Investors itching to get in on the latest tech trend are zooming in on the metaverse — a presumed future virtual or mixed reality iteration of the internet in which users would navigate 3D environments for working, shopping, socializing and entertainment.
By some estimates, the metaverse market could balloon to $5 trillion in annual revenue by 2030.
Beware the hype, though, professional money managers warn. It’s a fledgling technology that is anything but certain.
“The metaverse — whatever it actually turns out to be — will impact many sectors, so investors are investing in it,” says Eileen O’Connor, CEO and co-founder of Falls Church-based Hemington Wealth Management. But, she says, her firm “would never target [the metaverse] as an allocation separately because, at this point, it’s just a concept.”
No one yet knows who the major metaverse players will be. Sectors likely to benefit include software, gaming, multimedia, social media and cryptocurrencies, experts say.
“Early adoption of a new trend in the investment world can mean great success — or you may lose all of your money,” cautions Rachel Boyell, director of investment strategy and operations for Cassaday & Co. Inc.
“Metaverse ETFs [exchange-traded funds] are extremely new; the oldest of the handful out there just began trading a little over a year ago,” Boyell says. “Investors should proceed with caution on such new products,” she adds, since those funds have not been battle-tested.
ETF rollouts include those from fund companies Fidelity Investments, ProShares and Horizons, enabling investors to gain exposure in the metaverse through an index made up of a basket of stocks.
As of early October, seven metaverse ETFs reported total assets of $438.2 million, according to Morningstar Direct. Top stock holdings are in companies such as Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc., Nvidia Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc.
Facebook‘s parent company, Meta, changed its name in October 2021, indicating CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s belief in the metaverse as the next technological frontier. But a little over a year later, the company’s stock plummeted 73%, losing more than $700 billion in market value — making it the worst performing stock in the S&P 500 this year. In November, Meta announced it would lay off 11,000 employees, about 13% of its workforce.
Many analysts chalked that up to Meta’s expensive and risky bet on the metaverse and virtual reality. The company spent more than $9.4 billion on metaverse research in 2022, and, as of October, its virtual reality platform, Horizon Worlds, had fewer than 200,000 active users — far below its goal of 500,000 users.
“Trying to predict which stocks will be winners and losers in this amorphous tech universe can be difficult for the average investor,” The Wall Street Journal remarked in an October article about the metaverse.
Driving interest among unafraid investors is the fact that some online gamers are already utilizing virtual reality headsets. Additionally, advancements in artificial intelligence could facilitate and expedite establishment of the metaverse in time.
“Similar to many other disruptive technologies, we are likely decades away from the full implementation of the metaverse at scale,” stated an April tech sector report from Wells Fargo Wealth and Investment Management.
“The reality is the metaverse is yet to evolve,” says Joseph W. Montgomery, managing director of investments for The Optimal Service Group of Wells Fargo Advisors in Williamsburg. “There are not a lot of specifics beyond speculation, and fear of missing out is rarely solid investment logic.”
Metaverse ETFs are tracking high-growth tech-stock ETFs, which makes sense, says Boyell, adding that, “no surprise, they have sold off this year as inflation was a headwind to high-growth valuations.”
Jeffrey S. Grinspoon, managing director and partner of VWG Wealth Management, says metaverse ETFs will have trouble increasing assets. “Putting the technology and probability of success in the future aside … high-growth, long-term horizon investments will continue to struggle in an increasing interest-rate environment.”
Most investors in this economy continue to favor investments that provide cash flow such as dividends, Grinspoon says.
“That doesn’t mean the metaverse won’t continue to gain traction, albeit slower,” he says. “I simply would prefer to look for growth managers who include these types of investments in the overall portfolio, as opposed to a narrow focus like a specific ETF.”
Jim McGlothlin had never really thought much about paintings. He was more of a music guy, a fan of Elvis, whom he saw in concert six months before the King’s 1977 death.
But the art of the deal — in this case, winning a valuable artwork at an auction — was a familiar feeling.
“That’s what I do — make deals,” reflects the 82-year-old Bristol, Virginia-based businessman who built a fortune from a gamble on coal mines during the 20th century and then pivoted to hospitality as the coal business began to recede.
Along the way, he and his wife, Frances Gibson McGlothlin, became major American art collectors and philanthropists. And in his ninth decade, McGlothlin is arguably the person most responsible for Virginia’s legalization of commercial casinos, as well as a partner in the $400 million Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Bristol, which opened in a temporary space this summer as the state’s first casino.
In recognition of his lifelong achievements in business, his significant philanthropic support for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and his impact on statewide economic development, Virginia Business has named Jim McGlothlin its 2022 Person of the Year.
The son of two Southwest Virginia natives, McGlothlin grew up in Buchanan County, in “a little place called Oakwood, which is about 15 miles from Grundy,” he says with a mountain lilt that conveys his origins. “We were in a little mining community, and I had two brothers, my mom and dad. School was wonderful. We played ball and [had] Boy Scouts, church activities. It’s just a wonderful place to grow up.”
His father was an accountant for a coal company and a graduate of Emory & Henry College, while McGlothlin’s mother was a Radford alumna who taught school before becoming a mother.
McGlothlin was a football and basketball player at the former Garden High School and was a strong student, especially in math. Early in his teens, he set his sights on attending William & Mary and becoming a lawyer.
A cousin returned from military service during World War II, and then went to William & Mary’s law school. “He came to our house to visit for a weekend,” McGlothlin recalls. “He told all kinds of stories about law school and his fascination with it. From that day on — I remember it like yesterday — I wanted to be a lawyer. That was the dream.”
And like many goals McGlothlin has set for himself, that dream came true.
Striking a deal
McGlothlin and six partners purchased a Buchanan coal company at auction in 1970, a deal that started United Coal Co., which became a billion-dollar business by the time it was sold in 2009. Photo by Earl Neikirk
Clyde Stacy, who has been McGlothlin’s friendly competitor and occasional business partner for much of the two men’s careers, was in eighth grade when he met McGlothlin, who was then a high school senior.
“I will tell you this story — he probably won’t like it — but when I met him in eighth grade, the reason I noticed him [was] one guy grabbed something of Jim’s, and they were going at it, wrestling around,” Stacy recalls. “Jim grabs [the other guy’s] tennis shoes and ties them together and tells him, ‘You give that back, or I’m going to throw these on top of the gymnasium.’ Jim threw the shoes on top of the building, which was probably 40 feet high. I don’t know how [the guy] ever got them back. It was really funny.”
Stacy says his friendship with McGlothlin started in earnest after the two were young adults and businessmen, and continues today.
“Most people know Jim as a very serious businessperson, and that’s the way he comes across most of the time, but he’s fun to be around,” Stacy says.
At William & Mary, McGlothlin majored in psychology, while also working as a waiter at King’s Arms Tavern, one of Colonial Williamsburg’s restaurants still open today. “Then, when school started in the fall, I drove [a] school bus in the morning and the afternoon,” he recalls. “I also belonged to a fraternity, and that was probably very distracting [to] getting all my work done. I was a very mediocre student in undergraduate school. By the way, I got rejected for law school at William & Mary.”
When that happened — a consequence of below-average grades and a low LSAT score — McGlothlin went to see W&M Law School Dean Dudley Woodbridge, “and he just flatly told me, ‘There’s no hope you could get through law school. I’d love to have you, but I can’t.’”
But McGlothlin found a back door into law school — changing his major to jurisprudence, “which is really the first year of law school, at least at William & Mary,” he explains. “I marched over the next day and went to his office, and I said, ‘I just have changed my major to jurisprudence.’ He said, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
Eventually, the two came to an agreement: If McGlothlin made the dean’s list both semesters, Woodbridge said, he could enter law school upon graduation. “I made the grades,” recalls McGlothlin, “and the rest was history.”
A temporary casino opened in July at the Bristol Mall, making it the first casino to open in Virginia, which legalized casinos in 2020. Construction on the nearby permanent casino is expected to be finished in 2024. Photo by Earl Neikirk
Birth of a coal company
As a young attorney in Grundy during the 1960s, McGlothlin joined forces with two of his cousins, starting the law firm of Street, Street & McGlothlin, a general practice in which McGlothlin mainly handled litigation, both criminal and civil cases. He also trained to become a pilot, and the firm purchased a small plane to make travel easier to courts around the commonwealth.
In 1970, at age 30, McGlothlin “lucked in” to the coal business, purchasing a Buchanan County coal company at auction. “I walked across to the courthouse to do something,” he says. “Then this young lawyer about my age was selling a piece of property on auction. It was a coal company. As I walked by, there’s 15 or 20 people there, [but] nobody was bidding.”
The other lawyer asked McGlothlin to start the bidding at $25,000, and he considered it a moment.
“This is a no-brainer,” he recalls thinking. “I had $25,000. Fifteen minutes later, I owned the coal company.”
Now he had to tell his law partners, who were happy to jump onboard. Later, at a poker game, McGlothlin’s father and three of his accounting clients — all coal mine operators — expressed interest in investing in the new enterprise.
“We agreed to put up $1,000 each. There were seven of us, and we’d go to the bank, borrow the $25,000 from the bank and pay for the company, and $7,000 would be the working capital,” says McGlothlin, and that’s how United Coal Co. started. “I took a leave of absence for six months from the law firm [and] here we are 52 years later. I never went back.”
In the early 1970s, United acquired dozens of smaller coal companies and mines in Appalachia. Its main competitor was Richmond-based Massey Coal. But by the mid-’70s, coal was just one division of United Co., which expanded into buying, reselling and distributing mining equipment and owning and running steel mills following the $40 million purchase of Birmingham Steel Co. in Alabama in 1980.
It was a boom time, although not every decision struck gold.
In 1981, United drilled a gas well in Scott County, leading to a massive fire, “which you could see blowing 400, 500 feet there,” McGlothlin says. “We hired a guy to come out of Austin, Texas, to put it out, which he did in about five or six minutes after he got there.”
An ensuing conversation led McGlothlin to strike a deal for United to drill 25 oil wells in Texas. “That turned out really successful,” says McGlothin. Ultimately, United bought the 25 wells from a partner in Texas who was retiring, “and that’s how the oil and gas thing was born,” McGlothlin says.
In the 1980s, United acquired a large Canadian oil and gas company, vastly expanding its portfolio. Then came sand and gravel holdings and even a gold mine in Tanzania.
“As I got older and older and the company got bigger, I wanted something that was big enough to make some real difference,” McGlothlin says. “In other words, I didn’t want something to sell a million dollars’ worth of product a year, because if you make 50% on it, you [only] make $500,000.”
By the 1990s, the coal industry was starting to decline, and McGlothlin sold off some of United’s holdings, including the Dal-Tex mine in West Virginia, which represented about half of United’s coal business.
“We decided the times weren’t so good in the business, and [Massey] came along,” so McGlothlin and his partners sold United to Massey in 1997. But in 2004, McGlothlin and a small group of investors reacquired the company. “Our opportunity came along to buy [back] all of those properties that Massey had,” he says.
Five years later, United divested its coal mine holdings to Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, whose mining and steel company, Metinvest Group, bought United Coal Co. for an undisclosed price, although news reports from that time pegged the deal at between $800 million and $1.4 billion. Metinvest still owns United Coal, which is now based in Johnson City, Tennessee.
McGlothlin remains chairman and sole owner of the remaining business, The United Co., which today has diversified into a hospitality and wealth management company, with other activities including real estate development and coal, oil and gas exploration services. Its holdings include golf courses, RV parks and a stake in the Bristol casino.
Frances and Jim McGlothlin split their time between Virginia and Florida, and have become influential donors in education, health care and the arts. Photo by Earl Neikirk
Roll of the dice
The Bristol casino came up in a similar way to McGlothlin’s other big deals. In 2018, Stacy bought the shuttered Bristol Mall, which McGlothlin also had considered buying but couldn’t think of anything to put there. “He said, ‘I’m going to put in a casino,’” McGlothlin says. “I said, ‘You do know that it’s not legal to have a casino?’”
But Stacy suggested that the two work together on legalizing casinos in the commonwealth, and McGlothlin called an old friend, Alan Diamonstein, the late Newport News lawyer and delegate. He briefed Stacy and McGlothlin on state Sen. Louise Lucas’ quixotic 18-year effort to legalize casinos. “There’s almost no chance, 15% at the most,” McGlothlin recalls Diamonstein saying.
But after talking to Lucas — who, like McGlothlin, wanted a casino to help improve the economy and job opportunities in her hometown, Portsmouth — McGlothlin, Stacy and some of United Co.’s executives began formulating a plan to garner legislative support. Bristol and its surrounding localities needed a new major employer and an industry to replace the coal jobs that had virtually disappeared.
“It just made so much sense, because first of all, [Southwest Virginia] was really in need of something,” McGlothlin says. “We called it ‘the moonshot,’ and it had to be big. It couldn’t just be another place to employ 40 people [because] we were going downhill — anybody could testify our debt was just escalating. The political people were difficult, but as time went on, they began to see this could have a big effect on investment in tourism.”
A political coalition — bringing together everyone from liberal Democrats like Lucas to conservative Republicans like former Sen. Bill Carrico from Marion — began to form in late 2018. Two years later, the General Assembly passed a law allowing local voters in five economically challenged cities — Bristol, Danville, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Richmond — to approve commercial casinos in their localities via referendum. In 2020, referendums passed in all of the cities except Richmond, where voters rejected a casino in 2021. Four casinos are now under construction or close to starting, and there’s a legislative battle underway between Richmond and Petersburg over the opportunity to build a fifth.
“It did take a lot of work, a lot more work than we thought,” Stacy says. “There were so many people who had oppositions to anything other than what had always been done.”
Lucas, in particular, has nothing but praise for McGlothlin — whose politics trend considerably to the right of hers. “Everything he does, he does with other people in mind. I just absolutely fell in love with the man.”
United Co. CEO Martin Kent, who joined the company as its president in 2014, was an integral player in building the political coalition for casino legalization. Formerly chief of staff to Gov. Bob McDonnell, Kent considers McGlothlin an important business mentor.
“Jim is very intuitive,” he says, “and Jim can sit down and listen to the financials verbally and can calculate a statement in his head quicker than most people can do in Excel. We rely on the calculator, but Jim has an innate ability. But at the end of the day, Jim is the relationship guy. He’s very intuitive as it comes to meeting with people. That’s just his nature.”
As the prospect of legal casinos became more likely, McGlothlin worked to find a corporate partner for Bristol’s resort casino. At first, he held discussions with Caesars Entertainment Inc., but a friend introduced him to a representative of Hard Rock, and within 24 hours, a deal was signed.
More than 25,000 people from 49 states visited the Bristol Hard Rock casino during its first two months, and casino President Allie Evangelista has hired about 600 people. Ultimately, the casino — expected to open in its permanent space on the Bristol Mall property in 2024 — is anticipated to employ 1,200 to 1,500 people by summer 2024.
Evangelista, a Brazilian native who has worked in the U.S. gaming business for decades, moved to Bristol in January.
“I knew Hard Rock was a company I wanted to work for,” she says, “but I wanted to make sure it was the right project. And so, I had an opportunity to meet with Jim and Clyde, and we went for dinner. It was one of those feelings where you know it’s the right move. You see their passion and what they went through to get this approved in the state, and I felt like I can be this person to make this dream successful.”
Personal lives
Outside of business, Jim and Fran McGlothlin have their own charitable foundation, which makes donations to higher education, the arts and health care institutions. They’re also involved with The United Company Foundation, the company’s philanthropic arm. Focused more on the Bristol community, the foundation runs a soup kitchen and a food-box program and provides grants to local nonprofits.
One of McGlothlin’s dearest charitable endeavors is the Mountain Mission School, an institute founded in 1921 in Grundy to house and educate children in need, who receive college scholarships funded by The United Company Foundation.
“I really didn’t know much about it till I got out of law school, and I went up there,” McGlothlin says. “Well, they asked me to come up and think about coaching or helping with starting a basketball team. If you go there and see these kids, you immediately fall in love with them. That was in ’66, I think. I’ve had a love affair with Mountain Mission for all those long years.”
In 2018, The Olde Farm golf course, a course designed by Bobby Weed and founded by McGlothlin, hosted a celebrity tournament featuring golf legends Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, as well as NFL stars Peyton Manning and Dan Marino. It raised $56.6 million for the school, the largest single-day charitable gift in PGA Tour history.
Fran McGlothlin, too, has become deeply involved with Mountain Mission, which just dedicated a girls’ residence hall in her name.
“I thought it was a really good thing,” she says, “but I wanted to change the direction of the school. I thought that the board [was] thinking too small. Even though our company was providing the [college] scholarships, I learned it was mostly local colleges. I said, ‘I think we should think bigger than this. If they can get into U.Va. or William & Mary or Stanford, let’s give them a chance to do that.’”
Her work with the school has been part of her acclimation to life in Southwest Virginia, where she felt a bit like a fish out of water at first.
A Leesburg native, Fran McGlothlin graduated from William & Mary in the 1960s. She and Jim met in 1991 at a small dinner party in Williamsburg, when he was on W&M’s board of visitors and she was the wife of the college’s then-president.
“Well, I was trying to be a good dinner partner and talking to people on both sides,” she says. “When I spoke to him, I said — and I’m told you’re never supposed to ask this question at a dinner party, but I was just trying to find a hook — ‘What do you do?’ He said, ‘A little of this and a little of that.’ We just started talking and became friends first, and then eventually got married.” They wed in 1996.
Jim recalls that first meeting fondly, remembering her as a “very attractive, intelligent lady who it was exciting to carry on a conversation with.” As they got to know each other — and the high-end art world — the two spent time in Naples, Florida, where they now live much of the year in a waterfront condo.
“Jim’s world was a whole different world from mine,” Fran says. “I think in a way, that’s how we got into collecting art, because I said to myself, ‘If I’m going to be with this guy, we’ve got to find something in common that we can both do — because I don’t know anything about coal mines and I don’t play golf.”
In her wine cellar — a deal she made with Jim, in which he agreed she could spend the same amount of money on wine that he spends on golfing — Fran displays bottles of wine they served at their wedding reception, with custom labels featuring their first art purchase, “Listening Boy,” by Robert Henri.
Ultimately, the McGlothlins would give the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts nearly 90 pieces of artwork worth more than $250 million — largely 19th- and early 20th-century American paintings, including works by John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Andrew Wyeth and the museum’s first Norman Rockwell painting. In 2005, the couple promised to bequeath their art collection to the museum and donated $30 million to the VMFA’s 2010 expansion, which included a wing named for the McGlothlins. In 2015, the McGlothlins donated 73 American artworks worth approximately $200 million to the VMFA, and in 2022, they gave 15 more pieces to the museum.
Artists from the Metropolitan Museum of Art painted copies of the donated works, some of which now hang in the McGlothlins’ high-ceilinged, Italianate home on the edge of Olde Farm golf course.
In a hallway near the kitchen, there’s a small, sepia-toned photo of Fran and Jim McGlothlin cuddling on a sofa, taken by the legendary portraitist Annie Leibovitz. For her 60th birthday, Fran asked for the portrait by Leibovitz, who has taken iconic photos of subjects ranging from Queen Elizabeth II to John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
These days, the couple travels to see their children across the United States, and Jim golfs regularly at Olde Farm and in Florida and occasionally in Scotland, but he no longer pilots planes, after experiencing a few health issues.
In 2015, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer — his doctors spotted it early during a CAT scan and took immediate action, removing the tumor.
“I took chemo for six months,” McGlothlin says. “I couldn’t eat anything, couldn’t drink anything. That bottle of water would taste like tin. I just couldn’t get it down. I lost 65 pounds.”
Two months after finishing chemotherapy, McGlothlin suffered a stroke while at a restaurant with Fran, his daughter and her husband. Fortunately, they’d flown there in a helicopter, which was able to deliver him to a hospital in less than 20 minutes, and McGlothlin fully recovered — enough to fly with Fran in 2018 to a few baseball games around the country in a farewell to piloting.
In January, McGlothlin stepped down as United’s CEO, ceding the position to Kent, though McGlothlin remains the company’s chairman. They still talk daily, but Kent says that McGlothlin wanted to pass on some of the day-to-day operations and responsibilities.
The McGlothlins took their children and grandchildren to Bermuda this past summer, and while he acknowledges his love of making deals, McGlothlin says, “I’m more about family in my life than I am about business. … That’s important.”
VIRGINIA BUSINESS PERSON OFTHEYEAR PASTHONOREES
2021 Bruce Thompson CEO Gold Key | PHR, Virginia Beach
2020 Phebe Novakovic
Chairman and CEO General Dynamics Corp., Reston
2019 Stephen Moret President and CEO Virginia Economic Development Partnership, Richmond
2018 John R. Lawson II Executive chairman W.M. Jordan Co., Newport News
2017 Nancy Howell Agee President and CEO Carilion Clinic, Roanoke
2016 John F. Reinhart CEO and executive director Virginia Port Authority, Norfolk
2015 Knox Singleton CEO Inova Health System, Fairfax
2014 Christopher J. Nassetta President and CEO Hilton Worldwide, McLean
2013 Tonya Mallory CEO Health Diagnostic Laboratory, Richmond
2012 Philip A. Shucet President The Philip A. Shucet Co., Norfolk
2011 Michael J. Quillen Chairman Alpha Natural Resources Inc., Bristol
2010 Gerald L. Gordon President and CEO Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, Tysons
2009 Shawn Boyer Founder and CEO SnagAJob.com, Richmond
2008 Nicholas Chabraja Chairman and CEO General Dynamics Corp., Falls Church
In a state nationally recognized for its colleges and universities, these are the educators and leaders who continue to grow Virginia’s reputation for academic excellence.
Marianne Baernholdt Dean, School of Nursing, University of Virginia Charlottesville
In August, Marianne Baernholdt returned to U.Va. after a stint at the University of North Carolina’s nursing school, where she led global initiatives and was interim dean of research. Previously, she directed U.Va.’s Rural and Global Health Care Center and taught at the School of Medicine. Now, she’s taking on the important job of training more nurses and clinical nursing trainers — both of which are in short supply. “In the U.S., we are turning away about 80,000 students every year that want to be nurses” because hospitals don’t have enough personnel to provide hands-on training, she says. In addition to being dean, Baernholdt serves on UVA Health’s executive team, addressing workplace issues for current nurses, too.
Ann-Marie Knoblauch Director of the School of Visual Arts and associate professor of art history, Virginia Tech Blacksburg
In July, officials at Virginia Tech named Ann-Marie Knoblauch director of the university’s School of Visual Arts. Knoblauch had served as interim director of the school since January 2021. In that post, she says, she saw her job as “making sure the lights stayed on.” Now, that she’s been officially named director, Knoblauch feels freer to envision what the School of Visual Arts and the arts generally at Virginia Tech might look like in the future.
Knoblauch, who is also teaching a class on ancient Egyptian art and architecture this semester, enjoys shopping for antique art or vintage jewelry in her free time. “I love to find treasures,” she says.
Photo by Peter Means
Linsey Marr Charles P. Lunsford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech Blacksburg
When Linsey Marr started researching how airborne illnesses could be transmitted in 2007, it was initially driven by personal reasons: She wanted to know why her child was always getting sick at daycare. But when COVID-19 took hold, suddenly her research was more relevant than ever. “I toiled in obscurity,” she says. “Then the pandemic hit and there was this 180-degree turn. Things I thought would take 30 years to change in our thinking have changed within two years.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and the White House sought her out, and she published more than 20 research papers in 2020. Marr also received a 2022 Outstanding Faculty award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). Her research led to the publication of a groundbreaking study that found flu virus in microscopic droplets that were small enough to remain floating in the air for an hour or more, and that flu seasonality is associated with humidity, according to The New York Times.
Melissa J. Perry Dean, College of Public Health, George Mason University Fairfax
A cousin of pop star Katy Perry, Melissa Perry has a résumé that runs deep, having written more than 150 papers on epidemiology and public health. In August, she became dean of GMU’s College of Health and Human Services — which in November rebranded itself as the College of Public Health in a move to address a critical need for skilled health professionals and research across the state. Perry had previously chaired George Washington University’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health since 2011.
Perry’s realm of research has focused on the impact of climate change on the properties of pesticides and other chemicals, as well as pesticide exposure effects on farming communities, agricultural workers and the public.
No word on whether she has the eye of the tiger or if we’ll hear her roar.
Carole Tarrant Coordinator of development, Virginia Western Community College Roanoke
A former Roanoke Times editor, Carole Tarrant found herself in 2013 as part of the growing club of laid-off journalists. That fall, the Roanoke resident started working in marketing for VWCC, and in 2014, she was promoted to development coordinator, running the college educational foundation’s fundraising. Unlike some community colleges, VWCC’s enrollment was up this year, good news for the school. Both jobs — journalism and fundraising — “are so much about relationships and connections,” says Tarrant, who keeps a hand in the reporting world, serving on the board of nonprofit digital news outlet Cardinal News, which covers Southern and Southwest Virginia. “I’ve been their No. 1 fan from the beginning.”
Jerry Wallace President, Danville Community College Danville
Jerry Wallace, who became DCC’s president in July, started his career in education as a substitute teacher, before ultimately deciding to pursue a career in higher education. Previously president of Nebraska’s Central Community College’s Hastings campus, he’s now in his second college presidency, in Danville, a city that he says mirrors his hometown of Muskegon, Michigan. DCC has many projects on the horizon he’s excited about, including collaborating with Caesars Virginia to help prep the forthcoming casino‘s workforce and building an aviation maintenance program. But at home, he has an even bigger project — getting ready for his first child, expected in May. Wallace and his wife spend their weekends at car shows with their black 1976 Ford Thunderbird. They also flip houses in Michigan and expect to do it in Virginia soon.
Tommy Wright President, Southwest Virginia Community College Cedar Bluff
Tommy Wright isn’t a guy content to stick with the status quo.
Since becoming Southwest Virginia Community College’s president in 2018, he’s launched a full athletic program with 14 teams and about 250 athletes. Since about 75 of those athletes were recruited to play for SWCC and hail from outside the localities the community college primarily serves — Buchanan, Russell, Tazewell and Dickenson counties — they needed housing.
Wright worked with the community college’s foundation to authorize a loan for $3.5 million to build two dormitories. In addition to athletes, Wright thinks the housing also will be used by students who’ve aged out of foster care, as well as those who have long commutes to Cedar Bluff.
In early November, Wright said he hoped to see students moving into the first 48-person dorm in a couple of weeks. “We’re excited to get that open,” he says.
Photo by Matthew R.O. Brown
Troy Wiipongwii Affiliated faculty member, William & Mary Global Research Institute Chesterfield
Troy Wiipongwii, whose biological parents came from the middle class, was adopted by his godparents at age 9 and grew up in New Jersey’s wealthy suburbs outside of New York City. The differences he witnessed made an impact; Wiipongwii says he feels a “duty to create opportunities that can improve the lives of the middle class.”
Wiipongwii founded William & Mary’s blockchain lab as an extension of his graduate work; he earned a Ph.D. in data science and technology from Capitol Technology University in September. He also taught a blockchain course at Emory & Henry College.
Now he’s focused on designing an algorithm that balances food supply chains with environmental impacts and an individual’s eating preferences with health needs. He’s also working on a grant to help Indigenous communities build and support a local, sustainable food supply chain.
Warmer winters mean ski resorts must manufacture more snow to keep slopes open, but improved technology has helped offset costs and streamlined the process.
WintergreenResort has more than 400 snow guns that over the season can cover 26 trails in 3 feet of snow, says General Manager Jay Gamble. Under optimal conditions over 24 hours, the equipment could cover a football field with 35 to 40 feet of snow.
“Wintergreen has a very powerful snowmaking system,” he says, but “every year it always comes down to the weather.”
While climate conditions vary from year to year, snowmaking has long been a constant for Virginia’s resorts.
“It’s built into our business model,” says Kenny Hess, director of sports and risk management at Massanutten Resort, which will operate 21 trails this season with the help of about 275 machines.
Gamble and Hess say major advances in energy efficiency and automation over the past two decades help resorts contend with climate inconsistencies.
Ten years ago, it took hours to get the snowmaking system into gear, Hess says. Now the operation has shorter snowmaking windows thanks to automation and can even be controlled by cellphone.
Under ideal conditions, an acre can be covered with 2 feet of snow in one hour, but typically it takes 24 to 36 hours of snowmaking in early season to open the slopes.
More efficient technology also has cut labor and energy costs.
“We’re making more snow, but we’re making it at a lower cost than we used to,” Gamble says. Weather stations at different points on the mountain provide real-time readings so that snow guns can be adjusted for subtle temperature variations.
But nature’s still in charge.
Optimally, snowmaking requires a 28-degree wet-bulb temperature, which is temperature adjusted for relative humidity. “The lower the relative humidity, the more snowmaking production we can achieve,” Gamble says.
The science of snowmaking is something guests don’t always understand, Hess says.
“A cold weather weekend comes in and they expect you to have snow,” he says. But it might be 29 or 30 degrees “and we can’t make snow because it’s humid.”
Another misconception is that the snow is artificial. “It’s real snow,” he says, but more durable because of its higher water content.
Water is the key ingredient, Hess says. It takes 175,000 gallons to make 1 acre-foot of snow.
Other legal specialties: In addition to energy law clients, I also have telecommunications clients.
Education: Bachelor’s degree, Princeton University; master’s in arts and law degrees,
Duke University
Family: Husband, Henry Robb and son, Liam Robb, 27
Career mentors: My former colleagues Louis Monacell and Ed Petrini gave me a solid grounding in energy law. And my good friend Jim Guy showed me the value of engaging with voluntary bar associations like the Virginia Bar Association.
Most recent book read: “Life and Fate,” by Vasily Grossman
First legal job: A real estate paralegal at Ballard & Spar in Washington, D.C.
Your practice focuses in part on renewable energy, and you chair the state’s Solar Energy and Development and Energy Storage Authority. How is Virginia doing with regard to solar energy? We’re headed in the right direction. It’s exciting that in 2021, for the first time ever, solar produced more electricity than coal did in Virginia. The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service’s Virginia Solar Initiative reports that in 2021 Virginia ranked fourth in the number of solar installations in the U.S. (only California, Texas and Florida installed more), but Virginia ranked 47th for distributed solar power — such as panels installed on rooftops.
What are your thoughts on state energy policy? If the full brunt of 2021 fuel increases were absorbed this year, overall [electric] bill increases would exceed 30%. This can be masked by deferring some fuel recovery, but that exacerbates rate increases in future years when upfront capital costs for offshore wind are added. My advice is to tell your legislators to restore the State Corporation Commission’s ability to minimize rather than just mask factors that increase rates.
Education: Bachelor’s degree, State University of New York College at Buffalo;
law degree, University of Richmond
Family: Married to J. Buckley Warden IV (partner at ThompsonMcMullan PC). We have two sons in the fifth and third grades.
Career mentors: Randy Wimbish and Ken Roeber. They have been instrumental in developing my skills over the years to become the attorney that I am today.
Favorite musician/band: Zac Brown Band is my favorite band. However, I still have a love for some ’80s rock bands.
How have the pandemic and labor shortage in health care affected your clients and the legal issues they bring to you? Although the amount of work remained steady and the type of issues remained the same throughout the pandemic, I think how we have practiced has changed. We have more opportunities to appear virtually for depositions, meetings and court hearings. Although these modalities were a blessing during the COVID-19 shutdown, it is more optimal to appear live.
You were a Fairfax County police officer before you were an attorney. How does that impact how you practice law? As an officer, I was called upon to conduct interrogations and investigate crimes. I believe these skills have assisted me in gathering information to better serve my clients. For example, there are some similarities between interrogating a suspect and taking a deposition. Additionally, I have found that the investigative skills I utilized help me review medical records with a critical eye to “solve” what happened to a particular patient.
On balance, Democrats came out winners in the 2022 midterm elections, having staved off a widely forecast “red wave” of Republican victories, according to panelists at Virginia Business’ annual Political Roundtable, held Nov. 9 in Richmond.
The idea of a red wave or “red tsunami” was “perhaps … a bit of a myth … largely created by the media,” noted Amanda Wintersieck, associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University. Political scientists, she said, weren’t predicting overwhelming Republican victories — despite inflation being at a 40-year high and President Joe Biden’s approval ratings remaining low.
Political prediction markets like Predictit.org, she added, indicated that control of the Senate was a toss-up, leaning toward Democrats, and that Republicans were slightly favored to take control of the House.
And in fact, by mid-November, Democrats had cemented their slight majority in the Senate, while Republicans won a slim House majority.
Panelists who took part in the 16th annual Virginia Business Political Roundtable at the Richmond Marriott included James W. “Jim” Dyke Jr., senior state government relations advisor with McGuireWoods Consulting; University of Mary Washington Professor Stephen Farnsworth; Gentry Locke Attorneys partner and Republican former state Del. Gregory Habeeb; Regent University Assistant Professor Andrew J. “A.J.” Nolte; and Wintersieck.
The panelists noted that candidates ideologically aligned with or endorsed by former President Donald Trump lost their races or underperformed, notably including Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, who lost to Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. After the election, some Republicans began publicly distancing themselves from Trump, including Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
“Southeastern Pennsylvania, the very suburban area outside of Philadelphia, where there’s a lot of highly affluent, college-educated white voters who tend to be more socially liberal — Oz really needed those voters,” Nolte said. “He was not going to get Trump numbers out of the Trumpy areas of Pennsylvania.”
Habeeb noted that the midterms confirmed that Trump’s appeal to his base “isn’t transferable to other candidates,” and that “candidates really, really matter” in terms of appeal. Additionally, he said, “we live in a very 50-50 country. I think [2021] redistricting did have a role in lots of states at the House level, although it nets out because there’s pluses and minuses for each party.”
In any event, Habeeb said, the midterms “did not become a referendum on Biden.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling overturning Roe v. Wade did motivate some voters, panelists said, as did feelings about Trump and the false “stolen election” narrative.
“The Democrats, looking at economic anxiety, high inflation and the relatively middling evaluation of Biden, had a problem if the conversation was about the economy,” Farnsworth said, noting that Trump and abortion were “two different narratives [for Democrats] to choose from.”
In Virginia, political watchers had their eyes on three heavily contested House races in which incumbent Democrats Elaine Luria, Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer Wexton were defending their seats in redrawn districts. Spanberger and Wexton won their races by a few points, while Luria lost in Hampton Roads to Republican state Sen. Jen Kiggans by four percentage points.
Dyke said that Luria’s redrawn district, which skewed slightly more Republican, was a significant factor. A slightly bluer district helped Spanberger — but Dyke also cited a flawed campaign by Trump-backed GOP challenger Yesli Vega, a Prince William supervisor who took controversial, far-right stances.
Speaking about midterm trends, Dyke added, “With all these election deniers, from what I’ve been able to see is [that] most of those have gone down to defeat because, hopefully, people recognize that preserving our democracy is very, very important.”
From architecture and engineering to construction and development, these are the professionals who are leaving legacies in steel, brick and glass.
Mark Goodwin President and CEO, Apex Clean Energy Inc. Charlottesville
Mark Goodwin feels confident Apex Clean Energy will build the state’s first operating onshore wind farm in Botetourt County.
First proposed in 2015, the Rocky Forge Wind project has been held up by lawsuits, design changes, the pandemic and searches for buyers for the renewable energy the farm will produce.
Apex now needs to win approval from Botetourt County on a final site plan. The company could begin early site prep as soon as February 2023, with construction slated to be complete by 2024.
A lawyer representing a group of residents in Botetourt and Rockbridge counties has appealed a Botetourt County Circuit judge’s decision not to invalidate the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s modified permit for the wind farm.
“The permitting process in Virginia makes it easy for them to hold up a project that otherwise has community support,” says Goodwin, a former naval officer and helicopter pilot. “When we build it, it will be a popular project. Botetourt County really needs economic development.”
Jason Guillot Principal, Thalhimer Realty Partners Richmond
A native of Lafayette, Louisiana, where he was the first of his family to leave Ragin’ Cajun country, Jason Guillot says, “It took a leap of faith to come to Richmond.” He moved here to attend the University of Richmond and, after graduating in 2007, secured a job with Thalhimer. Today, Guillot’s at the center of one of the city’s biggest-ever development projects, the Diamond District, which includes replacing the Richmond Flying Squirrels’ baseball stadium by 2025 and creating a walkable, livable neighborhood. Thalhimer is one of several developers, builders, designers and architects from around the country that make up the RVA Diamond Partners team, whose bid won city approval. “It takes a tremendous amount of coordination between partners,” he notes. “It’s a transformative project, to say the least.”
photo by Mark Rhodes
Kayla Jones TBM field engineer, Hampton Roads Connector Partners Norfolk
“Honestly, it’s pretty cool,” Kayla Jones says of working on the Tunnel Boring Machine, the 46-foot-high drill that will excavate two tunnels for the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel’s $3.9 billion expansion. Nicknamed “Mary” in honor of NASA engineer Mary Jackson, the TBM is currently being assembled and is expected to start digging at a rate of 50 feet a day in early 2023, with completion expected by late 2026, due to contractors being 11 months behind. Jones, whose mother, Sarah, is fleet and logistics manager on the project, says they’re among a small minority of female engineers working on South Island, where the TBM will launch. “Six days a week, I will be inside the tunnel,” she says, “making sure that everything is running smoothly.”
Donna MacMillan-Whitaker Founding and managing partner, Venture Realty Group Virginia Beach
Donna MacMillan-Whitaker has worked in commercial real estate for 40 years, starting in commercial leasing, then quickly moving into development. For most of her career, she handled typical commercial real estate projects, but in recent years her work has made headlines. Venture is a partner with music icon Pharrell Williams in the $350 million Atlantic Park surf park project being developed at Virginia Beach’s Oceanfront, as well as the proposed redevelopment of Norfolk’s Military Circle Mall into Wellness Circle, a mixed-use project with an arena, affordable housing and more. “I think Pharrell has brought a whole bunch of excitement to our team,” she says. “He’s definitely never been interested in just doing a real estate deal. He wants to get involved in something that literally makes us look at the real estate deal differently.”
Brian K. Revere President, Breeden Construction LLC Richmond
Brian K. Revere enjoys seeing a concept become reality and knowing he’s helping transform communities and providing people with homes they can be proud of.
A division of The Breeden Co., Breeden Construction works on a number of projects across the state, including in Richmond’s Scott’s Addition district, where Breeden expects to break ground in early 2023 on the $53 million Duplex Station on Hermitage, a mixed-use project that will include 142 apartments, commercial space and the company’s new headquarters. The building will be a gateway into Richmond’s Diamond District redevelopment. Breeden was named as a general contractor on the project; it will focus on its multifamily portion.
“It’s about building communities and building places that people want to live [in] and be proud of, to call home, for a long time,” he says.
Isabel Thornton Founder and executive director, Restoration Housing Roanoke
October kept Isabel Thornton busy overseeing construction on the restoration of a Folk Victorian home located in Roanoke’s Belmont Historic District. The circa-1905 house will be the sixth project undertaken by Restoration Housing, Thornton’s nonprofit that develops affordable rental properties by preserving historic structures.
Returning to her native Roanoke after earning a master’s degree in historic preservation and urban planning from the University of Southern California in 2013, Thornton initially worked for an affordable housing developer in Christiansburg before deciding she could help limited-income individuals in her hometown while also restoring some of the city’s many vacant properties.
“It creates this tangible outcome that hopefully helps Roanoke and brings back a little piece of Roanoke history,” she says.
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