“The board extends immense gratitude to Jim for his visionary leadership,” Akhil Jain, chair of CHKD‘s board of directors, said in a statement. “His tenure marked an era of critical expansion for the health system, improving access to pediatric services and aligning CHKD with major shifts in the delivery of health care.”
Amy Sampson, CHKD’s senior vice president and chief engagement and innovation officer, will succeed Dahling, who will retire in 2023, but a transition date has not yet been set.
The leadership structure of the health system will also change. Dr. Christopher Foley, vice president and chief of medicine, is being promoted to chief clinical operations officer, a new position that will replace the chief operating officer. Dahling, Sampson and Foley will work together over the next several months toward the transition.
Dahling came to CHKD in 1994 as vice president and chief operating officer and became president and CEO in 2003, overseeing the expansion of CHKD’s outpatient services to multiservice health and surgery centers throughout Hampton Roads, according to a news release from CHKD.
Sampson
Dahling worked as senior vice president of Richmond Memorial Hospital from 1987 until 1993 and prior to that, held senior management positions at hospitals in Texas and Minnesota. He serves on several state and regional boards, including the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association and Virginia Beach Vision.
“It has been a privilege to lead this organization,” Dahling said in a statement. “CHKD is a remarkable family of extraordinary clinicians, surrounded by exceptional team members and bolstered by our King’s Daughters and volunteers, all of whom are steadfast in their dedication to doing what is best and right for children. I am in awe of their compassion, their commitment to excellence, and their resilience, and I am confident they will continue to grow and flourish with Amy’s insightful and inspirational leadership, and Chris’ knowledge and experience of clinical operations.”
CHKD opened the Children’s Pavilion for inpatient psychiatric care in October.
This year, CHKD opened a 14-story, $224 million Children’s Pavilion in Norfolk to house outpatient mental health care, primary care pediatrics, sports medicine, and laboratory and radiology services. The hospital made a dozen inpatient beds available initially, and another 48 will be open in a phased approach through mid-2023. Outpatient services began in April and the hospital opened for inpatient care in the fall. When fully operational, the Children’s Pavilion will admit about 2,500 children for inpatient care every year, provide 48,000 outpatient therapy appointments annually, and add 400 new jobs to the Hampton Roads area, according to CHKD.
Sampson joined CHKD in 1990 and has been part of the health system’s leadership team. She helped develop CHKD’s mental health initiative, spearheading efforts to secure government approval and financial backing for the Children’s Pavilion, according to a news release. She has also guided the development of the hospital’s mental health program. Additionally, she has overseen strategic planning, government relations, marketing and communications, philanthropy services, community outreach, experience services, the donor milk bank, call center and volunteer services.
Foley came to CHKD in 1996 as a pediatric intensive care specialist. He has also served as chief of the division of pediatric critical care and medical director of CHKD’s pediatric intensive care unit, pharmacy and critical care transport. He became chief medical officer in 2015.
A German-inspired restaurant in Richmond canceled a reservation for a conservative political organization’s private event last week, saying in a statement posted online Thursday night that the decision was made to protect their staff, many of whom are women and/or part of the LGBTQ community. The Family Foundation, the organization that had made the reservation, opposes same-sex marriage and abortion, among other positions.
Metzger Bar and Butchery, in Richmond’s Union Hill neighborhood, posted a statement Thursday night on Instagram about the decision to cancel the Family Foundation’s reservation Wednesday. “Metzger Bar and Butchery has always prided itself on being an inclusive environment for people to dine in,” the restaurant said in the statement. “In eight years of service, we have very rarely refused service to anyone who wished to dine with us. Recently we refused service to a group that had booked an event with us after the owners of Metzger found out it was a group of donors to a political organization that seeks to deprive women and LGBTQ+ persons of their basic human rights in Virginia.”
Family Foundation President Victoria Cobb wrote in a blog post Thursday that the foundation’s vice president of operations got a call from Metzger about an hour and a half before the 7 p.m. Wednesday reservation notifying her of the cancellation.
“One of the restaurant’s owners called our team to cancel the event,” Cobb wrote in the post, which linked to Metzger’s Yelp page. “As our VP of operations explained that guests were arriving at their restaurant shortly, she asked for an explanation. Sure enough, an employee looked up our organization, and their waitstaff refused to serve us.”
Victoria Cobb, president of The Family Foundation of Virginia, speaks at a March for Life rally in April 2019. Photo courtesy Family Foundation of Virginia
In an interview Friday with Virginia Business, Cobb said her colleague, Erica Hanko, had reserved the private room at least a week or two earlier for a dessert event for about 15 to 20 people. On Wednesday at about 5:30 p.m., Cobb said, Hanko was on her way to the restaurant to check the room’s seating when she received a call from a Metzger representative who said they had to cancel, without explaining why. “She was honestly thinking, ‘Is this a COVID thing?'” because of the abrupt cancellation, Cobb said.
After Hanko asked the restaurant for the reason of the cancellation, Cobb said that she was told that a member of the waitstaff found out that the reservation was for the Family Foundation “and they had a lot of gay waitstaff,” who were presumably opposed to some of the organization’s political stances, which have included opposition to same-sex marriage and support for gay conversion therapy.
“We have always refused service to anyone for making our staff uncomfortable or unsafe, and this was the driving force behind our decision,” Metzger said in its statement. “Many of our staff are women and/or members of the LGBTQ+ community. All of our staff are people with rights who deserve dignity and a safe work environment. We respect our staff’s established rights as humans and strive to create a work environment where they can do their jobs with dignity, comfort and safety.”
As of Friday, Yelp had disabled the ability for people to post comments on Metzger Bar and Butchery’s page after it received numerous negative reviews related to the incident, quickly followed by several positive reviewers attempting to counteract the one-star reviews.
“This business recently received increased public attention, which often means people come to this page to post their views on the news,” Yelp’s notice read. “While we don’t take a stand one way or the other when it comes to this incident, we’ve temporarily disabled the posting of content to this page as we work to investigate whether the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events.”
When asked about the negative Yelp reviews of the business, which included one poster’s vow to “never set foot in a restaurant that bows to progressive employees who refuse to serve Christians” and another who wrote, “I have learned that only certain types of people are welcome at Metzger’s,” Cobb said, “I hope that their tone and approach is honorable. Even food service has now been polarized. It’s just disappointing that we can’t have a meal together.”
Cobb added that a website design company declined to design her foundation’s website for political reasons, and the former provider of its customer relationship management software, EveryAction, which became part of new parent company Bonterra in March, canceled the foundation’s contract, forcing the foundation to move its databases to a different system. “While many who hold the same beliefs may not experience this directly yet, we recognize we are on the tip of the spear,” Cobb wrote in her blog post.
Metzger co-owner and former “Top Chef” competitor Brittanny Anderson did not respond to messages Friday seeking further comment, but the restaurant’s Instagram account posted a photo Friday of a drink named “Cracks in the Foundation,” along with the announcement that it would donate all proceeds of the cocktail’s sales Friday to LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Virginia. “We are so grateful to our many guests and neighbors for their support the past few days!” the post read.
Cobb said Friday that Hanko was able to find another restaurant to seat her guests, all of whom were from the Richmond area. She declined to name that restaurant to shelter it from criticism, but said that it “happily accommodated us. We live in a free market, [so] we took our business elsewhere.”
Civil rights pioneer weighs in
In her blog post, Cobb mentioned an earlier instance in which a group was refused service — the 1960 Thalhimers department store lunch counter sit-in by 34 Black Virginia Union University students protesting racial segregation in Jim Crow-era Richmond. Cobb argued in her blog post that “people who likely consider themselves ‘progressives’” — meaning Metzger’s owners — are attempting to “recreate an environment from the 1950s and early ’60s, when people were denied food service due to their race. … Welcome to the double standard of the left.”
The 1960 Thalhimers lunch counter sit-in protesters, known as the Richmond 34, were arrested for trespassing and were recognized last year by the Virginia General Assembly for their enduring impact as part of the 20th-century Southern civil rights movement.
Elizabeth Johnson Rice, now an 82-year-old retired teacher living in Chesterfield County, was a member of the Richmond 34. She said the situation surrounding the Family Foundation and Metzger is somewhat different than the sit-in, one of numerous nonviolent protests conducted in the 1950s and ’60s to oppose racial discrimination against Black people. Those protests often led to arrests, violence against protesters and sometimes deaths.
On Feb. 22, 1960, Rice and her fellow protesters were arrested and charged with trespassing, taken to jail and then released on bail. In March 1960, they were all convicted of trespassing and fined $20 each, but the students all appealed the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the store owners’ right to forgo service. Ultimately, in 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a repeal of the 34 students’ convictions in a victory for the civil rights movement.
“We were going for equal justice for all,” Rice said Friday. “We were trespassing because we didn’t get service. [As Black people], if we wanted to eat anything [from Thalhimers’ lunch counter], we had to go into the alley and knock on the little door. That was really Jim Crow.”
Rice said that she still believes in equal rights for everyone today, including the right to marry someone of the same sex, but at the same time, she feels the Family Foundation party was “not being treated fairly” by Metzger Bar and Butchery. “Their reservation should be honored in 2022.”
Restaurants have provided an occasional backdrop to the culture wars playing out in recent years, as some Trump-era White House officials were refused service or targeted by protesters while dining out. In the aftermath of such incidents, social media can amplify the political polarization and lead to prolonged problems for business owners and staff members.
But that incident — which eventually was recounted by President Donald Trump’s Twitter account and numerous national news outlets — led to months of hate mail and doxxing of the Red Hen’s owner, Stephanie Wilkinson. The restaurant’s Yelp reviews reflected the political divide.
In a phone interview Friday, Wilkinson said that although she wasn’t familiar with the particulars of the Metzger situation, “my feeling about the role of privately owned businesses following their moral conscience has not changed,” and she did not regret her decision to refuse service to Sanders, who was elected Arkansas’ first woman governor in November.
She said that her decision was based not specifically on Sanders’ political views; “it was about actions we found reprehensible.” (At the time, Wilkinson had cited Sanders’ support for Trump positions such as separating migrant children from their parents, as well as opposition to transgender people serving in the military.) Similarly, if Metzger’s owners and staff found the Family Foundation’s actions “morally repugnant,” Wilkinson said, “I think I agree with them” in their refusal to serve the organization at the restaurant.
But Wilkinson also posited a hypothetical scenario: If a different business’s owners objected to a political group or individual’s stance supporting abortion access and refused them service on that basis, she couldn’t object on moral grounds, even though Wilkinson personally supports the right to abortion.
In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court partially agreed with a bakery owner’s assertion that he could refuse a client service based on his religious convictions.
In 2012, the owner of a Colorado bakery refused to make a cake for the marriage of a gay couple based on his Christian beliefs. The couple filed a complaint to the state’s civil rights commission, which led to a lawsuit that reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019. The high court ruled 7-2 that the commission did not employ religious neutrality, violating baker Jack Phillips’ right to free exercise, although the court did not rule on broader issues like anti-discrimination laws, free exercise of religion and freedom of speech. Phillips is back in court now, having refused to bake a cake for a transgender woman’s transition celebration.
However, a case heard Monday by the Supreme Court — in which a Colorado graphic artist objects to designing websites for gay couples’ weddings on religious grounds — could have an impact. Critics say a ruling in the artist’s favor could lead to businesses discriminating against people based on race, religion or other factors.
“The hospitality industry is very tricky,” added Wilkinson, who opened The Red Hen in 2008 and has lived in Lexington for nearly 30 years. For customers, she said, a restaurant “feels like it ought to be part of a refuge. When these things happen, people have a visceral feeling of rejection. It feels like being booted out of your relative’s house.” And for employees, “it’s not just their job. There’s often this sense that [it’s] a family.”
The Red Hen continues to feel an impact from the Sanders incident, she said, with staff still fielding occasional “nasty messages” and the restaurant requiring a specialized reservation system that helps prevent nuisance reservations meant to keep real diners away. But also, Wilkinson says, “we continue to have people travel insane distances” to dine at the restaurant, and no longer does she “live and die by yesterday’s Yelp reviews and Google reviews. I’m liberated from having to look at that.”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin will propose allocating a new $350 million investment for industrial site development next week, the governor said in a speech delivered Friday at the Virginia Chamber‘s Virginia Economic Summit & Forum on International Trade.
In the 2022-24 budget, which Youngkin signed in June, the state allocated $150 million for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership’s Virginia Business Ready Sites program, which would also receive the proposed $350 million. If approved by the General Assembly in its 2023 session, the new allocation would bring the state’s total recent investments for site development to $500 million.
“To support the recruitment of high-growth companies, and to enhance Virginia’s ability to win, the commonwealth requires massive investment to create project-ready sites,” Youngkin said.
“I want ‘made in America’ to mean ‘made in Virginia,’” Youngkin said.
From 2016 to September 2022, Virginia missed out on more than 52,000 jobs and $120 billion in capital expenditures at least in part because companies were unable to find acceptable ready-to-build locations in the commonwealth, according to a September analysis by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership.
Within that shortage, Virginia lacks large, 250-or-more-acre sites that can attract megaprojects. From January 2015 through September 2022, 121 new industrial projects requiring an estimated 250 or more acres were announced in the Southeast U.S., according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. Combined, those projects generated more than $25 billion in capital expenditures and an estimated 58,000 jobs. But Virginia won just one of those 121 projects — the planned $1 billion Lego Group factory in Chesterfield County, expected to create more than 1,760 jobs.
“We are behind. We are not closing the gap, and those most competitive states continue to pull away,” Youngkin said Friday.
Virginia currently has two megasites. The 3,528-acre Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill, owned by the Danville-Pittsylvania County Regional Industrial Facilities Authority, has 1,900 acres that are easily developable and is pad-ready. And in Chesapeake, the City Council approved the rezoning of the 1,420-acre Coastal Virginia Commerce Park, which will allow development to begin once the Chesapeake Economic Development Association purchases the property.
In early November, Site Selection magazine named Virginia No. 1 in its 2022 Business Climate Rankings, a jump from 10th place.
During his speech Friday, Youngkin also spoke on other aspects of state competition, including state tax structures and workforce development.
“Competing to win starts with taxes, and that’s both corporate and individual taxes,” he said.
He touted Virginia’s 2022-24 budget, which provided $4 billion in tax cuts, including an increase in the standard income tax deduction and the elimination of the statewide grocery tax, although not the local levy. “I am committed to do even more. Otherwise, we will find ourselves relegated with those high-tax, high-cost states that are being left behind,” Youngkin said.
Youngkin’s administration also is working to restructure the way government delivers workforce support, he said, by consolidating workforce development programs, which includes the community college system: “Workforce development is currently spread out over six Cabinet secretaries, 12 state agencies, 25 workforce programs with over 1,500 training programs, spending roughly $485 million in federal and state resources.”
“Our upcoming budget,” he said, “will prioritize expanding these career pathways for students by launching multiple dual-enrollment acceleration programs in partnership with our community colleges and local schools,” so that more students, and eventually all Virginia students, can graduate with industry-recognized credentials.
As the U.S. moves to a short-labor environment, it will be necessary for businesses, governments and nonprofits to reassess their approach to labor, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President and CEOTom Barkin said Friday in Richmond.
Speaking at the Virginia Chamber‘s 2022 Virginia Economic Summit and Forum on International Trade, Barkin said that although the nation’s unemployment rate has dropped back to levels last seen before the pandemic, workforce participation has not risen to pre-pandemic numbers. In November, the national participation rate was at 62.1%, down from 63.4% in February 2020.
Although the Fed has increased interest rates by 0.75 points four times this year to address the 40-year-high inflation rate, that did not dampen job growth. The U.S. added 263,000 jobs in November, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll numbers released Friday. That’s about three times the break-even level of workforce growth, meaning the U.S. is still adding jobs faster than workers, Barkin explained.
“The result has been historic labor market tightness,” he said, particularly in skilled trades. The labor shortage, in turn, has contributed to inflation, Barkin said. The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, which measures the changes in the prices of goods and services compared to the same month a year ago, was at 6% overall in October, a near 40-year high.
“The unmatched outcome is fewer workers that would constrain our growth and pressure inflation — unless and until businesses and governments can deliver productivity enhancements [and] restructure incentives to bring more workers into the workforce,” he said.
By contrast, businesses had adapted to the growing labor force the U.S. experienced for decades, benefitting from the post-World War II baby boom, as well as other factors such as more women entering the workforce, more college-educated workers, better health allowing workers to live longer and historically high immigration levels. Businesses also benefitted from increased access to low-cost offshore labor over the past several decades.
Now, however, businesses must adapt to a labor shortage, Barkin said. “Employers are reconsidering working conditions, revising schedules and redesigning jobs to better match worker preferences.” Some, he noted, are partnering with community colleges to attract skilled trades workers.
Businesses also are taking active roles in reducing barriers to work by providing child care or housing support.
Within the Fed’s Fifth District (which includes Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Maryland), a steel company has hired full-time recruiters and started its own soft-skills training program, and a poultry provider has dropped drug tests and background checks from its hiring process, he said.
Although the labor shortage has led some businesses to raise pay to meet market demands, workers still could be vulnerable, Barkin noted. Employers who raise pay will demand higher productivity or raise prices, which will lessen demand and, eventually, jobs. The U.S. could also see an increase in offshoring and automation that reduces staffing needs.
Learning from others
Governments and nonprofits should consider playing a role in broadening the labor supply, exploring policies that encourage workforce participation and preparation, Barkin said.
Case studies from other countries show possibilities. In 2000, Canada and the U.S. had similar percentages of women participating in the labor force. Now, Canada’s women labor participation has risen five points, while the U.S. has seen a decline of one percentage point. In 2020, the U.S. women’s labor force participation rate was at 56.2%.
Declining availability of child care led directly to some mothers leaving the U.S. workforce during the pandemic, according to a report released in April by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with 58% of all parents saying they left jobs because they couldn’t find or afford child care. Flexible work arrangements could ease pressure on parents, Barkin said, citing research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Another factor in the U.S.’s labor shortage is a decrease in workers ages 55 and above, which had a higher labor force participation rate in February 2020 than they do today. If that population was at the February 2020 rate today, there would be 1.4 million more older workers.
The U.S. has an employment-to-population ratio of 56% for adults ages 60 to 64. In Japan, though, the employment-to-population ratio for workers ages 60 to 64 is at 70%, a 19.3-percentage-point rise from 2000. Some of this depends on overall better health among the Japanese population, but an end to mandatory retirement at certain ages and the addition of training programs for employers hoping to hire and retain senior workers have also helped, Barkin said.
Meanwhile, limits on immigration during the pandemic have caused a 500,000-person decline in prime working age immigrants in the U.S., Barkin said, an issue he thinks the federal government should address. “It’s worth exploring things like increased legal immigration, which would bring those with skills, work ethic and entrepreneurship into our workforce.”
In short, it’s time for businesses, governments and even economists to reassess what they think they know about the labor market, Barkin said. “Increasingly, I worry that we’re moving to an environment where labor is short and not long. The situation can be managed — other countries have proven that — but it requires real intentionality.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect the correct rise in Japan’s employment-to-population ratio increase among those ages 60 to 64 from 2000.
Under the contract, SAIC will manage and support operations and modernization of the command’s IT systems and applications. The work includes classified and unclassified programs on multiple networks and security domains and will be performed at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.
Under the contract, funds will be obligated on individual ask orders and the period of performance is from Dec. 1, 2022, to Nov. 30, 2027.
USTRANSCOM is one of 11 combatant commands and supports the 10 others as well as the military services, defense agencies and government organizations by coordinating missions with transportation resources.
SAIC employs more than 25,000 people and reported $7.4 billion in revenue in fiscal 2022.
Officials will break ground at the casino’s permanent home at the former Bristol Mall, at 500 Gate City Highway in Bristol on Dec. 7, the casino announced Thursday.
The $400 million permanent casino, set to open in July 2024, will replace a 30,000-square-foot temporary venue that opened in the former Belk store at the Bristol Mall in July.
The permanent casino will include a 3,200-seat performance venue and a 20,000-person capacity outdoor entertainment venue. The casino will be open 24/7 and is expected to generate about 1,200 to 1,500 jobs.
The Hard Rock casino’s local co-developers, Jim McGlothlin, chairman of The United Co., and Par Ventures LLC President Clyde Stacy, were instrumental in changing state gambling laws to allow casinos in economically challenged Virginia cities. McGlothlin is the 2022 Virginia Business Person of the Year.
The casino is one of four currently planned in the state. Rivers Casino Portsmouth announced last month that it will open to the public Jan. 15. Proposed casinos are also underway in Danville and Norfolk.
Tysons-based consultancy LMI has acquired Colorado Springs, Colorado-based Synaptech, according to a news release.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Synaptech creates digital engineering, modeling and simulation software for the national security and space industries.
“LMI is thrilled to be entering the fast-paced, growing space market by acquiring Synaptech, which protects our nation’s national security assets and provides senior leaders with physics-backed decisional options,” LMI President and CEO Doug Wagoner said in a statement.
Founded in 2015, Synaptech’s proprietary software, Rapid Analysis and Prototyping Toolkit for Resiliency, or RAPTR, provides scalable architecture for modeling, simulation, analysis and visualization for the space warfighting domain, as well as cross-domain warfare integration. The acquisition will better position both companies to innovate and support the missions of their Department of Defense customers, LMI said.
“LMI and Synaptech share the same vision, culture and passion for creating innovative, mission-focused solutions that make this partnership a perfect match. The combination of LMI’s incredible talent, resources and rich history of proven performance throughout the Department of Defense paired with Synaptech’s knowledge and extensive experience in the space domain will yield tremendous results for our customers within the national security space industry for years to come,” Synaptech CEO Zac Gorrell and Chief Technology Officer Elias Peroulas said in a statement.
Gorrell and Peroulas co-founded Synaptic and will lead LMI’s space business moving forward. Its approximately 60 employees will remain in Colorado.
Founded in 1961, LMI provides IT, analytics, logistics and management advisory services to federal clients. The company was originally formed to support the Department of Defense’s logistics management.
“We are excited to welcome Synaptech’s employees, the best and brightest in the space industry, to the LMI team where they will find colleagues just as passionate about applying technology to solve our nation’s greatest challenges,” Wagoner said. “Chartered by President Kennedy in 1961 at the dawn of the space race, it is fitting that LMI is now entering the space marketplace to support a renewed space race where adversaries seek to disrupt and disable our dominance in space.”
“To help our customers innovate at the pace of need, one must understand all discreet and interdependent operational domains from the sea floor and sea surface, to ground, air, cyber and space” Wagoner added. The acquisition of Synaptech enables LMI total multidomain awareness at scale.”
The economy in the Federal Reserve’s Fifth District (a multistate region including Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Maryland) has expanded slightly since October, according to the latest edition of the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, released Wednesday.
Published eight times per year, the Beige Book is based on anecdotal information about economic conditions gathered from the 12 Federal Reserve Banks. It is compiled from reports by bank and branch directors, as well as information gathered from business contacts, economists, market experts and other sources.
Here’s what the Nov. 30 Beige Book edition revealed about the direction the economy is taking:
Manufacturing activity in the Fifth District slowed mildly as new orders and backlogs declined but shipments stayed flat. Vendor lead times declined, indicating supply chain backlogs were easing.
Travel and tourism increased moderately, and air travel is expected to increase over the holidays. Retail spending increased modestly from October’s report. Residential and commercial real estate market activity slowed.
Respondents in the ports and transportation sector indicated that volumes were beginning to decline, with overall loaded freight shipments down at Fifth District ports. Loaded exports continued down while import volumes were flat or up slightly, led by furniture, sporting goods and heavy equipment.
Dwell times at the ports declined, reducing congestion and lowering storage fees. Spot rates from Asia to East Coast ports decreased 33% from last period but remained above the pre-pandemic rates, according to the Fed.
Trucking firms reported a slight decrease in freight volumes, in line with the normal seasonal slowdown. Industrial customers’ demand remained strong while retail volumes declined. Trucking respondents reported that they weren’t hiring drivers because their existing workforce could manage current volumes.
The cost of new equipment increased substantially, firms reported, and new truck tractors and trailers were still backordered by about a year.
Employment in the Fifth District increased modestly, and many firms reported unfilled positions. The majority said they were increasing wages for new and existing staff by more than they had in previous years. Companies reported difficulty finding skilled workers.
Prices grew robustly, with manufacturers and service sector companies reporting strong year-over-year price growth in both input and customer prices.
Retailers reported modest sales and revenue growth and increasing inventory. Used vehicle sales increased moderately as prices began to drop, but new vehicle sales stayed low due to low inventory levels, rising prices and higher borrowing costs.
Housing demand slowed as buyer traffic and listings declined. Days on the market and inventory increased but remained below normal levels. High interest rates and low inventory led to fewer pending and closed sales, according to respondents. Prices stayed consistent, but sellers reported offering concessions such as temporary rate buydowns or paying closing costs.
New home construction slowed and builders stopped buying new lots because of high building costs and economic uncertainty. New commercial real estate projects slowed due to rising interest rates and higher construction costs, as well as supply chain disruptions and labor shortages.
In the commercial real estate market, the retail, office and industrial sectors had higher vacancy rates this period, although Class A office space activity remained strong as companies sought to entice employees to return to the office.
Demand for commercial and residential loans decreased moderately in the face of rising interest rates. Higher input costs also weakened commercial loan demand. Deposit growth slowed as customers searched elsewhere for higher yields.
A subsidiary of Reston-based Noblis Inc. has received a contract worth up to $187 million to provide command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance engineering services to the Navy, according to a news release.
Noblis’ mission solutions for defense subsidiary will provide end-to-end engineering services to the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific Network Integration Engineering Facility’s C4ISR systems. The work spans system research and design through deployment and life-cycle support under a prime five-year indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity single-award contract.
“This award is a testament to our strong technical and engineering capabilities,” said Lori Ventimiglia, Noblis MSD division vice president, in a statement. “We’re honored and excited for this significant opportunity to apply our unique expertise to the many programs the NIWC Pacific NIEF provides to benefit the U.S. Navy and the military.”
Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific provides technical and engineering support to information warfare programs for the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Army and Coast Guard.
Noblis MSD is hiring for the work under the contract in San Diego. Noblis is a not-for-profit corporation that delivers technical and advisory strategies and solutions to federal government clients.
Indian pharmaceutical company Granules India Ltd. will invest $12.5 million to establish a pharmaceutical packaging operation in Prince William County, creating 57 jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Wednesday.
Headquartered in Hyderabad, India, Granules India manufactures active pharmaceutical ingredients and other related products, including acetaminophen, ibuprofen and guaifenesin, the main ingredient in Mucinex. Granules India serves brand and generic drug companies in more than 75 countries and has eight manufacturing facilities around the world. It has an existing pharmaceutical research and development facility in Fairfax with 130 employees.
Granules India will lease 79,000 square feet of the Parkway 66 property at 7413 Cushing Road in Manassas. It will build out packaging lines and clean rooms to package and ship products. The facility will be part of the company’s consumer health division, which was previously outsourced.
“Virginia continues to attract pharmaceutical manufacturing, and Granules India’s new packaging operation in Prince William County is an important addition to the pharmaceutical ecosystem in the commonwealth,” Youngkin said in a statement.“The company’s decision to expand its footprint in Virginia is a testament to our infrastructure and robust workforce, and we look forward to further development of this partnership.”
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Prince William County to secure the project. Former Gov. Ralph Northam approved a $200,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist Prince William County with the project.
“The addition of a U.S. packaging facility will result in Granules being among the few pharmaceutical companies to be vertically integrated from API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) to packaging, which will bolster the robustness of Granules’ supply chain while also enabling the company to react even faster to consumers’ growing needs for pharmaceutical products,” said Krishna Prasad Chigurupati, Granules’ founder, chairman and managing director. “The company chose Virginia because of Prince William County’s responsiveness, which allowed Granules faster access to commercialization. In addition, Prince William offers a dynamic and diverse workforce that is eager to work along with the site’s proximity to several major seaports. Granules also chose to expand within Virginia to leverage its existing manufacturing footprint and workforce.”
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11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
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