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Hershey plant unionization effort continues

Despite a resounding defeat, organizers are still fighting to unionize plant in . In late March, about 79% of the plant’s workers voted against unionizing at Hershey, the largest employer in Augusta County with nearly 1,500 workers.

But while that battle might be over, the war is not, according to officials with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ International Union. The organization has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing Hershey of 14 unfair labor practices related to the vote. The NLRB had not certified the voting results as of mid-May.

John Price, director of organization for BCTGM International, says he’s confident the labor board’s investigation will find Hershey guilty of “objectionable conduct during a critical period, and they’ll end up tossing the results.” That, he says, could lead to another vote.

Hershey spokesman Jeff Beckman says the lopsided result sends a clear message of support for the company: “We believe the team at Stuarts Draft has spoken with the vote and showed they have a strong preference to continue engaging directly with the plant leadership versus being represented by a third party.”

The effort to organize the plant began last year, with some workers complaining about seven-day work weeks, favoritism and a general lack of respect. Jim Gibson, one of the workers who led the movement, says the union had momentum last fall.

“But the main thing we had going against us was the fear of retaliation, that people were going to lose their jobs for being union supporters,” says Gibson, who quit his job the day after the vote.

The union’s filing with the NLRB cites several examples in which it claims Hershey “interfered with, restrained and coerced its employees” with the intent of discouraging union activities or membership. The filing also claims Hershey improperly offered employees numerous benefits during a union organizing campaign.

Nationwide, union membership has declined for decades until recently, when it scored several high-profile victories, including unionizing five Starbucks Corp. stores in the area and an Amazon.com Inc. warehouse in New York. Virginia, however, has historically had one of the country’s lowest union density rates.

The Stuarts Draft plant, the second-largest of Hershey’s seven operations, primarily produces chocolate candy that includes nuts, such as Reese’s and Almond Joy. Two of Hershey’s other six plants are unionized. 

Boeing will move global HQ to Arlington

The , the world’s third-largest defense contractor, is moving its global headquarters from Chicago to , the company announced May 5.

With more than 141,500 employees worldwide and operations in more than 65 countries, the aerospace and defense company will be the largest defense contractor headquartered in Virginia.

Boeing already employs 400 people at its 4.7-acre campus in Arlington’s Crystal City — near Amazon.com Inc.’s HQ2 and Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus. Boeing spokesperson Paul Lewis told Virginia Business that there will be “no major job relocations” accompanying the headquarters move. Boeing also plans to develop a research and technology hub in the area, leveraging a $50 million gift to Virginia Tech that Boeing made in May 2021, according to another company spokesperson, Connor Greenwood. Boeing did not provide details such as a time frame for the move or how much the company is investing.

In a statement following the announcement, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun, a Virginia Tech alumnus, thanked and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner for helping to secure the deal, which The Wall Street Journal reported had been in the works for months.
In 2017, Boeing moved its defense unit from St. Louis to Arlington to be closer to the federal government and Pentagon officials.

“We are excited to build on our foundation here in Northern Virginia,” Calhoun says. “The region makes strategic sense for our global headquarters, given its proximity to our customers and stakeholders and its access to world-class engineering and technical talent.”

Youngkin says the move shows Virginia “is the premier location for aerospace companies.”

President and CEO Jason El Koubi agrees. “Boeing and other high-caliber firms are attracted to the commonwealth’s combination of diverse, world-class engineering and tech talent, strategic location and exceptional quality of life,” El Koubi says. “Boeing’s new research and technology hub will further strengthen Virginia’s innovation ecosystem in areas like cybersecurity, autonomous operations, quantum sciences and software and systems engineering.”

Boeing also has research centers in St. Louis; Huntsville, Alabama; Charleston, South Carolina; and Cambridge, Massachusetts. A Boeing aeronautics research subsidiary, Aurora Flight Sciences, is located in Manassas. Boeing’s new Arlington-area research center will provide the company “with the ability to develop technology and talent, and see its implementation in real systems,” Lewis says.

Virginia Business Associate Editor Courtney Mabeus contributed to this article.

Gift of a lifetime

For , February was an opportune time to make the largest gift in the history of Virginia Commonwealth University — a $104 million donation to support liver research.

The retired medical director of ‘s Hume-Lee Transplant Center, Stravitz is an heir to the Boar’s Head Provisions Co. Inc. fortune. His mother, Barbara Brunckhorst, died in late 2020. Her father, Frank Brunckhorst, founded the delicatessen products company, which is now based in Florida, in 1905.

“One of the things that she and I discussed when she knew that she was dying of this brain cancer is opening up the [Brunckhorst] Foundation to donate to medical causes,” Stravitz explains. “And since I knew nothing about neurosurgery or brain cancer, but I knew quite a bit about liver disease, that was really sort of what pushed me into it.”

A Virginia native who lives in , Stravitz is a co-executor of his mother’s estate. Her shares of the deli meats company are the subject of a still-pending court dispute between two branches of the family. Boar’s Head brings in approximately $1 billion in annual revenue.

Dr. Arun Sanyal (L) will be director of the Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease and Metabolic Health. He has known Dr. Todd Stravitz (R) for more than 30 years. Photo courtesy Allen Jones/VCU Marketing
Dr. Arun Sanyal (L) will be director of the Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease and Metabolic Health. He has known Dr. Todd Stravitz (R) for more than 30 years. Photo courtesy Allen Jones/VCU Marketing

Although Barbara Brunckhorst’s philanthropic interests primarily lay in environmental causes, Stravitz’s donation will go toward establishing the Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease and Metabolic Health, which VCU announced in December 2021, as well as establishing two endowed chairs at VCU’s School of Medicine. One chairmanship is named for Stravitz’s former colleague, Dr. Arun J. Sanyal, a gastroenterologist and liver specialist who has known Stravitz for more than three decades.

“He was one of our fellows going through specialized training,” Sanyal explains. “I actually taught him how to do a liver biopsy. But I’ll tell you, the thing that always struck me was his sincerity … and how important it was for him to put the patient first and to go the extra mile for each and every patient. Even when he was a researcher, he was just very thoughtful and very methodical.”

Sanyal will be director of the new institute, which will align and expand VCU Health’s existing liver disease departments that are spread among the School of Medicine’s internal medicine department, the transplant center, Massey Cancer Center and the Pauley Heart Center.

Currently a professor in the medical school specializing in transplant hepatology, Stravitz built his expertise in acute liver failure, which can cause a patient to bleed to death.

Liver disease is common in the United States — affecting about one in 10 people — but does not have a cure, other than liver transplant, Stravitz notes.

Stravitz’s patients at VCU, where he started as a fellow in 1990, ranged from a 4-year-old to people in their 80s. Many were memorable, Stravitz says, but he was most struck by those he met at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital, where he interned in the mid-1980s during the height of the HIV and AIDS epidemic.

Most liver patients he saw there were young “and often didn’t have any medical care,” Stravitz says. “Some of them were brought in from the street. That was what kind of shocked me into realizing that all of them were going to die, back in the ’80s. We had no treatment for these folks.” 

The combination of a challenging disease and its surrounding social issues led to his specializing in liver disease and heading to VCU, which has been a cutting-edge leader in liver research since the 1970s and was one of the first three hospitals to transplant the liver of a living donor in 1998.

His interest in attending medical school, however, started even earlier. “My mother was a determined, intelligent, frustrated doctor herself,” Stravitz says. “She would have gone to medical school 60, 70 years ago, but my grandfather wanted her to go into the family business, which she did for a little bit, and then had a family.”

Brunckhorst gave her son an anatomy book when he was about 3 or 4 years old, he recalls, and “that’s where I got my interest in science and in human anatomy.” After graduating in 1982 from William & Mary, Stravitz earned his medical degree from New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.

Stravitz says that scientists started studying liver disease only in the 1970s “and really caught traction from the ’90s on up, but research in human liver diseases was really relatively modern. The science [has] accelerated so tremendously around molecular biology and genetics, especially within the last 10 years.”

That makes it an optimal time “to seize the science by the horns and direct it to VCU for this project and for this gift,” Stravitz says. He’s particularly excited about gene therapy as an alternative to transplants, which often entail long waits for patients. 

With the donation, VCU will be able to recruit 30 to 60 more researchers, faculty and staff members, as well as establish new degree programs at the graduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral levels.

Over the past decades, “we relied heavily on the National Institutes of Health … but NIH funding is very focused,” Stravitz says. “It doesn’t allow exploration so much. It’s a finite grant. You have three to five years to show what you have done with their money, and if you’ve not been productive and published, you might not get your next grant. That’s a lot to be looking over your shoulder all the time.”

With Stravitz’s gift, researchers and physicians will be able to focus on their work, rather than worrying about where the next grant will come from, he says. “I’m hoping that VCU, under Dr. Sanyal’s direction, can grab it and run with it, and explore things that haven’t been explored before.”

The gift givers

While 2020 represented a significant year for philanthropic shifts toward social and racial justice causes, 2021 and early 2022 have seen a return to traditional giving, with many of Virginia’s largest donations benefiting universities, medical research and the arts.    

Donations to Virginia institutions — topped by a $104 million gift in February from Dr. Todd Stravitz to to support a new liver research institute — continued to grow during the past year, and some universities marked record donations. An anonymous alumna gave $75 million to in December 2021, a three-installment gift that will establish the Levavi Oculos Endowed Scholarship Fund to support undergraduate scholarships, reportedly the largest donation ever made to a women’s university and among the biggest gifts to any Virginia university.

In September 2021, Charlottesville philanthropist Tessa Ader gave $50 million to the toward building a performing arts center with a 1,100-seat concert hall. It will be sited near two other philanthropy-driven projects: U.Va.’s School of Data Science and the Karsh Institute of Democracy. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech received its largest single-donor alumnus gift in December 2021: a $35 million donation from Norris E. and Wendy Mitchell that will help replace Tech’s 60-year-old engineering college building on its Blacksburg campus.

Leaving an impression

In the art world, part-time Bristol, Virginia, residents continued their significant support of the with a nearly $60 million donation that includes 15 works by American artists, including Norman Rockwell, John Singer Sargent and Andrew Wyeth. This gift follows two other donations by the couple to the museum, including 73 works of art worth more than $200 million and a $30 million gift in 2010 that made an addition possible. The March donation is also going toward an expansion of the museum that will include a new 170,000-square-foot wing named for the McGlothlins.

VMFA Director and CEO Alex Nyerges says the McGlothlins’ gifts have enabled the museum to grow in size and prominence. Photo by Matthew R.O. Brown

In addition to their gifts to the VMFA, the McGlothlins are major donors to their alma mater, William & Mary, and Mountain Mission School in Grundy, where at-risk students from around the world live and attend school.

Fran McGlothlin, senior vice president of New York-based UC Fine Art Inc., recalls how, early in their marriage, she got her coal executive husband, Jim, interested in collecting art.

“I dragged him into an auction one day in New York, the first one he’d ever been to,” she says. “There was a picture that I had fallen in love with by Robert Henri called ‘Listening Boy.’ I said, ‘Oh, I would really love to have that picture.’ I think Jim wanted to get it for me but was a little unsure about how to pay, so he went to the men’s room. He was talking to some other guy who was in there. That guy said, ‘Yes, it’s a great picture. This is what it should go for.’”

Jim McGlothlin put in a winning bid for the painting, which Fran McGlothlin says is “just dear to my heart for so many reasons.” The couple’s main collecting focus was on American Impressionist works between 1890 to 1925.

“It was a first for me,” Jim says of the auction. “It was very interesting to think about the way you made the transactions there with art. Frances was so excited about it. Twenty-five years later, here we are.” 

The couple’s connection to VMFA happened later, when Jim, chairman and owner of The United Co. and a backer of the Hard Rock Bristol casino, was a patient at the former Medical College of Virginia hospital in Richmond in the 1990s.

Frances Lewis, co-founder of Best Products Co. Inc. with her husband, Sydney Lewis, who also was a patient at the hospital then, met the McGlothlins in the hallway and talked with Fran McGlothlin about the art museum. Sydney Lewis, who died in 1999, and Frances Lewis were also significant VMFA donors, providing $6 million for the museum’s West Wing and donating 1,500 pieces from their personal collection.

“[Frances Lewis] said, ‘I’d love for you to come over and see it,’” Fran McGlothlin recalls. “She arranged so that the museum was closed. She and I walked through it. I really was impressed and taken by it, talked to Jim and essentially we were off and running.”

VMFA Director and CEO Alex Nyerges, who has led the museum since 2006, says that the McGlothlins’ gifts are “a key reason that VMFA has grown in size and prominence. These added works have bolstered VMFA’s American art holdings and provided important access to American art for present and future generations of Virginians.”

Hollins University President Mary Dana Hinton says a recent $75 million anonymous gift underscores the importance of women's education. Hinton photo courtesy Hollins University
Hollins University President Mary Dana Hinton says a recent $75 million anonymous gift underscores the importance of women’s education. Hinton photo courtesy Hollins University

After building their collection, the couple decided to give virtually all their paintings — most of which were displayed in their home — to the museum in 2015.

Fran and Jim McGlothlin visited the museum recently and saw a mother and son talking about one of their paintings. “It was so interesting to get someone else’s take on it and the pleasure that they were getting out of looking at it all,” she recalls.

Impactful giving

This is typical of many major philanthropists, who are often driven in part by personal passions and experiences to make donations in the public interest.

“It’s not just about heartstrings but about what people care about,” says Mark Luellen, U.Va.’s vice president for advancement, who is in charge of directing the university’s
$5 billion Honor the Future capital campaign, which launched in 2019.

As of April, the university has fulfilled 80% of its capital fundraising goal, surpassing $4 billion three years before deadline.

Private philanthropy, Luellen says, “is extremely important. It’s really thinking critically about where all those external stakeholders and internal stakeholders connect and how they all link together.” State funding has declined at U.Va. and other Virginia public universities over the decades, and tuition rates were frozen during the past two academic years, although U.Va. and other schools have agreed to increase tuition during the 2022-23 year. That leaves a heavy reliance on private funding at most universities.

One area in which he’s seen greater donor interest recently is in need-based scholarships, a trend that’s reflected at other schools, including Hollins University.

Hollins President Mary Dana Hinton hopes that the anonymous alumna’s
$75 million donation will hopefully drive more prospective students to “take the time to research Hollins. Don’t self-select out, but lean into.”

As universities receive less state funding, private donors are more important than ever, notes University of Virginia Vice President for Advancement Mark Luellen. Luellen photo courtesy Dan Addison/U.Va. University Communications
As universities receive less state funding, private donors are more important than ever, notes University of Virginia Vice President for Advancement Mark Luellen. Luellen photo courtesy Dan Addison/U.Va. University Communications

While all types of higher education institutions generally saw lower enrollment amid the pandemic, private, liberal arts institutions have had the most difficult time keeping enrollment levels up. And though interest has increased in single-gender education in recent years, that tends to fluctuate. Just down the road from Hollins, the all-women Sweet Briar College nearly closed a few years ago.

“The higher education landscape is incredibly complex right now, and it has been challenging for quite some time,” Hinton says. “But my hope is that other donors are inspired by this gift. I would celebrate any of our sister colleges getting this gift. I hope similar gifts to other institutions will allow us to really reclaim the power and importance of the liberal arts, the importance of women’s education, and the importance of investing in the missions of those institutions that you care about deeply.”

Noting that billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s donations to higher education — notably at traditionally underfunded historically Black colleges and universities  — have made a significant impact in the world of philanthropy, Luellen sees another new trend. “I think [Scott’s] team does tremendous research, and I think that will be a growing trend. It’s setting a tone more quantitative and qualitatively driven than, ‘I went to school here and met my spouse here.’”

Scott’s donations, which included record-breaking gifts to Hampton, Norfolk State and Virginia State universities, are good for all schools, Luellen says, helping “all ships rise.”

Nonetheless, a lot of charity does start at home, as in the case of Norris Mitchell, a 1958 Virginia Tech alum who, with his wife, Wendy, has been a reliable university donor. Last fall, the couple pledged $35 million to replace the aging Randolph Hall, home of Tech’s College of Engineering. Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus, now under construction in Alexandria, also is a gleaming target for philanthropy and has already benefited from major individual and corporate gifts, but Engineering Dean Julia Ross says that there’s plenty of motivation to give to the home campus.

“Investing in Blacksburg, investing in something like this — that is also supporting the Innovation Campus because it’s allowing us to teach the [undergraduate] students who would then go on to the Innovation Campus as graduate students,” Ross says. “You have to support all parts of the pipeline. You can’t think about them independently. You have to think about them as part of the whole system.”

Editor’s note: This article has been amended to reflect that Best Products Co. co-founder Frances Lewis is still alive. The print version of this story incorrectly reported her death. Virginia Business sincerely apologizes for the error.

FOR THE RECORD JUNE 2022

CENTRAL

-based Dominion Energy Inc. asked the State Corporation Commission for permission in early May to increase Virginia residential customer bills by about $9 a month to account for rising fuel prices. According to federal data, Virginia already has high electric bills. Dominion cited dramatic increases in fuel prices stemming from the pandemic, inflation and the war in as reasons it needs to charge more to cover what’s known as the “fuel factor” component of its electric rates. A $9 increase would raise the typical residential customer bill by about 7%, wrote Ed Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

HCA Healthcare is acquiring Richmond-based BetterMed, a chain of 12 urgent care facilities, for an undisclosed price. The health system announced its preliminary agreement in late April. Founded in 2011, BetterMed is led by CEO Mark Johnson, a former executive at Sara Lee, PepsiCo and MeadWestvaco Corp., and has eight locations in the Richmond area, two in Fredericksburg and two in North Carolina. HCA, which is based in Nashville, operates three freestanding emergency rooms in the Richmond area. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in late April that it plans to ban sales of menthol cigarettes, a billion-dollar industry in which Philip Morris USA, a subsidiary of Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc., has a 9.4% market share. The ban, which was widely anticipated after the FDA announced its intentions in spring 2021, would affect only traditional menthol cigarettes, not heated tobacco products. Altria has taken the stance that “harm reduction, not prohibition, is the better path forward,” a spokesman said. Proponents of the ban, however, say it could reduce the number of Black and younger smokers who are more likely to purchase mint-flavored cigarettes. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

City of Richmond officials announced in May that three development teams have continued to the finals for the Diamond District redevelopment project, which includes replacing the baseball stadium and revitalizing the area near the
Scott’s Addition neighborhood. The three multi-partner teams will be asked to respond to a request for offers by a deadline of June 28. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Employees at five Starbucks coffee stores in the Richmond area in April voted overwhelmingly for union representation as part of a nationwide effort to organize workers at one of the United States’ largest retail store chains. The Northern Virginia Labor Federation, which has been working with Philadelphia-based Workers United, reported a vote of 82 in favor of union representation and 14 against, making the stores the first ones in Virginia to unionize, followed by two locations in Fairfax and Loudoun counties. A week later, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, appeared at Unity Fest, organized by the NVLF at The National in Richmond, and called unionizing workers “heroes and heroines.” Virginia’s Starbucks cafés follow the lead of a location in Buffalo, New York, which in 2021 became the first Starbucks in the country to unionize. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

The ‘s athletics department received a $40 million anonymous bequest from a former student-athlete, the university announced in April. The donation is the largest in the Virginia Athletics Foundation’s history. Part of U.Va.’s $5 billion Honor the Future capital campaign, which surpassed $4 billion in April, the donation will be used to broadly support the university’s athletic programs, student-athletes and coaches. Including this anonymous gift, the athletics foundation has raised all but $57 million of its $500 million fundraising goal for the Honor the Future campaign. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

EASTERN

In a deal predicted to bring more than 500 jobs and over $100 million in capital investment, Norfolk’s Lambert’s Point Docks property will become Fairwinds Landing, a maritime operations and logistics center to support the local offshore wind, defense and transportation industries. The 111-acre property, adjacent to Norfolk Southern Corp.’s coal terminal and owned by Norfolk Southern Railway Co., has been leased by Virginia Beach-based Fairwinds Landing LLC for 30 years, the company announced May 5. Fairwinds Landing CEO Jerry Miller established the special purpose company in October 2021 to develop the property. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Chesapeake’s Greenbrier Mall is headed into foreclosure after its biggest owner, Tennessee-based CBL Properties, defaulted on a $61.6 million loan that used the property as collateral. Chesapeake Mayor Rick West in late April said city officials are working on a redevelopment plan for the area to include the 896,000-square-foot mall. The mall has three owners; CBL owns everything between the mall’s former Sears location and Dillard’s. New York-based Seritage Growth Properties owns the former Sears building, and Dillard’s Inc. owns its location. Plans to turn the mall into a hotel and slots parlor fell through in 2018. (The Virginian-Pilot)

Confirming rumors, music superstar and Virginia Beach native announced April 26 that he is moving his three-day Something in the Water music festival from the Virginia Beach Oceanfront to Washington, D.C. The inaugural 2019 festival yielded $24 million in local economic impact before being cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic. In a September 2021 letter to the city manager, Williams called out Virginia Beach’s “toxic energy,” citing fallout from his cousin Donovon Lynch’s killing by a Virginia Beach police officer, as well as other issues surrounding Williams’ projects in the city. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Biden administration’s budget proposes decommissioning 24 U.S. Navy ships, including Hampton Roads-based cruisers USS San Jacinto and USS Vicksburg and dock landing ships USS Gunston Hall and USS Tortuga, according to documents posted April 22. The ships were commissioned between 30 and 32 years ago and would be taken out of service in fiscal 2023. The Navy says decommissioning the ships will save the expense of costly maintenance and repair work, freeing up funds for the new ships it wants to build. (Daily Press)

PEOPLE

Spore

Hampton University alumnus and retired Army Lt. Gen. Darrell K. Williams will succeed William R. Harvey as the university’s next president, according to an April 14 announcement. Williams, of Alexandria, graduated in 1983 and serves as vice president and managing director for Reston-based Leidos’ United Kingdom Logistics Division. He is also programme director for the Logistics Commodities and Services Transformation (LCST) programme with the U.K. Ministry of Defence. He retired from the Army in 2020 after 37 years and was the first African American director of the Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency, where he oversaw 26,000 civilian and military members. Harvey will retire on June 30 after 44 years. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Nancy L. Grden
Nancy L. Grden

Jim Spore, president and CEO of Reinvent Hampton Roads, will retire June 15, the regional economic development organization announced April 28. Nancy L. Grden, executive director of the Hampton Roads Maritime Collaborative for Growth & Innovation and associate vice president of Old Dominion University’s Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, will replace Spore, who served in the role six years after spending more than two decades as city manager of Virginia Beach. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

SHENANDOAH

Front Royal Town Council voted April 18 to direct Town Manager Steven Hicks to authorize and process refunds of all building permit fees received for all applications submitted but not issued, or for permits issued but not finalized, prior to the termination of the town’s building department, which it set up last year. The Warren County Building Department had previously overseen permitting and inspections for in-town projects. Facing pressure from developers and builders, the Town Council agreed to dissolve the town department and let the county resume accepting applications and handling inspections. (The Northern Virginia Daily)

Chicago-based Healthcare Development Partners said on April 19 it was proposing its third major mixed-use development in Winchester. The firm’s proposal includes 92 town houses, 170 apartments and 14,800 square feet of retail and restaurant space on approximately 10 acres at the intersection of Fairmont Avenue and West Wyck Street. National Fruit Product Co. used to own the site, which is now owned by Fairmont Avenue Holdings LLC. If City Council approves the development, HDP would buy the site from Fairmont Avenue Holdings. (The Winchester Star)

On April 26, Harrisonburg City Council unanimously approved a request for Northside LLC, represented by Holtzman Oil Corp., to rezone four parcels for Northside Gateway Plaza, a shopping center. Site plans include seven buildings: a gas station and convenience store area and six other buildings designed for purposes such as restaurants, stores, drive-thrus, banks or medical offices. The site will include sidewalks, roadway improvements, solar panels, electric car charging, a bus pad and an easement along Mount Clinton Pike. Roughly an acre of the 5.5-acre property is in Rockingham County, and the Board of Supervisors had already rezoned that part. (Daily News-Record)

Atlanta-based Kingspan Insulation LLC will invest $27 million to expand its Frederick County operations, a project expected to create 37 jobs, announced April 13. Kingspan Insulation is a division of Kingspan Group that manufactures energy efficiency and moisture management products for residential and commercial construction. The company will add a 155,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at 200 Kingspan Way to create its OPTIM-R vacuum insulated panels. Kingspan Insulation manufactures insulation, building wraps and pre-insulated HVAC ductwork suitable for new builds and renovations in residential and commercial buildings. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Winchester City Council on April 26 unanimously approved the rezoning needed for the construction of Winchester Grove, a large residential and commercial complex proposed for the 1900 and 2000 blocks of Valley Avenue. South Boston-based Echelon Resources Inc. proposed the complex, which would sit on 17.34 acres. The complex would have 440 apartments — 266 one-bedroom units, 142 two-bedroom apartments and 32 three-bedroom units — 19,467 square feet of commercial and restaurant space, 13,038 square feet of indoor amenities, 7 acres of open space, a pool, a clubhouse, grilling areas, a fitness center, a dog park, a playground and sidewalks. (The Winchester Star)

Bill Buchanan

PEOPLE

Millboro-based BARC Electric Cooperative named Bill Buchanan as CEO, replacing Michael Keyser, who left the cooperative in December 2021. Buchanan took over as CEO on May 9. Chief Operations Officer Chris Botulinski had been filling in as interim CEO and returned to his role as COO. BARC is a member-owned utility, providing service to 13,000 residents, farms and businesses in the Shenandoah Valley across five counties: Bath, Alleghany, Augusta, Highland and Rockbridge. Buchanan joined BARC from Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania-based Northwestern Rural Electric Cooperative Association Inc., where he was president and CEO. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

NORTHERN

Amazon.com Inc. said April 20 that it has hired 5,000 employees for its -based HQ2, bringing the e-tailer one-fifth of the way to the minimum jobs the company committed to fill. Also in April, Arlington’s board approved plans for the 10.4-acre PenPlace, the second and final phase of the company’s new headquarters, which includes three office buildings and the spiral Helix tower. The first phase, Metropolitan Park, is expected to be delivered in 2023. (Washington Business Journal)

Google LLC will invest $300 million in Virginia in a plan that includes data centers and a $250,000 grant to Richmond nonprofit CodeVA to develop a network of computer science lab schools. Google will also partner with the state’s community colleges and regional higher education centers for professional certificates, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced in April. While details about the company’s investment in Virginia were scant, Google and Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai announced April 13 that the company would spend $9.5 billion in 2022 to expand offices and data centers in nearly two dozen states. Google employs more than 480 people in Virginia, including at data centers in Loudoun County and its office in Reston. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

As bitcoin’s value tumbled below $30,000 for the first time since December 2020, MicroStrategy Inc. CEO Michael Saylor joked via Twitter that he may be taking on a new job, tweeting a badly edited photo of himself sporting a McDonald’s hat, serving fries and a hamburger. “Monday morning is time to get back to work. #Bitcoin,” the cryptocurrency influencer and bitcoin whale tweeted to his 2.4 million followers on May 9. His Tysons-based software company is the largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin, with more than 129,200 bitcoins in its reserves, worth about $4.1 billion as of May 11. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares launched an inquiry into the Washington Commanders in late April, weeks after a U.S. congressional committee wrote to the Federal Trade Commission saying it found evidence of deceptive business practices by the team over more than a decade, including withholding ticket revenue from visiting teams and refundable deposits from fans. The investigation comes as the team scouts a location for a new stadium complex, including sites in Loudoun and Prince William counties, that would incorporate retail and other development. Legislation pending before the Virginia General Assembly would commit up to $350 million in tax revenues to help finance the stadium. (Associated Press, Virginia Mercury)

PEOPLE

George Mason University on April 11 named Ajay Vinzé as dean of its business school. Vinzé served as dean of the University of Missouri’s Trulaske College of Business from 2017 to 2022, but stepped down to return to teaching and research, and currently serves as a professor of accountancy. Vinzé helped secure more than $30 million in philanthropic funding for Trulaske, which also began offering online credentials during his tenure and increased experiential learning opportunities for students. His first day at GMU will be July 1. (Virginia Business.com)

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority General Manager and CEO Paul J. Wiedefeld stepped down on May 16, rather than retiring June 30 as previously announced. WMATA Chief Operating Officer Joe Leader also resigned and left that day. The resignations followed news that more than 250 of the troubled transit system’s 500 train operators had lapsed in achieving recertification. In recent months, Metro has faced declining ridership and the suspension of more than half of its rail car fleet due to malfunctions. Randy Clarke, president and CEO of Austin, Texas’ Capital Metro, is set to become the WMATA’s next general manager and CEO in July. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

SOUTHERN

Amazon.com Inc. will launch two more utility-scale solar projects in Virginia, the company announced April 20. A 200-megawatt project in Pittsylvania County, near Axton, and a 50-megawatt project in Frederick County will bring to 19 the number of utility-scale solar facilities the company has in Virginia. Localities across the state have been wrestling with how — and even whether — to allow the continued spread of large-scale solar farms, which can take hundreds and even thousands of acres of farmland and forests.
(Cardinal News)

Caesars Virginia has named Baltimore-based Whiting-Turner as the general contractor to build its $500 million resort and casino in , Caesars Entertainment announced April 25. The resort will have a 500-guestroom hotel, a casino with more than 1,400 slot machines and table games, a Caesars sportsbook and a World Series of Poker-branded poker room. It will also include 40,000 square feet of meeting and convention space and a 2,500-person entertainment venue, along with bars and restaurants. But on May 3, a spokesperson told Danville’s City Council that the opening will be pushed back to 2024. (Danville Register & Bee)

It took a retired Virginia Beach judge very little time to rule in Martinsville‘s favor in a civil proceeding on reversion in Henry County Circuit Court April 26. The matter: Where will the future litigation proceedings on reversion be held and who will hear them? The verdict: Before a three-judge panel in Martinsville Circuit Court. Martinsville is seeking to revert from a city to a town in Henry County and the county is opposed, despite both parties previously having agreed to it. Both sides agreed reversion started out as a contested action by the city, became a voluntary action when the county signed a memorandum of understanding, and a voluntary settlement agreement is now contested because the county changed its mind. (Martinsville Bulletin)

A partisan shakeup of the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission in late April has restored not just Republican control of the board but also returned most seats to lawmakers from localities considered part of Virginia’s tobacco regions after Democrats ceded their majority in the House of Delegates and the three statewide offices back to the GOP in November. Among the lawmakers reappointed by Speaker Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, after a two-year hiatus is Del. Danny Marshall, R-Danville, who had previously served on the commission after first being appointed in 2007. Former Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn had replaced several lawmakers with Democrats not residing in what is widely considered the tobacco footprint in the commonwealth. (Cardinal News)

Construction hasn’t started on the project to redevelop the iconic former Dan River Inc. White Mill building along Memorial Drive, and the anticipated cost has risen yet again. The price tag, which was originally $62.5 million,
has gone up from $68.75 million to about $81 million. Almost all of that is due to new site development costs, allowance for tenant improvements and the increase in construction costs. Officials had initially hoped for construction to begin by the end of last year, but it was delayed due to inflation, worker shortages and supply chain issues. Work has been postponed until August. (Danville Register & Bee)

PEOPLE

Telly Tucker, Arlington County’s economic development director since 2020, became the first president of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR) on May 31. Tucker’s return to Danville is a return to his past. The Lynchburg native served as the city’s economic development director before becoming Arlington County’s economic development director in January 2020. He spent five years in Danville and helped turn around the former textile hub after many big employers exited in the 1990s and 2000s. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

SOUTHWEST

Abingdon served the Virginia Creeper Trail Conservancy a 30-day eviction notice on April 22, tossing the 31-year-old nonprofit organization from the Findlay House. Town officials said they wanted the space to develop a new welcome center for the trail and the nearby Meadows Sports Complex. On May 8, the Conservancy’s board of directors voted unanimously to accept the eviction and leave Abingdon. (Bristol Herald Courier)

Ballad Health System officials opened a second children’s resource center on April 20, part of its efforts to improve the health of a region with high rates of childhood obesity, diabetes and families in poverty. Located in Johnston Memorial Hospital in Abingdon, the center will provide information to children, parents and families; sponsor outreach and education on children’s health and safety issues; and serve as a clearinghouse to help families improve their children’s outlook. The center and its programming will be geared to help children and parents make healthy choices regarding physical activity, nutrition and safety, said Lisa Carter, president of Ballad’s southern market. (SWVA Today)

In late April, the Blue Ridge Job Corps Center campus in Marion announced it had immediate availability for new students. When the U.S. Labor Department lifted the new student enrollment restrictions, the center was able to return to its pre-pandemic admission standards and has the capacity to serve 192 students. The center provides certified nursing assistants, clinical medical assistants, medical administrative assistant and patient care technician trainings.
The center serves only female Virginia residents, ages 16 to 24. (SWVA Today)

In May, High Knob Regional Initiative and the University of Virginia’s College at Wise launched a public campaign that aims to provide community leaders and entrepreneurs with a toolkit to cultivate environmentally sustainable growth in Southwest Virginia’s outdoor economy. Funded by a grant from the Virginia Environmental Endowment, the yearlong “Growing Smart” campaign includes a 75-page planning blueprint crafted to help local governments, landowners and small businesses more sustainably plan and implement economic development practices. A group of academic experts, government agency representatives, nonprofit organizations’ staff, outdoor user group members and regional entrepreneurs created the blueprint.
(The Coalfield Progress)

A federal judge issued a summary judgment in late April, dismissing all claims in former banking executive Mary Y. Trigiani‘s lawsuit against Russell County-based New Peoples Bank for discrimination and wrongful termination. Trigiani’s complaints of a “cultlike office culture” did not hold up to judicial scrutiny, U.S. District Judge James P. Jones ruled. Trigiani was employed as New Peoples Bank’s senior vice president of strategic planning and development from 2017 to 2019. In January 2021, Trigiani sued New Peoples Bank in the U.S. Western District Court of Virginia, claiming that she was discriminated against because of her Catholic, nonevangelical religious beliefs, her age and her gender. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Virginia Lottery Board has issued its first license for a casino in Virginia to Hard Rock Bristol, the board announced April 27. With its permanent casino still on track to open at the former Bristol Mall in July 2024, Hard Rock International Inc. is preparing to open a 30,000-square-foot temporary casino with 870 gaming slots and 21 tables on July 8. The 90,000-square-foot permanent facility will include a 3,200-seat performance venue and a 20,000-person capacity outdoor entertainment venue. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

Interesting times

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes, according to an apt but apocryphal quote frequently misattributed to Mark Twain.

We’re certainly seeing that dynamic writ large in the 2020s, though events don’t seem content with reviving just one era.

A deadly pandemic has taken millions of lives across the globe.

Inflation and mortgage rates are surging to levels not seen in decades. Fuel prices have hit record highs.

And war has broken out in Europe, driven by a nationalistic despot whose invading forces are heedless of civilian deaths and war crimes. Wary of being pulled into active conflict but not wanting to see a democratic ally fall, the U.S. president has signed a lend-lease act to provide military matériel.

While all these challenges — plus those more specific to the present moment, such as climate change, global supply chain disruptions and the Great Resignation — fall firmly within the realm of public policy and political leadership, the business community too has its role to play in influencing and addressing world events.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw Big Pharma and health care systems develop vaccines, medications and treatment protocols in real time. Companies and business leaders not directly in the fight responded in various ways, including pivoting manufacturing operations to produce in-demand personal protection equipment, and redirecting philanthropic efforts. Many businesses implemented measures beyond those required by government, such as expanding remote work and leave policies. Even the smallest actions support the overall aim of slowing the spread of a disease that has killed more than 1 million Americans as of May and continues to take more than 300 U.S. lives per day, regardless of our desire for a return to a pre-pandemic normalcy.

Similarly, following the invasion of in late February, about 1,000 major companies worldwide voluntarily moved to sever financial ties with . Far more businesses than that are providing financial aid and other support to the beleaguered Ukrainians.

Even though recent U.S. sanctions against various Russian institutions and individuals are the most sweeping actions levied against a major foreign power since World War II, many types of U.S. business transactions with Russia remain legal.

Nevertheless, here in Virginia, several large companies have withdrawn assets and investments from Russia, according to a list maintained by the Yale School of Management. These include the commonwealth’s largest private company, McLean-based Mars Inc., as well as Fortune 500 companies like Ashburn-based DXC Technology Co. Mars and DXC also have provided significant assistance to Ukrainian aid efforts.

In this issue’s annual feature package (see Page 20), Virginia Business Deputy Editor Kate Andrews covers the past year’s most laudatory acts of mega-altruism by Virginia benefactors to institutions such as universities, health care systems and museums. And we also have a story from Virginia Business Associate Editor Robyn Sidersky, who spoke with Virginia-based organizations that have been contributing to Ukrainian aid efforts. These range from fundraisers at local breweries to corporate shipments of goods  to the efforts of executives such as Stanislas Vilgrain, chairman of Cuisine Solutions in Sterling, who personally traveled to the war-torn nation to deliver truckloads of food at his own risk.

With so many internationally connected companies in the commonwealth, efforts such as these are a good reminder of the ability our corporate citizens have to be global forces for more than profit.

To close with another quote oft attributed to Samuel Clemens, “There are people who accomplish things and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”  

Albemarle’s industrial age

In , industrial space, not office or retail, “has been the bright spot in commercial real estate” in terms of demand, says Lisa Sturtevant, research leader at Bright MLS Inc. “All of a sudden, there’s been a big rush for industrial space,” she says, but adds, “Good luck in finding it right now.”

Albemarle County’s master plan supports efforts to shape the region into a hub for life sciences and biotech businesses. The region already has 67 such companies, and at the mixed-use Albemarle Business Campus, an 80,000-square-foot biotech space, is on the books as “shovel-ready.” 

However, the Charlottesville area “is incredibly undersupplied by light industrial property,” says John Pritzlaff IV of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, and data from CoStar Group Inc. bears that out.

In the first quarter of the year, CoStar reported only 17,888 square feet of new industrial space delivered in the region and an industrial vacancy rate of only 1.1%. Not surprisingly, given such a tight market, the price of industrial space has rocketed. A year ago, full-service rents averaged $4.95 a square foot, Sturtevant notes. This year, that rate has almost doubled, to $8.14 a square foot.

Faced with those figures, last fall, Charlottesville-based sugar manufacturer Bonumose Inc. opted to renovate the 36,000-square-foot former State Farm building in Albemarle’s Pantops region for its planned expansion, funded in part by , rather than seek out a brand-new space.

Despite the premium rate that industrial space now commands, CoStar reports that the region had just 111,000 square feet of industrial space under construction in the first quarter of 2022.

On the retail front, not much news has been good news. “During the pandemic, everyone worried about retail, but it was resilient,” Sturtevant says, partly because the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program helped businesses “keep the lights on” in 2020 and 2021. The neighborhood market has been the strongest retail sector, she reports, citing the region’s retail vacancy rate of 3.7% in the first quarter of 2022, compared with a state average of 4.5%, as reported by CoStar.

About 200,000 square feet of new retail space was in the pipeline during the first quarter, with rental rates static at about $20 per square foot across the region, though that’s significantly better than the state average rate of about $16.

“Overall, the commercial real estate market did better than expected,” Sturtevant says.

Read more about Charlottesville’s Class A office space boom.

Hampton Roads’ LGBTQ chamber relaunches

After a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19, () is reviving its mission to empower and support businesses and their allies.

HRBOR was established in 2006 and promotes LGBTQ influence through business ownership, workforce equality and diversity and inclusion.

“We’re in a regrowth process,” says Eric Hause, HRBOR’s membership director and a member of its board. “Like most nonprofit organizations, we struggled to get through COVID and canceled membership dues for two years.”

HRBOR had as many as 150 members pre-pandemic but took a break during it, deciding not to charge dues, Hause says. During that time, a subcommittee of HRBOR’s volunteer board looked at what LGBTQ chambers in similar markets, including , Baltimore and Raleigh, North Carolina, were doing. Based on what they learned, HRBOR reset memberships, adding an individual category for self-employed entrepreneurs and lowering dues for nonprofits and small businesses. The chamber also added sponsorship levels that come with several exclusive benefits.

“It can be any organization that wants to pay to help support our mission and get much more visibility,” Hause says.

During the winter, HRBOR resumed monthly in-person events for the first time since the pandemic began. And on March 30, HRBOR co-presented an LGBTQ+ career expo at Old Dominion University in collaboration with ODU and Hause’s magazine, Outwire757. The event featured recruiters from 40 companies, including Sentara Healthcare, Dominion Energy Inc. and Dollar Tree Inc.

By April, HRBOR was back up to 72 members. Jarrod Hunt, a local mortgage loan officer for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Dolfin Home Loans, joined after attending a networking event at an art gallery in January. “I just wanted Dolfin’s name to be out there,” he says. “We’re newer to Virginia Beach.”

HRBOR also is partnering with Busch Gardens Williamsburg to sponsor the theme park’s first Pride Day on July 10. The event grew out of a member picnic HRBOR hosted at the park last fall. “It was well attended and led to further discussion with Busch Gardens about offering Pride events,” Hause says.

Hause says HRBOR also gains visibility through established allies including the Virginia Arts Festival, Freedom Boat Club and Samaritan House. “We’re casting a wider net to the community at large and saying this is how to reach the LGBT community. Our members look for strength in numbers.” 

‘Drink up!’ Danville says

Justin Ferrell is toasting ‘s new , which allows visitors to sip alcoholic beverages while strolling through part of the city’s River District.

“It’s going to be unique for all businesses downtown because tourism is happening in Danville and people are excited about moving into the downtown community,” says Ferrell, a partner in Culture Restaurant and Grill, which opened in the River District in February.

On April 5, Danville City Council voted to establish the district, allowing adults to drink in public from 8 a.m. to midnight daily in a 159-acre area.

approval of the district will take 60 to 90 days after Danville submits its official application to the state, which the city hadn’t done as of early May, an ABC spokesperson confirmed.

Visitors will be able to buy drinks at about 10 state ABC-licensed establishments and walk within the designed area while consuming alcoholic drinks.

City and business leaders are confident the area will draw more visitors to the revitalized River District, which has numerous bars, restaurants and other businesses and hosts the Danville Wine Festival, Bright Leaf Brew Fest, Shrimp Fest and other events.

“This will be a great benefit to the River District,” says Mayor Alonzo Jones. “We’re trying to relax things and make people feel comfortable and enjoy themselves responsibly. It’s a win-win.”

Logan King, assistant general manager of Mucho Taqueria, says the tequila bar is looking forward to having the designated drinking area. “People want to be able to walk outside and go to other restaurants. This is going to bring in more business for the River District.”

Ferrell, a Danville native, is confident the zone will capitalize on recent downtown growth. “In the last 10 years, we’ve seen more public and private investment,” he says, adding that while the additional pedestrian traffic will generate excitement, details remain to be worked out, such as charging fees to bring in alcohol from another establishment. “We’re in a remarkable position because this is new and has not been tried in Virginia before.” 

Danville is the first city in the state to take advantage of a 2021 state law allowing localities to establish up to three designated outdoor drinking areas. Jones says future zones could be created in Schoolfield, where the is set to open in 2024, and North Main Hill.