHWEST

Appalachian applied to the State Corporation Commission in January for approval to build a battery energy storage system in Southwest Virginia. Battery energy storage systems collect energy from the grid to be used at later times, like during outages. The $57.3 million project would create battery energy storage sites in Smyth and Grayson counties totaling 7.5 megawatts of capacity and improving reliability for nearly 2,800 customers on the Glade-Whitetop circuit, which is difficult to reach for repairs due to mountainous terrain. Upgrading reliability in the area using traditional methods would cost around $64 million, according to Appalachian. (Cardinal News)

Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Feb. 23 that Marion had won a $500,000 state grant to rehabilitate two buildings in the city’s downtown that were damaged by a 2021 fire. The Gospel Armory and Past Time Antique buildings will be renovated into commercial storefronts with a dozen apartments upstairs, according to Ken Heath, executive director of community and economic development for the Smyth County town. Heath said that after hazard abatement is completed at the buildings, work will begin to recruit a private developer to complete the project, which is estimated to cost $6.5 million. (Cardinal News)

Officials from S & D Hotel and CN Hotels and local officials gathered to break ground on a Home2 Suites and Tru by Hilton hotel at 390 Village Circle in Bristol on Feb. 16. The dual-brand hotel will be six stories and will include 90 longer-stay rooms and 70 boutique-style rooms. The hotel is expected to open in 2025. (Bristol Herald Courier)

The United Way of Southwest Virginia announced Feb. 20 plans to launch a new nonprofit to manage its $10 million portfolio of grant-funded workforce development programs. The new organization will be called EO, which stands for Endless Opportunity. EO will focus on implementing programs like the $23 million Regional Workforce and Child Development Hub, which UWSWVA has been building in Abingdon by converting a former Kmart. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Virginia Department of Energy has received a seventh round of funding for the Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization (AMLER) program. The agency is accepting applications through May 23
for proposals that achieve economic development goals in Southwest Virginia’s coalfields using land that includes features associated with coal mining that occurred before 1977. Virginia Energy oversees the grant funds, which come from the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation Enforcement. The AMLER program has supported over 400 jobs since it launched in 2017, according to Gov. Glenn Youngkin. (News release)

PEOPLE

Ballad Health announced Feb. 26 that Cindy Elkins was selected as administrator and assistant vice president for Lonesome Pine Hospital in Big Stone Gap and Lee County Community Hospital in Pennington Gap. Previously, Elkins worked as director of pharmacy for several Ballad hospitals, including Lonesome Pine and Lee County Community. In her new role, Elkins will lead administrative operations and coordinate service line functions for both hospitals while also serving as a member of Ballad Health’s market leadership team in Lee, Wise and Dickenson counties. (The Coalfield Progress)

The University of Virginia’s College at Wise named Gary C. Johnson the college’s new provost and vice chancellor
for academic affairs on March 1. Previously, Johnson served as provost at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, and as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska. Johnson, who will start work at U.Va. Wise in June, has a doctorate in comparative literature from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
(News release)

Buchanan County expands industrial park

is booming inside the Southern Gap in , where the county industrial development authority is spending $4 million to develop a new shell building and a 20-acre industrial site.

With support from the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority, the park has become a hub for growth in an area historically defined by its rugged terrain and limited industrial infrastructure.

“It’s going to allow us to have marketable industrial property and a marketable industrial shell building in an area right now [where] we don’t really have a lot to offer,” says Jonathan Belcher, VCEDA’s executive director. “We want to be able to bring job opportunities to all parts of the region that we serve.”

With a $2.5 million loan from VCEDA, the Buchanan County Industrial Development Authority is developing the 20-acre site as part of the industrial park’s expansion. The project will capitalize on the initial success of the park, which already has several tenants, including Southern Gap Transportation and Logistics Center, Appalachian and Southern Gap Outdoor Adventure.

VCEDA has also provided a $1.53 million loan to facilitate the construction of a shell industrial building within the park, a response to increasing demand for industrial space. Paul’s Fan Co., for example, moved from Big Rock into the Grundy park in 2022.

Benefits of the move included reduced travel costs and time and increased marketability, says Paul’s Fan Co. President Todd Elswick.

“We were operating out of five different buildings in different locations in the extreme western part of the state,” he says. “It was killing our productivity.”

The new shell building, approximately 20,000 square feet with expansion potential, will cater primarily to manufacturing companies seeking a foothold in the region, Belcher says.

Construction on the shell building is slated to begin in April, with completion expected this fall. In mid-February, site development for the 20-acre parcel was set to begin imminently, with a projected completion date within the next year.

Matthew Fields, Buchanan County’s director of economic development and tourism, says the park had reached maximum capacity, and he wants the county to become more competitive by offering pad-ready sites and buildings.

“It’s kind of hard to invite somebody to sit with you at the table if you don’t have a chair for them,” he says.

No tenants have been announced for the shell building or site yet.

Radford Hub aims to connect students, biz community

For The Hub at , location is everything.

The new support center, which opened in October 2023, is just across the street from in downtown Radford.

“Our location … is symbolic to the vital role we play as an anchor institution and as a strong contributor to the well-being of the city of Radford and the region,” says Angela Joyner, the university’s vice president of economic development and corporate education.

The 12,581-square-foot resource center, which houses multiple entities related to economic development, has several aims, including connecting students to internships; strengthening connections between the university and the region’s business community; and providing entrepreneurial programming and workforce training.

“The real key element here is that this is a resource for businesses,” says Radford Mayor David Horton.

Radford University’s economic development division, which is housed in the new center, has been working with university leadership since fall 2022 on getting The Hub off the ground.

“Upon the arrival of President [Bret] Danilowicz [in July 2022] and an increased focus on economic development, the Economic Development and Corporate Education Division was created,” Joyner says. “This commitment to positively contribute to the economic well-being of our region and specifically the city of Radford served as a catalyst to move forward this initiative.”

The first phase includes renovating The Hub’s building and moving in staff from the new division as well as the Vinod Chachra Innovative Mobile Personalized Accelerated Competency Training (IMPACT) Lab, which provides online, self-paced training in cybersecurity, data science, K-12 teacher training and geospatial intelligence. The lab, in partnership with Radford’s College of Education and Human Development, launched a program to help provisionally licensed teachers take courses needed to earn full licensure.

The remaining space is planned for coworking space, work-based learning/internships and meeting space, Joyner says.

“One of our objectives as we move forward is identifying companies who may want to have a footprint in the region and hire our students … [in-person or] remotely,” Joyner says.

The center also has the potential to address the shortage of skilled workers in information technology, particularly in cybersecurity and computer science. The Hub plans to establish a certification center for various high-demand fields like technology and computer science.

“The strategy and development of the certificates, micro-credentials and courses are developed on site,” Joyner says.

Associate Editor Robyn Sidersky contributed to this story.

Virginia 500 Spotlight: TERRIE L. SUIT

FIRST JOB: Baskin-Robbins ice cream scooper

HOBBY/PASSION: Cooking and gardening. A good fiction novel while sitting by the lake on a breezy sunny afternoon.

MOST VALUED POSSESSION: My home

TRAIT I ADMIRE: Attentiveness — being able to really pay attention to the person they are talking with in the moment and to give them their full attention and sincerely care about what the person is sharing

IF I HAD A TIME MACHINE, I’D MEET: Margaret Thatcher, because she was an incredible leader.

ONE THING I’D CHANGE ABOUT VIRGINIA: Make the sun rise before 6 a.m. and set after 9 p.m. all year long.

SOMETHING I WOULD NEVER DO AGAIN: Ride a rollercoaster — I get motion sick.

DID YOU KNOW? Suit served as Virginia’s first secretary of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security and was a Republican state delegate for eight years. Today, she leads the state’s largest trade association, advocating for 38,000 Realtors. Virginia Realtors also publishes research and offers continuing education to its members. Suit has an MBA from the University of Mary Washington, where she serves on the board of visitors.

For more on Virginia’s most powerful executives, see the latest edition of the Virginia 500.

StartVirginia: HEARD AROUND VIRGINIA

Arlington County awarded a total of $225,000 in grants to five local that are the first to receive grants — of $25,000 to $50,000 apiece — from the county’s Arlington Innovation Fund. The fund supports early-stage tech companies, particularly those owned by women, veterans and minorities, while pushing down office vacancy rates. The five companies are: Dispatchr Technologies, which develops software to reduce costs and carbon emissions of plants; Freely Payments, which aims to cut processing fees when businesses accept payments; GenLogs, an AI company that tracks freight trucks and tractor-trailers; Phalanx AI, a cybersecurity company that helps protect sensitive documents; and Seamless Transition, a medical device company that helps wounded veterans transition from active duty to civilian life. (ARLnow)

Richmond-based insurance startup Buddy Technology raised about $7.2 million from 49 investors in its most recent capital raise, including the cancellation or conversion of about $4.1 million in debt into series seed preferred stock, according to a January SEC filing. Founded in 2017, Buddy provides software to insurance companies as well as its own on-demand accident insurance coverage for outdoor activities. Buddy’s most recent round of funding started in March 2023 and closed in mid-January, according to SEC filings. Buddy investors have included Atypical Ventures, the Center for Innovative Technology (now Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp.), Sequoia Scout Fund, Techstars, and Plug and Play. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Startup Virginia welcomed its largest-ever Idea Factory cohort — 26 — for its seven-week spring session, which started March 4 and runs until April 15. The Richmond ‘s fall cohort will accept applications until Aug. 1, and that session runs from Oct. 7 through Nov. 18. Launched in 2020, the Idea Factory helps participants refine their products and services to connect with customer needs. (News release)

Virginia Commonwealth University‘s Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation has launched its first formal startup , the university announced March 6. The VCU Startup Accelerator is designed to help faculty launch startups to market their research products. The program includes meetings with entrepreneurs-in-residence, development of customized business strategies and help with funding applications. It culminates with a springtime pitch event that will award cash prizes and additional support to winners. The first projects being developed into startups include: SurgicalED VR, a virtual reality platform for training surgeons; MagnaShield, lightweight materials to protect devices and infrastructure from electromagnetic pulses; NCMNtech, a drug discovery platform; and an at-home calcium monitoring system. (News release)

Arlington private equity firm Washington Harbour Partners has raised more than $20.2 million across two funds focused on making investments relating to artificial intelligence. According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington Harbour, located at 1201 Wilson Blvd. in Rosslyn, raised $17.61 million for its Washington Harbour AI Pilot fund. The firm also raised a separate $2.65 million for its Washington Harbour Maritime AI fund. Both funds marked Dec. 22, 2023, as their first date of sale, which required outside investors to contribute a minimum of $100,000 to participate. (DC Inno)

PEOPLE

Debbie Irwin, former director of Shenandoah Community Capital Fund, became Richmond-based Lighthouse Labs‘ new managing director on Feb. 26. Irwin left her role at SCCF, an entrepreneurial support organization in Staunton, where she served for six years, first as director of education and marketing and then as executive director. Before that, she was director of programs and special events for the Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Natural selection

as a source of for Virginia plants is set to reach its final days by the middle of the century — or is it?

The Virginia General Assembly set that deadline in 2020 when it passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which requires the state’s two major electric utilities to shift to carbon-free, sources such as wind and solar power for generation, seemingly leaving no place for fossil fuels such as natural gas or coal.

Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has advocated for revisions to the act to include other power sources such as natural gas, a nonstarter for the Democratic-majority General Assembly. But ‘s proposal to put a natural gas plant in Chesterfield County has raised questions about whether the company, which serves 64.4% of Virginia, will meet the state mandate to produce all power for Virginia customers from renewable energy sources by 2045.

West Virginia-based Appalachian Power must meet the same carbon-free target by 2050, but “we’re a small player in Virginia,” says Teresa Hamilton Hall, senior corporate communications consultant. The company, which serves about 20% of the commonwealth, has only one natural gas plant in Virginia. “The majority of our electricity generation,” Hall says, “is still from coal.”

Over the past two decades, Dominion has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions substantially, according to the company. Through 2022, Dominion says, it “reduced carbon emissions from power generation by 47% (compared with a 2005 baseline), and methane emissions from gas operations are down 38% (from a 2010 baseline).”

“We’re all-in on renewables,” says spokesperson Aaron F. Ruby. “About 95% of our new power plants are carbon-free. We’re currently building an offshore wind project off Virginia Beach. There’s a call for a second. We’re expanding our battery storage fleet, [and] that allows us to store from wind and solar during periods of low demand.”

Activists and Chesterfield County residents stood outside Bellwood Elementary School in June 2023 to protest a planned Dominion Energy natural gas power plant. Photo by Patrick Larsen/VPM News

Dominion has divested much of its natural gas transmission and storage assets in recent years, following the cancellation of its proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline project with Duke Energy in 2020. The aborted 600-mile natural gas pipeline, which faced long delays amid legal challenges, was supposed to run from West Virginia to eastern North Carolina through Virginia.

In 2020, Dominion sold the majority of its gas transmission and storage assets to Berkshire Hathaway Energy for $8 billion. The Richmond-based Fortune 500 sold its remaining interest in the Cove Point natural gas liquefaction facility in Maryland to Berkshire Hathaway for $3.5 billion in July 2023. Two months later, Dominion announced it was selling its three natural gas distribution companies to Canadian pipeline and energy company Enbridge for $14 billion. The $6.6 billion sale of East Ohio Gas closed in March, with the other sales expected later this year.

All of this comes at the same time as the Biden administration has paused approvals on new liquefied natural gas export facilities while the Energy Department examines the environmental, economic and political impacts. The United States was the world’s largest LNG exporter last year, and the Cove Point facility Dominion sold exported LNG to nearly 30 nations.

That’s not to say that Dominion is completely done with natural gas, however. The company has about a dozen natural gas plants in Virginia that generate about 35% of its electricity in the state.

And the demand for that power is only expected to grow. It’s been projected that the demand for energy from Virginia’s fast-growing data centers industry could quadruple by 2038, for about 50% of Virginia’s total electricity supply.

Plans for Chesterfield

Last summer, Dominion revived plans first proposed in 2019 to build a natural gas peaker plant — a plant that would run only during periods of high demand or during extreme weather — in Chesterfield County. (Chesterfield was previously home to two Dominion coal plants that were deactivated in 2023 after more than 50 years.)

Consisting of four natural gas-powered turbines, the company says the proposed Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center would serve as “an ‘always ready’ generation resource that can be quickly deployed on the hottest and coldest days and serve as backup generation when other resources are unavailable or insufficient to meet customer needs.”

Construction on the plant is planned to begin in 2025 and be completed in 2027, according to Dominion. The cost hasn’t been released, but the project was estimated at $600 million in 2019. Dominion has applied for state and local permits for the facility, which requires approval from the State Corporation Commission, a process expected to take about nine months.

Once fully operational, the project would generate approximately 1,000 megawatts — enough energy to power up to 250,000 homes.

In late February, Chesterfield residents and regional activists opposed to the project gathered for a town hall led by state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield County. It included members of Friends of Chesterfield, a community group that opposes the project on multiple grounds, including health concerns for area residents, about 44% of whom are people of color, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

In mid-March, a coalition of nine Democratic state legislators from Central Virginia, including Hashmi, issued a statement in opposition to the plant. “Dominion Energy’s current pursuit of permits to build a new gas-fired power plant in Chesterfield County undermines the state’s transition to clean and renewable energy,” the legislators wrote. They also pointed out that, according to a May 2023 SCC filing from the utility, Dominion expects that its carbon emissions will increase from the 21.8 million metric tons it emitted in 2021 to as much as 43.8 million metric tons by 2048.

Nicole Martin, president of the Chester-field NAACP and a member of Friends of Chesterfield, questions whether the plant, once built, will shut down in 2045. “If they invest $600 million, as was estimated in 2019, how long are they going to keep it going?”

Additionally, Martin says, she’s concerned that Dominion’s residential customers are being asked “to foot the bill” for power-hungry data centers in Northern Virginia.

Martin also wonders why Dominion Energy needs to build a new natural gas plant when the company is making advances in renewable power. As an example, she cites a battery storage pilot project the company launched with Virginia State University to provide backup power to the VSU Multi-Purpose Center.

But battery storage is currently a weak link in the renewable energy chain, according to Dominion spokesperson Ruby. “The prevailing battery technology is only capable of storing energy for four to six hours,” he says. “We need to see battery storage advance into multiday duration. That’s one of the advances we’re going to need to see to reduce reliance on natural gas.”

The proposed Chesterfield peaker plant is needed because current battery storage is not sufficient to meet demands during emergencies such as winter storms, Ruby says, citing a Christmas 2022 storm with temperatures so low that Dominion “had to operate power plants at maximum.

“For the next couple of decades natural gas will play a critical role in empowering Virginia — it’s always available, always reliable,” Ruby says. “It’s an essential partner with renewables.”

And what happens after that?

Dominion Energy does lots of long-term planning, Ruby notes, and “we have to do that with a healthy dose of humility about what we know and do not know. The further out you go, the more variables [exist]. It’s premature to make long-term decisions. We don’t know what’s going to happen with advances in clean technology, such as longer battery storage” and hydrogen.

Given the unprecedented demand and limitations, “there’s the potential that we may need to operate some of our natural gas plants longer than planned,” he says. While the Virginia Clean Economy Act sets a 2045 deadline, there are “important provisions of the law that would allow us to petition for beyond that date. It depends on whether [natural gas plants are] needed for grid reliability. It’s not a decision we can make today,” he says, but will probably be determined in the late 2030s or early 2040s.

Patrolling pipelines

Natural gas doesn’t just power giant electrical plants, though. While electric power utilities accounted for 57% of Virginia’s natural gas usage in 2022, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, commercial and residential customers using natural gas for heating and cooking accounted for about 25% of natural gas usage in the state.

Accordingly, natural gas companies and utilities are looking for ways to expand pipeline systems, a process that has sometimes hit major roadblocks and court challenges from residents and environmental groups.

Like Dominion’s canceled Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the 303-mile, $7.5 billion-plus Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would run through the Roanoke and New River valleys, has been plagued by delays over the past 10 years from lawsuits, protests and regulatory hurdles. Meanwhile, natural gas concern Williams Cos. announced plans in March to boost its volume by adding 26 miles to its Transco pipeline system in Pittsylvania County.

The VCEA doesn’t contain provisions impacting natural gas for heating or cooking. Nevertheless, companies such as are continually working to modernize pipeline systems to improve efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, according to Robert Duvall, president of the Virginia Beach-based natural gas distributor, which serves more than 300,000 residential customers across southeastern Virginia.

“Our mission is to keep the gas in the pipeline. We want it to come out at the burner tip only when the customer needs it,” Duvall says. “Our goal is to keep emissions at less than 1%. We’re at 0.4% and getting even better.”

Virginia Natural Gas has been replacing aging cast-iron pipelines with more durable materials such as plastics that are less expensive to maintain. From 2012 to 2023, it invested more than $475 million on infrastructure projects authorized under a state program, resulting in a more than 32% reduction in methane emissions from pipeline leaks, the company says.

The amount of pipeline replaced and upgraded in VNG’s system in the past decade “is the approximate driving distance from Virginia Beach to Savannah, Georgia,” according to Amanda Bouchonville, VNG’s Steps to Advance Virginia’s Energy (SAVE) program manager.

Duvall sees natural gas pipelines as key to Virginia’s energy future. “Natural gas [is] a foundation fuel that is able to underpin wind and solar,” he says. “It can be put in service very quickly. It has affordability [and] reliability.”

VNG is one of four natural gas distribution companies of Southern Company Gas, a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern Co.

Columbia Gas of Virginia, with more than 290,000 customers across a broad swath of the state, also is committed to finding leaks and replacing aged pipes, says Jennifer Montague, president and chief operating officer. “We have a car that drives around detecting gas leaks. We’re trying to keep more of the gas in our system.”

Its parent company, NiSource, is actively “exploring new technology,” according to Montague. For example, Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania, another NiSource subsidiary, has a pilot hybrid program that allows for blending of hydrogen into the natural gas system at various percentages, ranging from 2% to 20%. According to NiSource, hydrogen can be a zero-carbon fuel “because when combusted, hydrogen produces water vapor, not greenhouse gas emissions.”

“It’s not much of a difference. It dries your clothes the same,” Montague says.

Montague also sees natural gas as an essential part of Virginia’s energy future. “The is not ready without the inclusion of natural gas,” she says. “I hope it doesn’t have to be either/or.”  

Out & About April 2024

1. L to R: Jennifer Smith-Brown, owner of J. Smith McDonald’s; My Lan Tran, executive director of the Virginia Asian Chamber of Commerce; Virginia Peninsula Community College President Towuanna Porter Brannon; Lauren Moore, vice president of communications and programming for the Greater Williamsburg Chamber of Commerce; and Gaby Lopez Rengifo, owner of One of a Kind Landscapes and Home Remodeling and founder of the Hispanic Chamber of Coastal Virginia, attended VPCC’s “Celebrating Women Forging Our Future” event on March 7. Photo courtesy VPCC. 2. L to R: Allen Brooks with Building Momentum, Regis DeVeaux with NerdsToGo – Alexandria, and Harrison Lee with Sikich spoke on Chamber ALX’s STEM & Cybersecurity panel during the chamber’s Feb. 16 CareerCon. Photo by Joshua Reed with Jason Dixson Photography. 3. Dr. An Barry Bui (standing behind sign to left, with beard and glasses) and his team at Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital were the first to treat a patient in Virginia with a new procedure for atrial fibrillation, the Medtronic PulseSelect Pulsed Field Ablation System, in late February. Photo courtesy Bon Secours. 4. Ashland Christian Emergency Services President Anthony Keitt (L) accepted an $8,000 donation to ACES from Sheehy Ford of Ashland, represented by General Manager Paul Bavely, on Feb. 15. Photo courtesy Sheehy Ford of Ashland. 5. L to R: Carol Barbe with Backflow Technology; John Mossgrove, Scott Longendyke and Shannon Priest with Merritt; and Loudoun Chamber Board Chair Angela Mitchell with ARM Consulting posed with the chamber’s 2024 Community Leadership Award, presented to Merritt in late February. Photo courtesy Loudoun Chamber.

Israeli defense giant launches Herndon aerospace accelerator

will soon have something in common with Tel Aviv — an aerospace and innovation center run by state-owned aerospace and company Aerospace Industries, which helped design Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

IAI and , its Herndon-based U.S. government contracting subsidiary, in cooperation with California- and Washington, D.C.-based Starburst Aerospace, a global startup accelerator and strategic advisory firm, are launching an accelerator and innovation center called IAI Catalyst.

IAI has an innovation center in Tel Aviv supporting Israeli . Starburst, which consults for NASA and NATO, has run similar programs in the United States and Europe, but this is the first time Starburst is partnering with IAI and IAI North America to run an accelerator. IAI has about 15,000 employees, about half of whom are engineers.

IAI Catalyst has recruited the first cohort of startups for its inaugural five-month accelerator program, supporting early-stage startups focused on sectors including artificial intelligence and autonomy; quantum science; sustainability and ; and space tech.

Applications for the first cohort — one of two planned for the year — closed in March, and four to six participating companies are expected to be announced in April. The spring program is expected to start the same month, with a demo day planned for September. The Herndon accelerator is open to companies nationwide.

“Our job will be to open all the doors for the startups, not just with IAI, but everybody that they can provide value to,” says Noemie Alliel, Starburst’s managing director for Israel.

Over five months, the cohort will attend three in-person, weeklong gatherings; at the beginning, midway and during the final week, when the companies will pitch in front of stakeholders. The rest of the program will be virtual.

Each selected company receives a $100,000 investment in exchange for equity, and another $100,000 worth of in-kind benefits such as access to IAI and Starburst’s networks of clients and partners, mentoring from industry experts, access to technology and free office space.

Innovation is a key focus at IAI, which feels it’s important to stay relevant and competitive in the marketplace, Alliel says, which is why it wants to work with startups.

“It will be like win-win opportunities for both IAI and startups to work hand-in-hand,” she says.