Now that the NCAA is allowing student athletes to make sponsorship deals and capitalize on their fame, Virginia Tech is working to ensure its students don’t get left behind or taken advantage of.
The NCAA rule change, which went into effect July 1, allows athletes to profit from the use of their names, images and likenesses (NIL), which means college athletes who were once forbidden from accepting compensation can now snag paid gigs promoting products.
To help players navigate this new entrepreneurial landscape, Virginia Tech in June launched a program called JumpStart, which offers a mix of business training, brand development, mentorships and career preparation.
“We are thrilled to launch JumpStart in order to connect our student athletes with the tools and knowledge to expand the impact of their personal brand,” Virginia Tech Director of Athletics Whit Babcock said in announcing the initiative.
Tech is also working with INFLCR (pronounced “influencer”), an app that helps connect student athletes to brands hiring athletes for social media marketing.
While a handful of collegiate stars can attract big-time sponsors, there are plenty of smaller opportunities for lesser-known athletes. For example, Virginia Tech football center Brock Hoffman helped arrange a deal with Mission BBQ restaurant in Christiansburg, where the entire offensive line now eats once a week.
“As an offensive lineman, I am assuming I am not going to sign some $30,000 deal, so I am going to take what I can get,” Hoffman says. “It‘s a consistent meal and it’s a good meal.”
Hoffman says many of the deals he saw on INFLCR ranged from $200 to $1,000 for making a certain number of social media posts per month.
But it’s not only about players making money. Hoffman also struck a deal with Wytheville-based Bob Huff Chevrolet Buick GMC and Huff Ford to donate 325 book bags emblazoned with his “BH” logo to kids in Wytheville and in his hometown of Statesville, North Carolina.
At Tech, school officials can’t arrange deals for athletes, Associate Athletics Director of Strategic Communications Pete Moris says, but under the new NCAA rules, a third-party agent can help negotiate deals.
As money-making opportunities for student athletes evolve, high school recruits will begin evaluating colleges based on the business possibilities. The impact on recruitment is inevitable, so schools like Tech are refining their pipelines for students to tap into the newly established sponsorship deals.
Standing on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the Cavalier Hotel is a callback to a time when Virginia Beach was a sleepy little resort town inside Princess Anne County.
Opened in 1927 as the largest brick building in the state, the Cavalier was a product of the Jazz Age. Over the years, the Y-shaped building hosted seven presidents and a long list of luminaries, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Ella Fitzgerald and Bob Hope. President Richard Nixon stayed at the hotel during the height of Watergate, and — according to legend — torched either a stack of documents or audiotape in the fireplace of the Cavalier’s Hunt Room.
Yet this historic structure likely wouldn’t still be standing if it weren’t for Bruce Thompson, one of Hampton Roads‘ most prominent developers and hoteliers. Once destined for the wrecking ball, the hotel is now the centerpiece of the Cavalier Resort, a $435 million effort to reshape 21 acres of the Virginia Beach Oceanfront into a tourism-fueled development with three hotels, seven restaurants, homes, condos and an exclusive beach club. With the third hotel, an Embassy Suites, anticipated for a January 2023 opening, Thompson’s resort vision is nearing completion.
The Cavalier Resort is the culmination of nearly four decades of work by Thompson to reposition Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads. Once unflatteringly referred to as the “Redneck Riviera,” the Oceanfront now boasts high-end hotels and amenities that Thompson played a role in establishing. During the past 15 years, Thompson’s Virginia Beach-based hospitality company Gold Key | PHR has carried out more than $1 billion in investment in Hampton Roads and the Outer Banks. The company employs 1,700 people and owns 20 properties worth more than $500 million combined.
“He’s a visionary,” says Will Sessoms, mayor of Virginia Beach from 2008 to 2018 and past president and CEO of Towne Financial Services Group, a division of Suffolk-based TowneBank. “We ought to have a statue at the Oceanfront of him, and I’m not exaggerating.”
Even amid the swirling headwinds of the pandemic — which have been particularly unkind to the hospitality industry — Thompson and Gold Key | PHR have come through the other end in good shape, with 2021 revenues anticipated at $160 million, compared with 2019’s $120 million, primarily due to the opening of the Oceanfront Marriott.
Because of Thompson’s continuing efforts to propel the Hampton Roads region beyond the status quo, Virginia Business has named Thompson its 2021 Business Person of the Year.
With construction of the Cavalier Resort’s final hotel underway, a new $200 million mixed-use project in the planning stages for Virginia Beach, and a proposal on the table to convert Norfolk‘s old Military Circle Mall property into a $663 million development with an amphitheater, Thompson continues to burnish a legacy of transforming Hampton Roads.
As a young man, Thompson worked as a night watchman and mowed the lawn at the Cavalier Hotel. Following a five-year, $85 million renovation completed in 2018, the hotel is now the centerpiece of his Cavalier Resort development. Photo by James Lee
Priesthood, foosball, football
Wearing a fashionable blue suit, Thompson sits in a booth at Orion’s Roof, the 23rd-floor Asian fusion restaurant at his $125 million Oceanfront Marriott, which opened last year. Surrounding him are panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean that include both the Eastern Shore and the Outer Banks in their sweep.
That’s apropos, as it was the water that first sparked the entrepreneurial spirit in Thompson. Growing up without much money on a creek in Norfolk, Thompson caught minnows and crabs to sell. Later, as a head altar boy at Norfolk’s St. Pius X Church, Thompson would trade funeral and wedding assignments with other boys for better paper routes.
“At that point in my life, I just knew I was destined to figure out how to make a buck,” says Thompson, with an old-school Hampton Roads twang.
For a time, though, the priesthood was also a consideration. After completing ninth grade, Thompson left Norfolk for a high school seminary — something like a prep school for aspiring priests — in Richmond. He didn’t last a month.
“In very short order, the priests realized, as did I, that I really didn’t have a calling. I really was too sweet on a girl in Norfolk,” recalls Thompson, who turns 70 this month.
In the interim, his family moved to a farm in Virginia Beach. Tensions between Thompson and his father escalated, so he left home at 17 and managed garage bands. During this period, Thompson met Ed Ruffin, co-founder of Virginia Beach nightclub Peabody’s.
“Bruce will outwork you. He’ll read and self-educate himself,” says Ruffin, who became a longtime business partner. “When you meet up with Bruce, you’re dancing with a bear. He ain’t going to let up until he’s finished with you.”
Thompson promoted a roster of bands including Grand Funk Railroad and the Allman Brothers Band. After some financially disastrous shows, though, he pivoted to foosball sales in the early ’70s, just as the craze was taking off in America. Thompson opened foosball parlors in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
At 21, Thompson ran into financial difficulties at a foosball parlor in Blacksburg and had to start over again. It was around this time that Thompson’s girlfriend became pregnant and, being “a good Catholic boy,” he married her and found a job working on a hog farm back in Virginia Beach. Part of the job entailed getting the hogs to mate.
“You go there at four in the morning. You introduce Bubba to all the ladies. It was horrible,” he says, recalling one low point: “It is snowing, it’s cold, Christmas Eve, and I’m repairing a fence, and I’m praying like I’ve never prayed. I’m praying, ‘Dear Lord, don’t make me do this for the rest of my life. This is not my destiny.’”
At night, Thompson tended bar at Virginia Beach haunt The Raven, owned by twin brothers Ricky and Bobby Dunnington. When the Dunningtons opened a sail and ski shop, they asked Thompson if he could help with the ski side of the business. Soon, Thompson’s full-time job was promoting and organizing ski trips just as the skiing craze hit Virginia in the mid-’70s. Thompson became the largest ski travel wholesaler on the East Coast, and at the height of his business, his company annually taught 12,000 people how to ski.
Because Thompson needed buses to get people to the slopes and back, he got deeper into the travel business. His Great Atlantic Travel became the largest seasonal ticket holder for the Washington Football Team just as it was hitting its 1980s stride. During one particularly disastrous trip, the planes he chartered for a return trip from Super Bowl XVII in Los Angeles were delayed for days. Thompson made up T-shirts for his clients that read, “We won the game, but we lost the plane.”
Seeking more stability and tangible assets, Thompson began to pivot toward the hospitality industry. Around 1982, he and some business partners opened the Ocean House Hotel at 31st Street and Atlantic Avenue, his first hotel.
In 2017, Thompson opened The Main, his $77.5 million, 300-room Hilton hotel in Norfolk. Photo by James Lee
‘A true visionary’
Under the name Professional Hospitality Resources, Thompson’s hotel empire grew. Thompson also founded Gold Key, a timeshare company, as well as his own marketing and finance companies to assist with timeshare sales. During a 10-year period, Gold Key sold vacation ownership interests to 35,000 people.
At its peak, between the hotels and timeshares, Thompson says, his companies owned 60% of the commercial bedrooms on the actual oceanfront in Virginia Beach, totaling 3,000 sleeping rooms.
Thompson also got into the restaurant business. At one point, his portfolio included 21 restaurants; Catch 31 at the Virginia Beach Hilton alone brought in $18 million annually, he says.
After Thompson and his wife, Kathy, divorced in 1983, he gave her their retail and local travel skiing business. Thompson would eventually sell off his travel, marketing, finance and timeshare companies, merging the remainder of his business to form Gold Key | PHR in 1999.
In 2003, Thompson opened the Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront at 31st Street, a controversial 21-story hotel constructed in a public-private partnership with the city for nearly $80 million. In a nonbinding 2000 ballot referendum, 58% of city voters said they wanted the land to become a park. Virginia Beach City Council’s decision to undertake a public-private partnership with Thompson to create the hotel, a park and a parking garage made him a lightning rod for controversy.
“That was one of the best things that ever happened to our oceanfront,” says Sessoms, the former Virginia Beach mayor, noting that the hotel generates $5 million in direct tax revenue annually for the city, helping keep other taxes low. “It really raised the bar. It was extremely controversial to make it happen.”
Vinod Agarwal, deputy director of the Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy at Old Dominion University, says the Hilton was far from a sure thing when it was pitched.
“He’s very forward-looking, and he is a risk-taker,” Agarwal says of Thompson. “A lot of people thought he was crazy to go with high-end hotels. Obviously, he’s done quite well.”
Gold Key | PHR sold the Hilton and its Oceanfront Hilton Garden Inn to Richmond-based Shamin Hotels in 2018.
“Bruce is a true visionary,” says Neil Amin, CEO of Shamin, one of the nation’s largest independent hoteliers. “He foresaw that there is tremendous demand for high-quality lodging at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, and by coupling hotels with unique [food and beverage] outlets, he has been able to generate above-market hotel rates to support his first-class developments.”
The Oceanfront Hilton whetted Thompson’s appetite for bigger projects, leading him to create the 21-story The Main in downtown Norfolk. The $77.5 million, 300-room Hilton hotel opened in April 2017, offering three restaurants and one of Virginia’s largest ballrooms.
Kurt Krause, president and CEO of destination marketing organization VisitNorfolk, served as managing director for the Cavalier Hotel, The Main and the Oceanfront Hilton. Krause, who previously spent more than two decades with Marriott International Inc., says Thompson stands apart from his peers for his “relentless pursuit of excellence,” and that traditional hoteliers “never would have put more than one restaurant” at a property. “Bruce wants the local community to fill his restaurants, and then they’ll spend the night. That model works, and it has continued to work at The Main especially well.”
Interviews with longtime associates and colleagues describe Thompson as a workaholic with an eye for detail. When touring his properties, he’s known to adjust the lighting or music to fit a space’s mood. When traveling, he takes photos of spaces and ideas that he wants to emulate, down to a hotel’s doorknobs. For employees, receiving 4 a.m. emails of what he expects of you that day is not an uncommon experience.
Bob Howard, Gold Key | PHR’s chief investment officer, says that Thompson is the best boss he’s ever had: “He challenges you to do better than you think you can do. [He’s] certainly very thoughtful and proactive in addressing issues.”
Thompson’s involvement in remaking the Cavalier — where he worked as a night watchman and grass cutter in his early 20s — began in 2013. It’s likely the Cavalier would have been demolished if Thompson and his associates hadn’t bought the hotel and surrounding properties for $35.1 million; its restoration cost $85 million.
The large part of the decision to turn the Cavalier property into a resort was an economic one. With the real estate being so valuable, it would have been more profitable to tear down the Cavalier and build denser hotels or housing on the property. Because Thompson and his partners wanted to save the Cavalier, they had to add hotels, housing, condos and other amenities to make the math work.
“The challenge was to be dense, because we were so heavily invested in the restoration of the hotel, yet preserve the integrity, the vistas and the spirit of what the Cavalier … meant to the community in the past and what it should represent in the future,” Thompson says.
Not all of Thompson’s endeavors have been successful. His pitch to create a $200 million arena in Virginia Beach went to another developer, who later sued the city when the local government backed out. Thompson also once proposed an Oceanfront fishing pier at 15th Street that ultimately didn’t get off the ground.
Still, Thompson has cemented a legacy in the region.
“He’s become one of the leading developers, certainly of Hampton Roads, if not the commonwealth. He’s done it with grit and determination, and also a concern for his community,” says Bryan K. Stephens, president and CEO of the Hampton Roads Chamber. “He’s got a passion for turning Hampton Roads into a well-known tourism industry location.”
Thompson gazes down at the JT Walk bracelet that belonged to his late son, Josh, who died from ALS in October 2020. Named for Josh, the annual Virginia Beach fundraising event has contributed millions toward ALS research and assisting patients and families. Photo by James Lee
Politics and philanthropy
As Thompson began breaking into the hospitality market, he also became involved in politics.
Seeing the need in the 1970s for Virginia Beach to create a separate funding stream for economic development and tourism-related endeavors, Thompson was part of the city’s inaugural Resort Area Advisory Commission, which created and managed the Tourism and Growth Investment Fund. This fund used a separate tax from the resort district’s tourism amenities to create some of Virginia Beach’s largest endeavors, including the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, the Virginia Beach Convention Center, the Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater and a major overhaul of the Oceanfront boardwalk.
Thompson also chaired inaugural functions for Democratic Govs. Chuck Robb and Gerald Baliles and served on their finance committees.
Thompson’s close association with Robb would get him into trouble. As Robb and then-Democratic Lt. Gov. Douglas Wilder were political rivals, Thompson’s friend Bobby Dunnington approached Thompson with a recording of a cell phone conversation of Wilder saying Robb had no political future. Thompson passed the tape onto the Robb campaign and became embroiled in a scandal. Thompson pled guilty to two misdemeanor charges of wiretapping and witness tampering. He was fined $7,500 and placed on probation for a year.
Thompson says he thought he was doing the right thing at the time — even consulting a criminal lawyer on the issue — and believes there was a political bent to the scandal. “I really felt like I was a pawn,” he says.
Still, that experience wasn’t enough to deter Thompson from politics. Twice, Thompson has stood in for Democratic gubernatorial candidates in local debates, acting as a surrogate for future Democratic Govs. Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam.
Eight years ago, Thompson served as McAuliffe’s Hampton Roads regional finance chair; this year, though, he served as state finance chair for Republican Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin, who defeated McAuliffe in November’s election. Asked about switching his allegiances, Thompson says he doesn’t like the extremes of either party and is against one-party rule in state government.
Over the years, Thompson has served on numerous boards and commissions, including the Virginia Travel Advisory Commission, GO Virginia Region 5 Council, the commonwealth’s COVID-19 Business Task Force and the board of visitors for the Eastern Virginia Medical School.
He’s also been involved with charitable causes, particularly related to ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Fourteen years ago, Thompson’s eldest son, Josh, was diagnosed with the progressive nervous system disease, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Josh, who died in October 2020, was the “heir apparent” to his business empire, Thompson says.
“He and I were tied at the hip,” Thompson says. “He was a John Kennedy Jr. kind of guy. He just had a lot of personality. He was very politically involved.”
Thompson, his sons Josh and Chris, and a nonprofit founded by Chris and his friends, championed ALS-related causes, creating the annual JT Walk to raise money for stem cell research and created a kid-friendly pediatric ICU on wheels for the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters. Josh Thompson also designed Grommet Island Park, a Virginia Beach playground accessible for children with disabilities. The Thompsons’ efforts raised more than $20 million for ALS-related causes.
“It’s a horrible situation,” Thompson says of losing his son to ALS. “It’s the worst diagnosis a parent can have, because you don’t know where it came from and there’s nothing you can do.”
Michael Levinson, Thompson’s longtime friend and personal lawyer, says Josh’s diagnosis and death took a toll on Thompson.
“He’s just been through a lot,” Levinson says. “He once said to me privately, ‘Mike, at this point you can’t cut me and not hit scar tissue, because somebody’s already been there.’ That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and he’s pretty strong.”
‘Sleepy little beach’ no more
Never one to sit still for long, Thompson is working on new projects to add luster to Hampton Roads, including the redevelopment of Norfolk’s Military Circle Mall. Thompson is a partner in one of three bids that Norfolk City Council is considering; council is aiming to make a decision by early 2022.
Norfolk MC Associates — which includes Thompson, Charlottesville-based music industry executive and developer Coran Capshaw and Virginia Beach developer The Franklin Johnson Group — has proposed The Well, a $663 million mixed-use development that would include a 200-room hotel, 864 housing units, 77,000 square feet of office space and at least 159,000 square feet of retail and entertainment space, all with a net-zero carbon footprint.
Unlike the competing Military Circle redevelopment proposals, The Well eschews an arena for a 5,000-seat amphitheater with lawn seating for more than 3,000 spectators, along with a 9-acre lake with an island in the center. Norfolk MC Associates projects its plan would create 2,200 jobs and generate $17.7 million in annual city tax revenue. It would also, if Thompson has his way, become the home of the Thompson School of Hospitality, an expansion of Norfolk State University’s entrepreneurship school. If the city ultimately chooses his proposal, Thompson says, “it will be my legacy project.”
The two other proposals in competition for Military Circle are backed by NFL Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith and famed pop musician and philanthropist Pharrell Williams, a Virginia Beach native. In October, Williams and Thompson had a public dustup after Thompson denied Williams the use of the Cavalier’s iconic front lawn for an 800-person party where controversial comedian Dave Chappelle would have performed. Thompson says there were logistical issues related to having that many people on the lawn, and he is also critical of recent comments made by Chappelle related to transgender people and Catholicism.
When Williams came out weeks later and said he was pulling his Something in the Water music festival from Virginia Beach, citing the city’s “toxic energy” for its handling of his cousin’s shooting death by police, some also perceived a veiled dig at Thompson.
Thompson is also working on a $200 million mixed-use project in Virginia Beach’s Dam Neck area. Currently in its planning stages, “The Farm” is envisioned as a 78-acre project with apartments, office and retail centered around holistic living.
Looking back at a career that started with selling crabs and slinging newspapers, Thompson says he’s driven to create a better future for Hampton Roads.
“We live within a seven-and-a-half-hours drive of two-thirds of the population of the United States,” he says. “I wanted to make this a better destination, instead of being a sleepy little beach.”
VIRGINIA BUSINESSPERSON OFTHEYEAR PASTHONOREES
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 Agee President and CEO Carilion Clinic, Roanoke
2016 John F. Reinhart CEO and executive director Port of Virginia, Norfolk
2015 Knox Singleton CEO Inova Health System, Fairfax
2014 Christopher J. NassettaPresident 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, Falls Church
Jonathon Evans graduated in May with a computer science degree and a desire to stay in his hometown, Abingdon. Fortunately for him, information technology company Wize Solutions LLC was seeking apprentices through a targeted state program that alleviates the cost of hiring and training employees new to the technology field.
“In order to get a job that I was looking for, I would have had to move either to a nonrural area or out of state, so the apprenticeship allowed me to stay in my area and get a high-skilled IT job,” Evans says.
Administered by the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center, the Virginia Rural Information Technology Grant Program aims to create post- and potentially pre-college technology jobs in rural areas, with the goal of fostering technological economic development. Applications opened July 6 and companies can apply as long as funds remain available.
Through the program, which received $1 million in state funding in July after its funding was cut last year due to the pandemic, Wize Solutions receives grants for half the salary, benefits and training costs, capped at $60,000 a year, for each of the two paid, full-time apprentices participating in Wize’s 18-month apprenticeship program.
“It’s a good deal for us,” says Wize Solutions Vice President of Operations Mark Eschle. “It’s a good deal for the clients that we’re serving, and it’s a great deal for the region, because it allows us to create jobs for people that otherwise would have to leave the area.”
IT companies with fewer than 100 employees across five Southwest Virginia cities and 17 counties, ranging from Lee to Botetourt, are eligible to apply for the program after registering as apprenticeship sponsors with the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry, like Wize Solutions did, or the federal government.
“We want to grow you, and we want to grow people,” says Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center Executive Director David Matlock. “And in the process, we will grow rural Virginia.”
Wize Solutions’ two apprentices graduated from college in May. Along with gaining experience working on a client project, Evans is pursuing a certification from Blue Prism, a software company specializing in programming tools for automating repetitive manual tasks such as entering numbers into a spreadsheet.
Wize Solutions plans to hire Evans and its other apprentice as full-time employees when their apprenticeships conclude at the end of 2022.
Amherst County has received a $3 million federal grant to attract manufacturing firms with a new 45,000-square-foot, $4.6 million industrial facility.
In September, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that it awarded a $3 million grant to the county Economic Development Authority to build a new county-owned facility, with hopes that the project would create 45 new jobs, retain 24 jobs and generate $3.25 million in private investment.
The federal government has a 20-year, first-priority mortgage lien on the site, essentially ensuring that the local EDA uses the facility to attract and grow homegrown businesses and doesn’t entice firms from neighboring counties.
Commercial space is tough to come by in the largely rural county just north of Lynchburg, and local leaders are competing with surrounding counties to attract and retain manufacturing entrepreneurs.
Victoria Hanson, the Amherst County EDA’s executive director, says that small-business owners aren’t likely to take on the financial risk and time commitment to build their own facility and that without available industrial space, the county was at a competitive disadvantage.
“If we don’t have one, then they are going to look for other places to go,” Hanson says. “We have not had this funding to be able to basically build something of this size and scope in the past.”
Amherst is still recovering financially from the 2020 shutdown of the Central Virginia Training Center, a 100-year-old state mental health facility that had at one time been a primary economic engine for the county. Plus, neighboring counties that formerly relied on tobacco crops qualify for economic development grants from the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission, while Amherst does not.
The $3 million grant requires the county to match up to $1.3 million. Hanson says the county is investing $1.6 million, and she expects construction to hopefully not take more than two years, with a targeted completion date of 2023.
Mason Basten, co-owner of River Road Jet Boats Co., says small business owners like him face a tough choice: Stick with limited resources in Amherst County, or look elsewhere.
As the aluminum boat manufacturing business has grown, Basten has been seeking a facility with a loading dock, high voltage electricity, climate control and room to operate a forklift. The new facility sounds perfect to him.
“[Moving] is the last thing we want to do,” he says. “We like the vibe out here in Amherst County.”
A major study that will shape the future of Pentagon City is enteringits final stages.
The Arlington County urban village has grown from empty fields and warehouses in the 1950s to become one of the Washington, D.C., area’s busiest neighborhoods. With construction plans now under community review for Amazon.com Inc.‘s HQ2, Pentagon City is approaching full build-out, which is kind of like turning on the “no vacancy” light under the current plans.
Amazon‘s nearly 5 million-square-foot East Coast headquarters will be the final under zoning guidance in place since the 1970s but with an eye to the future, as modern planning principles and site standards will guide the surrounding future development that HQ2 will spur. The Pentagon City Planning Study, which establishes new long-term goals and parameters for growth, is set to be voted on in early 2022 by the Arlington County Board of Supervisors.
The study establishes requirements for property owners who want to increase density, putting in place parameterssuch as a rule that a building cannot have more than 30% of its users rely on a car for transportation. Planners want to transform the area into a mixed-use hub, and they know current owners can only redevelop if they have the chance to increase density.
To prevent gridlock, the plan also includes a bike network that links the neighborhood, as well as parking programs to incentivize carpooling.
“We have to emphasize different modes of travel,” says Arlington planner Matt Mattauszek, who is heading the study. “We have to have people thinking they can live or do business in Pentagon City without having to have a car.”
Expect to see more green space. The plan’s vision statement includes the call to “embrace biophilic design that makes nature a universal part of the everyday experience of the area.”
The live-work-play community that planners envision will require housing. The plan anticipates residential use growing from 45% of available space to as high as 65% in the future, and office use decreasing to somewhere between 25% and 30%, down from the current 38%.
Planners anticipate major redevelopment in the next decade, and they held meetings with existing tenants to ensure the new plans aligned with their long-term vision for the neighborhood.
Over its 120 years, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP has seen — and made — a lot of history.
Since a quartet of ambitious and talented Richmond attorneys joined forces in 1901 to start the law firm of Munford, Hunton, Williams & Anderson, the practice has not only produced an array of legal luminaries, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., but has had a hand in cases that have shaped the fabric of life in Virginia and the nation. With about 900 attorneys — 196 of them in Virginia — and offices in 13 domestic and six overseas locations, Richmond-based Hunton is the state’s second-largest law firm. During each of the past three years, it has posted annual revenues of more than $740 million.
Almost from its beginnings, Hunton has been known as a go-to firm for large business interests. It has represented railroads, real estate entities, banks, utilities and insurance companies and has practices dedicated to litigation, administrative law and transactions.
George C. Howell III, chairman of the firm’s executive committee, says Hunton regularly handles “very large” cases, including litigation for tobacco companies and multibillion-dollar, single-offering transactions. Among the firm’s biggest cases in Virginia was its representation of Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc.’s $62 billion spinoff of Kraft Foods in 2007 and Altria’s $113 billion spinoff of Philip Morris International the following year. In 2020, Hunton advised Philip Morris International on a $2.5 billion debt offering, and this year, the firm represented auto insurer GAINSCO in its $400 million acquisition by State Farm Mutual Auto-mobile Insurance Co.
Hunton “has done a ton of work” in the energy sector, too, Howell says. Richmond-based Fortune 500 utility Dominion Energy Inc., the commonwealth’s largest power company, is one of its oldest clients. Carlos M. Brown, senior vice president, general counsel and chief compliance officer for Dominion, says his company and Hunton “go back almost to the firm’s founding.” Over the years, the utility giant and Hunton have worked in tandem as the energy field has grown and evolved, and they continue to do so to “meet the modern needs” of the industry. “Hunton has always been a leader in regard to large utilities,” Brown says.
It also counts among its energy clients Potomac Electric Power Co., Duke Energy Co., Consolidated Edison Inc., American Electric Power Co. Inc. and Energy Transfer LP. In 2020, the firm successfully represented a coalition of oil and gas industry groups before the U.S. Supreme Court in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups challenging natural gas pipeline permits.
Citizen lawyers
To beef up the firm’s already potent energy sector, the firm (then known as Hunton & Williams) merged in 2018 with Andrews Kurth Kenyon, a Texas-based practice focused on the oil and gas industry, creating Hunton Andrews Kurth. This fall, the firm formed an energy transition team to focus on complex issues such as carbon capture, the decommissioning of aging power facilities, environmental justice and regulatory compliance.
Hunton also continues to expand its practices into technological fields such as cybersecurity and data privacy. Its attorneys offer guidance on issues involving compliance with rapidly evolving U.S. and international data privacy laws and regulations, covering hot technology topics such as artificial intelligence, facial recognition and the prevention and management of cyberattacks and data breaches. The firm represented Yahoo! in the aftermath of a cyber breach that compromised more than 3 billion user accounts and spawned more than 40 class-action lawsuits.
Hunton’s roster of Virginia corporate clients, which includes major companies such as Smithfield Foods Inc., McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp. and Newport News-based Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc., has led some wags to say that Hunton is not just part of the establishment, but the establishment itself.
Hunton has a decidedly human side, though, too, evidenced by its longstanding commitment to pro bono work. The firm
encourages its attorneys to consider themselves “citizen lawyers,” equally committed to serving both their clients and the larger community.
In 1991, Hunton became the first law firm in the nation to open an office devoted exclusively to pro bono cases, and, for decades, it consistently has dedicated 3% or more of its billable hours to such cases. All the firm’s lawyers engage in some level of pro bono work.
The firm’s pro bono office in Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood handles uncontested divorces, guardianship issues and domestic violence cases for those who cannot afford an attorney. Hunton also has done extensive pro bono work on eviction cases in the Richmond area. The state capital has the second-highest rate of evictions in the country, a situation attributable to Virginia’s “landlord-friendly laws,” says Richmond partner Kimberly C. MacLeod, who chairs the firm’s pro bono leadership committee.
Last year, attorneys at Hunton, which counts Richmond’s city government among its clients, gave pro bono advice to the city concerning an unsuccessful citizen lawsuit that sought to stop the city’s removal of Confederate statues. “We are proud about being on the right side of history,” MacLeod says. “Some would say we were on the wrong side of Brown v. the Board of Education.”
Silent partner
In the early 1950s, Hunton represented Prince Edward County’s school board in its efforts to fight racial desegregation. That case later would become one of five bundled into the Brown lawsuit when it went before the U.S. Supreme Court. The court’s subsequent ruling that schools must be integrated convulsed Virginia for many years.
The late Lewis F. Powell Jr., Hunton’s most renowned alumnus, was a partner at the firm when it represented the Prince Edward school board, and, although he wasn’t a part of the case, as chairman of the Richmond School Board from 1952 to 1961, he was inescapably involved in the issue. Despite his close friendship with ardent segregationist Virginia U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr., Powell later would maintain that he did not condone Byrd’s strategy to close schools rather than integrate them. “I disagreed completely with the Massive Resistance policy. I thought it would destroy the public schools,” Powell later said. Yet, though he had forged close relationships with some of the city’s Black leaders, Powell did not publicly express anti-segregation sentiments at the time.
“Powell was an admirable person, but by today’s standards he would be heavily criticized,” Allen C. Goolsby says of Powell’s silence, which seems so loud now.
Goolsby, a former partner and now a special counsel at the firm, has been with Hunton for 52 years and worked closely with Powell, who was a partner at the practice for a quarter century before President Richard M. Nixon nominated him to a seat on the Supreme Court in 1971. “I have never seen a man who worked so hard and was such a gentleman,” Goolsby says of Powell. “He wrote more thank you notes in a week than I did in my life.”
Special Counsel Allen C. Goolsby, who’s been with Hunton Andrews Kurth for 52 years, worked closely with the firm’s most illustrious alumnus, Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. Photo by Matthew R.O. Brown
Goolsby accompanied Powell on the drive from Richmond to Washington, D.C., for Powell’s confirmation hearing. “His modus operandi was always being well prepared,” Goolsby says of his distinguished colleague, but that day, that trait almost backfired on Powell when a rear tire blew out on their car somewhere along Interstate 95. The car’s trunk was jam-packed with documents chronicling virtually every legal opinion Powell had ever written or said, Goolsby remembers, and the voluminous records had to be removed by the side of the busy highway to get at the jack and the spare. “I’ll never forget worrying about all those papers,” he says.
Powell, the last practicing lawyer to be nominated to the Supreme Court and a former president of the American Bar Association, would be confirmed by the Senate in an 89-1 vote. “The [Senate Judiciary] committee had a variety of strongly held views but a civility that you don’t get today,” Goolsby says.
Embracing diversity
Shortly before he took his seat on the Supreme Court, while still at Hunton, the justice-to-be wrote what would become known as the Powell Memo. A controversial defense of business written for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the memo is often cited as a foundational document for the neocon movement.
In keeping with that memo, once on the court, Powell generally took a pro-business stance on financial cases, but a decidedly more liberal one on social issues. He strongly affirmed Roe v. Wade in a 1983 opinion, and in a 1978 case about racial quotas at a California medical school, he argued that the university could give weight to race in its admissions decisions but not apply strict quotas.
Similarly, Hunton is proud of its own history of embracing diversity. Among its illustrious alumni are John Charles Thomas, the first Black person to serve on the Supreme Court of Virginia; Cleo Powell, the first Black woman to serve on the court; and state Sen. Jennifer McClellan (D-Richmond), who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for governor this year.
Rudene Mercer Haynes is Hunton’s firmwide hiring partner and co-leads the firm’s servicer advance financing practice. The firm first employed a woman lawyer all the way back in 1921, certainly an uncommon hire for the time.
“You don’t need to have a certain pedigree” to work at Hunton, says Haynes, who made The National Black Lawyers Top 100 list this year. “We are a diverse bunch. I know it sounds clichéd, but it is the people who attracted me and have kept me here. They were very welcoming, and I could be my authentic self.”
That welcoming attitude is embedded in Hunton’s DNA, says Howell, who calls the firm’s culture “its greatest strength.” While in many law firms, the expected and accepted attitude is that “you eat what you kill,” at Hunton, he says, collaboration, mutual support, inclusion and teamwork are core beliefs.
Douglas S. Granger, the firm’s Richmond managing partner, concurs, praising the firm’s “collegial atmosphere. We do spend an awful lot of time together, and we share common values,” he says. “The practice of law is a service to society,” he explains, “and nothing can be done as well by one as by a team.”
Other legal specialties: Administrative law, occupational safety and health, and bankruptcy
Birthplace: Maurertown in Shenandoah County
Education: Bachelor’s degree in neuroscience, Duke University; law degree, William & Mary School of Law
Fan of: Duke Blue Devils basketball
Recently read book: “The Code of the Woosters,” by P.G. Wodehouse
Favorite vacation spot: Key West, Florida
Career mentors: Tom Ullrich, Steve Milo and Derek Brostek
Why did you decide to enter law after receiving a degree in neuroscience? In college, I opted for neuroscience on the advice of a school counselor who thought freshmen “ought to take what they’d enjoy knowing.” I accepted his advice, but I never lost the inclination to go to law school.
What has been your most interesting case?
I worked with Jeff Adams to successfully challenge Virginia’s one-of-a-kind incumbent protection act — a law that allowed an incumbent officeholder to choose the method of nomination in an upcoming election. The case had all sorts of unique and complicated conceptual issues, and Jeff and I gladly spent hours and hours theorizing about them. That was quite an introduction to appellate practice.
What’s your take on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulation under review regarding COVID-19 vaccination mandates? Simplifying the issue to whether OSHA’s several-month delay renders COVID-19 a “nonemergency” gives OSHA a shot at prevailing. However, a sprawling regulation with broad applicability would invite judges (and maybe even justices) to reconsider the nondelegation doctrine, commerce clause decisions and administrative law principles that presently support a modest mandate.
College students in Martinsville can get on the fast track to careers with British race car manufacturer Radical Sportscars.
In May, the Peterborough, England-based company opened its first U.S.-based sales office at Patrick & Henry Community College‘s Manufacturing and Engineering Technology Complex, close to the school’s Racing College of Virginia. That will be followed in early 2022 with a facility to fabricate replacement panels for its vehicles, which resemble a hybrid between a kart racer and a Formula One car.
It‘s a first step toward Radical eventually building race cars in Martinsville.
Virginia made a strong pitch when Radical began seeking a U.S. location, says CEO Joe Anwyll. About 60% of the 176 vehicles Radical will manufacture this year will be sent to America — a time-consuming process for connoisseurs accustomed to speed — and the company has had a U.S. presence for about a decade through a handful of authorized dealers, as well as hosting a Le Mans-style racing series at nearby Virginia International Raceway.
Radical was particularly attracted by the racing college, which has provided a talent pipeline for students in auto racing careers, including NASCAR, as well as for vehicle manufacturing and engineering.
Along with the instructors’ expertise and testing facilities available to Radical at Patrick & Henry’s Racing College, the company saw a “readymade” workforce with the skills it needs to be successful.
“They are A-listers for us,” Anwyll says of the college.
For students, Radical represents an additional opportunity for internships, apprenticeships and jobs. Fifty-four students are enrolled in the motorsports program.
Anwyll hopes fabrication of panels can begin by March, in time for the next racing season, with plans for kit assembly and, finally, manufacture of all parts in the future.
Radical will start with four employees in its sales office, set to open by the beginning of the second quarter of 2022, but Mark Heath, president and CEO of Martinsville Henry County Economic Development Corp., says the operation could grow to
30 workers.
Radical is a solid brand in an area of Virginia known for racing, Heath says. VIR and Martinsville Speedway combined bring a little more than $400 million in annual economic impact to Virginia. “In the racing world, it would have a lot of value for us.”
Here we are in December, approachingthe end of 2021. Most business leaders would say with some certainty that this year was better than 2020 — and thankfully so. Yet, as much as we’d like to say that COVID times are behind us, the return of cold weather and the indoor season keeps things uncertain. Business is definitely better, but the changes of the past two years will not be forgotten.
Unless you are in an industry that cannot be delivered remotely, like manufacturing, food prep, construction, airlines or hotels, your work environment has probably changed irrevocably. This is a secular shift and not a cyclical change. As tiring as virtual meetings can be, we’re still doing a lot more Zooming in than zooming out.
The ghost vacancy rate in office space, meaning the square footage that is under lease but not fully utilized, is probably at its highest ever. Airplanes may seem fuller, but there are still fewer flights and airports seem about half empty. The same goes for foot traffic in the business districts of most cities. Legions of workers have yet to return to the office.
For business leaders, these are difficult times. What does it mean when you have company values emblazoned on the wall in large letters, but no one comes in to see them? Companies have proven their ability to survive remotely, but isn’t the opportunity to thrive and not just survive what business growth is really all about?
Long before there was something called “The Great Resignation,” businesses were deeply concerned about an aging workforce. With baby boomers approaching retirement and new age cohorts replacing them, what was going to happen to hands-on experience and institutional knowledge? Today’s scramble for talent has been predicted for decades.
At the same time, wage stagnation and unprecedented income inequality have left many feeling that the rewards of work are more myth than fact. Especially for working women, jobs became less valuable amid the pandemic in the face of keeping homes running and meeting new demands like supervising remote learning for children.
This has forced a reevaluation of the financial costs of work — day care, dry cleaning, commuting costs such as gasoline and tolls — versus the after-tax value of wages earned. Even after supplemental unemployment assistance came to an end in September, many of these workers have yet to return to workforce. As for baby boomers, many have accelerated their plans for retirement, pulling the rip cord now instead of waiting.
These are not things that can be simply blamed on politics. The reality is more complex.
So, what’s a good leader to do? Companies have tried calling workers back to the office, but “my way or the highway” tactics are ill-advised, especially when talent is in short supply. Some have tried phased-in approaches, alternating office days with telework days.
Working remotely does have benefits, but a “choose your own approach” leaves many questions unanswered. Not everyone gets the need for coming back; some workers prefer screen time to face time. Hybrid arrangements leave staffers wondering what’s really expected, adding technology costs to office space costs while creating a divide between who’s physically in the room versus those who are working remotely.
Setting clear expectations while granting fresh ideas and emerging technologies an equal voice to experience and mentorship is a tall order for leadership. Arguably, the newest employees are the most at-risk. They tend to be the most technologically adept, but also stand to benefit the most from peer support, collaboration and mentorship. These intangibles do not happen by appointment; they develop through more casual interactions.
Is this really all about the revenge of the introverts? I hope not. Business thrives on being out and about. The few business events I’ve attended in recent months have been filled with people overjoyed to be around others again. This is critical to regaining, accelerating and sustaining the momentum of our economy.
My best advice is to be authentic. Nice people really don’t finish last. It’s not just all about business; it’s about life — that’s why these ideas work. We’ve proven that we can survive. Now it’s time to thrive.
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