Henrico isn’t the new Ashburn, but the county does have 18% of the East Coast’s internet traffic coursing through it. That’s a product of QTS Data Centers‘ network access point (NAP) at Henrico’s White Oak Technology Park, which connects to three subsea internet cables from Europe and South America that converge in Virginia Beach.
In November, Henrico played host to the Internet Ecosystem Innovation Committee’s second in-person Global NAP Summit, which convened data center executives from across the globe to discuss internet infrastructure, data centers and cybersecurity. There also was a ribbon-cutting ceremony for DE-CIX Richmond, part of North America’s largest carrier- and data center-neutral internet exchange. Based at White Oak in Henrico’s Sandston area, it’s been active since December 2021, connecting to more than 3,000 networks, 23 countries, 500-plus data centers and 39 internet exchanges.
Although internet carriers like Cloudflare and Limelight have their own internet exchanges, neutral internet exchanges have a larger field of potential customers — likely leading to more jobs and tax revenue locally, says Vinay Nagpal, president of InterGlobix LLC and executive director of the IEIC.
Neutrality matters, says Ed d’Agostino, vice president and general manager of DE-CIX North America. “Data center neutrality allows us to cooperate with virtually every data center. Carrier neutrality lets us partner and interconnect with [carriers]. If they didn’t see us as neutral, they wouldn’t cooperate with us.”
“You aren’t favoring one group or another, but you’re providing equal access to the infrastructure,” explains Tag Greason, chief hyperscale officer at QTS. DE-CIX Richmond and QTS’ NAP, which connects to the MAREA cable from Spain, the Dunant cable from France and the BRUSA cable from Brazil and Puerto Rico, are significant parts of the burgeoning Henrico hub.
In July, QTS announced a 1.5 million-square-foot expansion in Henrico to increase capacity, set to be completed in 2024. QTS will also be adding to its NAP’s capacity to carry traffic as more subsea cables come in through Virginia Beach, as expected.
Nagpal says Meta Platforms Inc., which has a 970,000-square-foot Facebook data center at White Oak, could become even more important to the region’s economy, with future growth a strong possibility.
“The demand at this point is very high,” Greason adds. “The economy is becoming more digitized. There is no doubt in my mind that Henrico County can be just as important as [New York or New Jersey].”
Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart PC, Richmond
Title: Equity shareholder
Education: Bachelor’s degree, University of Virginia; law degree and MBA, University of Richmond
Family: My lovely and very active toddler, Isadora, and partner, John Hennon
Career mentors: My mom, who showed me that being true to myself and good to others will always guide me in the right direction; my law partner, Jimmy F. Robinson Jr., my consummate champion and exemplar attorney; and former law colleagues Steve D. Brown and Charlie G. Meyer, who helped raise me from a baby lawyer to a burgeoning partner.
Bingeworthy TV show: “Seinfeld” — fan for life
Favorite dish: Pizza — from cheap New York slices to artisan pies, it never disappoints.
How did the pandemic affect employment law? Job security and the pandemic do not go hand in hand, but for labor and employment lawyers, we were at the forefront of every question from 2020 through today. From advising on hiring and retaining talent during the Great Resignation, requests to “work from anywhere” (think Paris), vaccine mandate issues and broadening the scope of diversity, equity and inclusion, I continue to partner with employers to survive and thrive in uncertain times.
You have an MBA in addition to your law degree. How has that proved useful to you in working with your clients? Understanding business operations and providing practical solutions is key as an employment lawyer. My MBA enhances my ability to be business-savvy, nimble and advise on a broader level beyond the legal perspective.
Education: Bachelor’s degree, Georgetown University; law degree, George Washington University; master of laws, University of Miami
Family: My spouse, Ian Bolden (also a lawyer, but a different kind), and my step-daughter
Career mentors: My colleagues Tom Campbell and Tom Yates, who have taught me so much about the law, people and life
Hobbies: Right now, I have some plants I’m trying to keep alive, and I’m jogging a little more often than I bake (and eat) sugary treats.
Your dream client: Nice people. The rest doesn’t matter.
What do you consider the biggest challenge in assisting clients with estate planning? Not having unlimited time to get to know my clients, understand their needs and goals, help them understand all their options and make sure they understand how their estate plan works.
Your bio says you decided to become of counsel in pursuit of work-life balance. What led you to make that decision? A few months into the pandemic, I realized my work had become my life. So, I did some soul searching, got a life outside of work and changed my work to fit my life. It’s all going wonderfully!
The top five most-read daily news stories on VirginiaBusiness.com from Oct. 14 to Nov. 14 included an announcement of the acquisition of Charlottesville-based WillowTree Inc., which was founded in 2008 as a mobile app developer.
A subsidiary of the Fortune 500 insurer settled with plaintiffs who alleged their life insurance policies were subject to unlawful cost of insurance increases. (Oct. 18)
Petersburg City Council took a gamble on the Maryland-based developer to build a
casino there — even though the city doesn’t yet have General Assembly permission
to build one. (Oct. 19)
These are the Virginians who feed and delight us, nourishing body, mind and soul through arts and entertainment, food and beverage, hospitality, media and sports.
Victoria Cimino CEO, Visit Williamsburg Williamsburg
Victoria Cimino came to Williamsburg in 2019 from New Hampshire, where she also directed a tourism development office.
Visit Williamsburg, also known as the Williamsburg Tourism Council, was created by the General Assembly in 2018. Leading a new destination marketing organization would have been challenging on its own, but then the pandemic hit. “Visit Williamsburg quickly shifted its focus to serve as a hospitality industry information hub, while continuing to refine a long-term marketing strategy,” Cimino says. “We were building the plane while we were flying it.”
In March, the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association (HSMAI) recognized Cimino as one of its 2021 Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Optimization.
photo by SmartShot Photography
Cashe’ Clark Owner, head baker and decorator, Confection Queens Chesapeake
Cashe’ Clark hoped to walk away with $10,000 in prize money to help her open a brick-and-mortar bakery after her appearance on the Food Network’s “Holiday Baking Championship: Gingerbread Showdown” in November 2021.
While she didn’t win, Clark’s business, Confection Queens, is continuing online, with a focus on wedding desserts, and she’s also building a catering business, Cuisine King 757, with her boyfriend, Deshawn Thompson.
A middle school career- skills class led Clark to cake baking, and she’s hopeful for another shot at an appearance on television. As to whether a storefront is in the future, she’s not sure.
“I’m just such a carefree person, that whatever comes my way is going to happen or whatever is meant for me is going to happen,” she says.
Allie Evangelista President, Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Bristol Bristol
A newcomer to Southwest Virginia, Allie Evangelista hails from Brazil and runs the state’s first casino, which opened in July in a temporary space at the former Bristol Mall. Although new to Hard Rock, which plans to open the permanent Bristol hotel and casino in 2024, Evangelista has worked in the gaming industry since 2006, starting as an assistant slot operations manager in Missouri. Her most recent position was vice president and general manager of Hollywood Casino Perryville in Maryland. Evangelista is busy hiring casino employees, meeting people and making local connections. “I love living here,” she says. “I always heard about Southern hospitality, but I never saw what it was about until I moved here.”
BK Fulton Chairman and CEO, Soulidifly Productions LLC Richmond
When BK Fulton worked as an executive for Verizon Communications Inc., he wasn’t sure what exactly his next chapter would entail. “I wanted to leave a legacy,” he says.
As a student at Virginia Tech, Fulton struggled until he stumbled upon books about significant figures in African American history. Reading about the achievements of Americans who looked like him, Fulton says, put his life “on rocket boosters.”
Fulton wondered what would happen if he began telling similar stories on the big screen. And so, in 2017, he founded Soulidifly Productions, a media company that produces and invests in films, television and theater productions and books. Recently, Fulton served as executive producer on “The Kill Room,” a comedy-thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson that’s currently in post-production.
Rick Hammerly, Todd Norris and Desirée Roots Artistic directors, Virginia Repertory Theatre Richmond
In May, Richmond’s venerable professional theater company named a trifecta of artistic directors. Desirée Roots, a beloved musical theater star who has a 30-year association with Virginia Rep, became the theater’s community director in 2021. This spring, she was joined by Rick Hammerly, the Rep’s artistic director of programming, and Todd Norris, artistic director of education. In October, Virginia Rep bought the Scottish Rite Temple in Richmond for $3.5 million as a home for its family theater, a move that creates “endless opportunities for new programming for youth and families,” Roots says. Norris notes that there will be a full 2023-24 season of family-friendly performances there, plus an expansion of spring break and summer offerings for children. Meanwhile, at its downtown November Theatre, the Rep’s 2023-24 Signature Season slate will include a Carole King musical and “After December,” a play by Richmond writer Bo Wilson that will be directed by Hammerly.
photo by Kevin Remington
Douglas “Doug” Harwood
Publisher and editor, The Rockbridge Advocate
Lexington
Since March 1992, Doug Harwood has published The Rockbridge Advocate, a “stubbornly provincial” and proudly print-only monthly paper. Harwood’s also proud of his investigative coverage, including of a young man’s murder at Western State Hospital, and of his local history coverage, such as the story of a 10-year-old enslaved boy sentenced to hang for burning his master’s barn. “These events that happen now are just ripples in this great story of humanity,” Harwood explains. As a child, he rummaged through old family documents in steamer trunks — now, he says, he rummages around the courthouse. A musician as well as a wordsmith, he played percussion in bands in the ’70s and early ’80s, and he’s run “The Anti-Headache Machine” music radio show from Washington & Lee since 1971.
Photo by Midnight Media Co.
Raeesah Islam Founder and director, Utopia Feni Inc. Virginia Beach
After graduating from the London College of Fashion and visiting Bangladesh, Raeesah Islam developed meningitis. Once she recovered, Islam felt she needed to rediscover her inspiration. In 2015, she started her nonprofit, which established an art school in the city of Feni in Bangladesh, where her father is from. “But giving art shows out here, I realized that there’s an equal need out here for creative outlets,” Islam says. Utopia Feni has a gallery in Virginia Beach, but it also launched the #VAweloveyou campaign in 2020, putting light and music shows on Instagram Live, organizing protests and otherwise connecting people. The nonprofit partnered with several businesses in 2022 to launch the three-day “Where the Heart Is” festival in Virginia Beach, which it plans to hold annually. Islam also spoke on a panel during Pharrell Williams‘ Mighty Dream forum in early November.
Todd Jennings Columnist, Galax Gazette Hillsville
In October, Todd Jennings took a coonskin cap and a razor blade to work, proclaiming himself Shave-y Crockett. Although his full-time job is with the town of Hillsville’s wastewater treatment plant, Jennings has been writing humor columns for the Galax Gazette for eight years, and for The Roanoke Times’ website before that. “They call me Mr. Post-it Note at work,” he says, because he’s always writing down ideas. Those notes eventually go into a running “ideas folder” that spans several manila folders he plans to digitize. Jennings’ favorite column is one he wrote about vowels — he investigated how “w” got into the phrase, “a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y and w.” Teachers wrote to him to say they were using the column in their classes, he says.
Tara Jensen Author, baker, teacher Loudoun County
What does a good life look like? For baker Tara Jensen, that may be less of a question than a pursuit. Bon Appétit took note of Jensen’s journey in 2016 — she was running her own bakery in North Carolina — and a profile in that magazine led to her first book, “A Baker’s Year: Twelve Months of Baking and Living the Simple Life at the Smoke Signals Bakery.” In 2021, Southern Living magazine named Jensen its cook of the year; her second book, “Flour Power: The Practice and Pursuit of Baking Sourdough,” dropped in August.
After three years in Wise County, Jensen and her family settled on her husband’s family’s farm in Hamilton in western Loudoun County in March. There, she hopes to grow and mill wheat and establish an educational center. The good life now includes teaching workshops and writing about baking.
Photo by Don Petersen
Heather Krantz and Dylan Locke Co-owners, The Floyd Country Store Floyd
Husband-and-wife team Dylan Locke and Heather Krantz bought The Floyd Country Store — a combo music venue, grocery store and deli — in 2014, and have expanded it to include a music school and musical instruments store. Amid the pandemic in 2020, the couple kept the store’s 30-year tradition of Friday Night Jamborees going, with performers playing for an online-only audience, although now in-person shows have returned. Saturdays offer Americana Afternoons, with blues, folk, jazz and rock musicians playing live. In October, the store launched a streaming platform that is available on smart TVs, allowing people to watch shows at home. It’s available at floydcountrystore.tv. Krantz, meanwhile, is in charge of the café’s menu, and Locke says many regulars and employees consider her “the mom” of the business: “She’s really built a beautiful, welcoming environment, and you pair that with the music … those are the things that are really special.”
Kate Lee President, Hardywood Park Craft Brewery Richmond
Kate Lee was named president of the state’s largest craft beer brewery in July. She joined Hardywood in 2014 after 12 years at Anheuser-Busch InBev, starting as a quality assurance supervisor at its Fort Collins, Colorado, brewery and working in Ohio and New Hampshire before landing in Williamsburg as assistant brewmaster. Lee studied food science at North Carolina State University, where a food preservation class piqued her interest in beer.
As part of her preparation for running Hardywood, Lee earned an MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Since taking over, she has implemented value-based training for leadership and brewery-wide training on inclusion, diversity and unconscious bias.
“I was just really looking for something more personable, something where I could seek more of an impact [and make] a difference, have more decision-making capability,” she says.
Bethanne Patrick Writer, editor and podcast host Arlington
Bethanne Patrick calls herself a late bloomer.
At 59, Patrick regularly writes book reviews for the Los Angeles Times and previously contributed reviews to The Washington Post. She also hosts the podcast “Missing Pages,” which investigates publishing world scandals. Her memoir, “Life B: Overcoming Double Depression,” will be released this spring by Counterpoint Press. It grew out of a 2016 essay published in Elle about Patrick’s lifelong mental health struggles and the help she received in her 50s.
“I’m at a point in my career where it’s all coming together,” she says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re 20 or 80; you know when it comes together. It’s great.”
As a reader, Patrick’s favorite books usually fall into the literary fiction category and often have what she describes as “spiritual heart. I don’t mean religious heart or faith-based heart, but just real spirituality about the human condition,” she says.
Troy Summerell Artist and creative director, OnieTonie Designs Virginia Beach
During a transitional period of his life, Troy Summerell, who’d previously worked as a barback, bartender and manager at restaurants around Virginia Beach, decided to try art as a career. The longtime surfer sat down and sketched sea creatures, including a turtle and a whale. “I was like, ‘Oh, I have something,’” he recalls.
Instantly recognizable, Summerell’s designs depict smiling sea creatures painted in the brightest colors. He named his business, which he launched in 2014, OnieTonie after his late grandmother, Onie Lane.
His work can also be admired on large murals scattered throughout Hampton Roads and on several Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters ambulances. Fans can take home Summerell’s designs on everything from T-shirts to socks at onietonie.com.
Lori Collier Waran President, Richmond Raceway Henrico County
During Lori Waran’s first week on the job, Gov. Glenn Youngkin came to Richmond Raceway to film a now-controversial commercial promoting tourism, and, she says, he “caught the [racing] bug that day after driving the pace car.” The excitement hasn’t stopped since. Waran became track president in June — after having been Virginia Business’ vice president of sales and marketing and assistant publisher for two years — and already has a race weekend under her belt. She’s also visited tracks in Daytona Beach, Florida; Darlington, South Carolina; and Charlotte, North Carolina.On her list of successes: bringing basketball legend and team owner Michael Jordan to the Federated Auto Parts 400 race in August. She promises more surprises are coming, but for now, “we are reserving the right to surprise, shock and awe.”
Legal specialties: Commercial real estate, financial services, land use, renewable energy
Education: Bachelor’s degree, Dickinson College; law degree, William & Mary
Family: I live at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront with my amazing wife, Alana, and cat, Trixie.
Fan of: Baseball (San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s) and college football
Favorite musician/band: Big fan of classic rock, particularly Creedence Clearwater Revival and Aerosmith.
You’re president of the young professionals division of Virginia Beach’s Central Business District Association and part of the Virginia Bar Association’s young lawyers division. What strengths does your generation bring to the workplace? I think the biggest strength our generation brings is that we’re the first generation that are digital natives. We grew up with technology changing all the time and are therefore comfortable implementing new tools or protocols to increase our efficiency and work product. I think this is reflected by our generation’s ability to adapt to working from home during the pandemic, which is the biggest change I’ve seen in workplaces.
As a commercial real estate attorney, what kinds of projects are you representing?
I handle a wide variety of commercial real estate matters, including initial zoning approvals, project financing and sale or purchase of the project. In addition to the usual retail, office and multifamily projects over the past several years, due to Virginia’s investment in renewable energy, I have been involved with several utility-scale renewable energy projects, including solar, battery storage, offshore wind and onshore wind projects throughout the commonwealth.
An indoor fish farm located in Southwest Virginia, an idea born nearly a decade ago, is slowly swimming its way closer to reality.
Work on water infrastructure improvements, including a new water line and sewage lift station, to support the Pure Salmon facility that will straddle Tazewell and Russell counties could begin as early as March 2023, according to Tazewell County Administrator Eric Young.
Pure Salmon, a global Atlantic salmon farming and processing business headquartered in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and backed by Singapore-based private equity firm 8F Asset Management Pte. Ltd., plans to invest about $228 million in the aquaculture facility, which will sit on about 200 acres and employ around 200 people, according to a company website.
The Virginia Pure Salmon facility could use up to 400,000 gallons of water a day, according to Young. Without upgrades to the water system, he says, the county wouldn’t be able to meet those needs.
The improvements are expected to cost about $10 million, Young says. In August, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration announced the county will receive a $4.3 million grant to help pay for the project. The federal Appalachian Regional Commission will add another $1 million to the kitty. “We’ve got a few more grant applications in that we’re expecting to go favorably,” Young says.
Any costs not covered by grants will be amortized in Pure Salmon’s future water and sewer bills.
Additionally, teams from Appalachian Power are planning upgrades to support Pure Salmon. The utility will build about two miles of electric lines as well as a new substation near the aquaculture facility. Construction is slated to begin in early 2023 and conclude by the end of 2024.
A consultant to the project says Pure Salmon isn’t providing construction updates. However, according to its website, site preparation began in the fall of 2021 with construction expected to be complete by the end of 2023. Pure Salmon did not respond to questions about whether it could start operations before Appalachian Power completes its work.
Once the facility is built, it will still take about 22 months for roe to become mature salmon, Young cautions.
“If you’re talking about when does the first fish come out in a nice cellophane wrapper … you’re probably looking at the end of 2025,” he says.
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