Robert Geckle has been promoted to be the CEO of Arlington-based aerospace and aviation contractor Airbus U.S. Space & Defense Inc., moving up from serving as the chief operating officer and head of operations and corporate functions, the company announced Thursday.
Geckle has worked with Airbus across its major business lines in multiple countries for more than a decade. He has served as senior vice president, head of Airbus S.A.S. Legal Affairs – Industry & Services in Toulouse, France, as well as in general counsel positions within the Airbus Group both in the U.S. and Europe.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College and earned his law degree from Boston College Law School.
Geckle succeeds Christopher Emerson, who was elected chairman of the board on Oct. 1.
“Rob and I have a long and successful professional history at Airbus and have worked especially hand-in-glove this past year to set this company on a trajectory that we are confident will garner success for both the customer and our extraordinary team,” Emerson said in a statement. “He brings to the table the best of what Airbus has to offer and has my full faith and confidence as he takes on the role of CEO.”
Emerson has been with the Airbus Group for 25 years. From 2015 to 2019, he was president of Airbus Helicopters SAS. Prior to that, he served as the chief financial officer, head of marketing and head of Airbus Future Programs and Product Strategy, where he played a key role in establishing Airbus’ A320 final assembly line in Mobile, Alabama.
Headquartered in Arlington and operating under a special security agreement with the Department of Defense, Airbus U.S. Space & Defense Inc. is a subsidiary of European multinational company Airbus S.E. that offers solutions to U.S. defense, security, space and intelligence clients, using satellite, laser communication, rotor and fixed wing solutions. Airbus has roughly 180 locations and 12,000 direct suppliers globally. In 2020, Airbus S.E. reported 49.9 million euros in revenue.
The grant will go to the Virginia Defense Manufacturing Community, which brings together the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Southern Virginia and Old Dominion University‘s Maritime Industrial Base Ecosystem, over federal fiscal years 2022 and 2023
“Our maritime defense manufacturing industry is vital to the nation’s security and a critical part of our economy,” Northam said in a statement. “This groundbreaking partnership will help diversify and modernize the nation’s best maritime workforce to build and sustain the world’s best navy, while providing young people a pathway toward fulfilling jobs in a high-tech, well-paid industry.”
The Virginia Defense Manufacturing Community will create a K-12 to university training pipeline to help students in the Danville and Norfolk areas gain the skills needed for these industries. Students will be introduced to manufacturing workforce opportunities in elementary school and will have access to curriculums related to their preferred manufacturing discipline as they get older. At the high school, community college and university levels, students will have access to employment opportunities.
The project will create a manufacturing engineering technology community college to university pathway that will award credentials to manufacturing engineers.
“We aim to integrate K-12, community college and university programs with cutting-edge training resources to deliver the strongest, most diverse and most adaptable manufacturing workforce,” Institute for Advanced Learning and Research Executive Director Mark Gignac said in a statement.
The Henrico County Board of Supervisors this week unanimously approved rezoning the 204-acre former Best Products headquarters campus into the $2.3 billion GreenCity project, a major mixed-used development that will feature a 17,000-seat arena.
GreenCity, which was proposed in December 2020, is also expected to include two hotels with 600 rooms, about 2.2 million square feet of office space, 280,000 square feet of retail space, 2,100 residential units and green space and plazas. Michael Hallmark with Capital City Partners LLC and Susan Eastridge, the president and CEO of Eastridge, are leading the project for developer GreenCity Partners LLC.
Anthony Romanello, the executive director of the county’s economic development authority put the project in context of the impact it will have on the region’s economy: Henrico‘s gross county product is $26 billion annually and GreenCity’s impact is projected to be as much as $1.4 billion per annually. “It’s really going to be phenomenal,” he said.
Discussing the arena during the Oct. 12 Henrico Board of Supervisors meeting, attorney Andy Condlin with Richmond-based law firm Roth Jackson Gibbons Condlin PLC spoke on behalf of GreenCity Partners LLC, telling supervisors that the project’s centerpiece venue will be “a much more intimate arena” and “artists will want to come here.” He also noted the growing movement among performers to only play in arenas that have set sustainability standards and have made climate pledges, so he expects this arena to be sought-after venue for such artists. An operator for the arena has not been named yet.
Over the next four to six months, the developers will create a community development authority with the county that will serve as the vehicle for financing the arena, Eastridge told Virginia Business. The developers will also buy the property from the county and work on financing the first phase of development in that time period. The price of the property is about $6.2 million, according to Anthony Romanello, Henrico’s economic development director.
The first phase will be an “adaptive reuse” of the existing 300,000-square-foot Best Products building, rather than increasing the project’s carbon footprint with all-new construction, Hallmark said. The developers hope to start construction in the second half of 2022 and complete it by the end of 2023, Eastridge said.
In the second phase, GreenCity Partners LLC will build the 17,000-seat arena and most of the retail and hotel space, which they hope to start in 2023 and complete in 2024 or 2025. During the meeting, the developers noted that the whole project would not be done until about 2033 or 2034.
“What’s most exciting about this project is there’s just nothing like it,” Romanello said. “And to have a fully sustainable community that has this kind of an economic impact, it will be unique. And what we’re really thinking about from an economic development standpoint is [that] lots of corporations are committed to sustainability and are really working hard to reduce their carbon footprint or eliminate their carbon footprint. … You may not be in a position to build a fully sustainable building, but now what this will allow is folks who are committed to sustainability to lease space and a facility that helps them live out that commitment.
“We believe that it’ll be really attractive for corporate office headquarters, particularly again for companies that have that strong feeling or strong sensitivity to sustainability,” he added. “And so that’s where I think the sustainability element is one of the differentiators.”
GreenCity’s developers are conducting a feasibility study on residential units to see how quickly they can build them without creating competition between them. They’re also studying the proposed park area, which will run about 1.5 miles from Parham Road to Interstate 295, to see if it can be developed at one time or should be built in phases, Eastridge said.
During the Oct. 12 supervisors meeting, Nelsen Funeral Home CEO Bernie Henderson spoke in support of the project on behalf of ChamberRVA’s Henrico County Government Affairs Committee: “Our committee has closely monitored the GreenCity project from its initial announcement to the present time and we find that it is well-conceived and that it has enormous beneficial potential specifically for Henrico, as well as for the greater Richmond metropolitan community. We proudly offer enthusiastic support for it.”
Henrico County Supervisor Tyrone Nelson said, “I feel like we’ve been talking about this ad nauseam. … We’re just ready to move forward.”
For the filing week ending Oct. 9, people filed 10,040 initial claims, an increase of 680 from last week. Continued claims totaled 43,535, a decrease of 484 claims from the previous week. Because of the Monday holiday, this is a state estimate.
Compared to the same week last year, initial claims were 10.2% higher than a year ago, when the state recorded 9,110 claims, and continued claims were 69% lower than the 142,220 continued claims recorded a year ago.
People receiving unemployment benefits through the VEC must file weekly unemployment claims in order to continue receiving benefits.
The majority of the claimants who filed for benefits last week reported being in these industries: health care and social assistance; administrative and waste services; retail; and accommodations/food service.
The VEC has been under scrutiny this year for backlogs of claims and most recently, for delaying the launch of its updated claims system from Oct. 1 to November. According to 13NewsNow reporting, some claimants this week have reported that their benefits have been sent elsewhere after their banking account information was changed without their knowledge. VEC pauses payments while investigating potential fraud.
Nationwide, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims last week was 293,000, a decrease of 36,000 from the previous week’s revised level. There were 822,205 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020.
Startup specialty property and casualty insurance holding company Richmond National Insurance Co. (RNIC) will create about 70 jobs over the next three years as it establishes its headquarters in Henrico County, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Friday.
“The commonwealth is always looking to create an environment that supports startups and businesses of all sizes,” Northam said in a statement. “Greater Richmond’s world-class higher education institutions, talent pipeline, and quality of life have made the region a hotspot for economic activity. We welcome Richmond National Group to Virginia and look forward to supporting the firm’s future success.”
Holding company Richmond National Group Inc. announced Friday the formation of RNIC. Richmond National is supported by more than $70 million in equity capital from a group of investors including Knoxville, Tennessee-based single-family investment office HF Capital, Charlotte, North Carolina-based investment firm Bonhill Capital, Memphis, Tennessee-based WT Holdings Inc. and the senior management team. The company will spend $175,000 to establish its headquarters.
RNIC provides insurance to small and mid-size businesses and will focus on the excess and surplus line market and target hard-to-place risks. Its affiliates will distribute services through wholesale insurance brokers across the U.S. RNIC underwrites risks in the general casualty, contractors casualty, excess casualty, commercial property, inland marine, professional liability and small business package businesses.
“We chose to start our specialty insurance company in the Richmond area primarily due to its deep talent pool of insurance and financial services professionals and its favorable business environment,” Richmond National Group President and CEO Joseph C. Kavanagh said in a statement.
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) worked with the Henrico Economic Development Authority and the Greater Richmond Partnership to secure the project, for which Virginia competed with Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington, D.C. The VEDP’s Virginia Jobs Investment program will provide funding to support employee recruitment and training activities.
Tempur Sealy International Inc. is expanding its Duffield facility in Scott County, the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority announced Thursday.
The bedding company known for its Tempur-Pedic, Posturepedic and Stearns & Foster mattresses, among others, is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky, but has two manufacturing facilities: one in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and one in Southwest Virginia.
The Duffield facility has 300 workers. Tempur Sealy will use a $100,000 grant awarded to the Scott County Economic Development Authority for workforce development and training needs to support the expansion, and the 25 jobs will be added within two years.
VCEDA, Scott County and the LENOWISCO planning district recruited Temur Sealy to open its first U.S. manufacturing plant in Duffield 20 years ago.
“On behalf of the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority, we would like to congratulate Tempur Sealy on its expansion in Scott County,” said Jonathan Belcher, VCEDA executive director and general counsel, in a statement. “Since locating in the region two decades ago, this operation has been a tremendous asset for the entire region, providing excellent employment opportunities for the citizens of Scott County and Southwest Virginia. We look forward to continuing to work with them in the future.”
It’s not the first expansion for the Virginia facility. The most recent expansion was announced in March by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who said the state would invest $16.7 million to expand the manufacturing operation.
Virginia competed with New Mexico for the project. The new expansion will enable the Duffield plant to increase its production.
United States Senate Federal Credit Union (USSFCU) held a grand opening for its Braddock Station corporate headquarters and retail branch in Alexandria on Wednesday.
USSFCU selected 1310 Braddock Place, previously home to the National Industries for the Blind, in 2018. The new Bowman Branch on the first floor replaces the credit union’s Eisenhower Avenue location. It opened to the public on Tuesday. The credit union’s headquarters was also on Eisenhower Avenue, but in a different building.
When it was founded in 1935, USSFCU was headquartered in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building. In 1983, it moved to the Hart Senate Office Building, then to a standalone facility in Alexandria in the ’90s.
USSFCU named the building for Bertie H. Bowman, its longest-serving board member. Bowman served on the board for 46 years, including two terms as its chairman. Bowman was also a U.S. Senate staffer for more than 65 years. Under his leadership, the union went from a few million in assets to more than $1 billion, according to a news release.
“We are celebrating an incredibly significant time in USSFCU history,” USSFCU President and CEO Tim Anderson said in a statement. “Our mission is to improve the financial wellness of our members by integrating sustainability, security, and service into every solution. This purpose is physically embodied throughout our new home.”
USSFCU serves the U.S. Senate and Capitol Hill communities. It has $1.2 billion in assets.
Virginia sugar alternatives company Bonumose Inc. will invest $27.7 million to expand in Albemarle County in a partnership with The Hershey Co. to research and develop reduced or zero sugar chocolate products, creating 64 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced Thursday.
Bonumose will move into 36,000 square feet in the former State Farm building to increase production capabilities and relocate its research and development lab from North Fork — A University of Virginia Discovery Park, an industrial park in Charlottesville.
“We are thrilled to celebrate the growth of Bonumose as it expands production and collaborates with other valued partners in the commonwealth,” Northam said in a statement. “This innovative company continues to advance our food and beverage processing industries. We look forward to a long and productive partnership with the company.”
Founded in 2016, Bonumose has developed and patented methods for continuous production of high-purity rare sugars like tagatose and allulose. The sugars come from starch byproduct left over from the company’s supply chain partners’ food production. Bonumose is also working on enzyme solutions for dietary supplements, crop protection, animal nutrition and other industries. In February, it announced the closing of Series B investments co-led by Hershey and American Sugar Refining Inc., the owner of the Domino sugar brand.
The region’s skilled workforce and access to the Port of Virginia have helped the company grow, Bonumose CEO and co-founder Ed Rogers said.
“Virginia, and more specifically, Albemarle County, has been important to Bonumose’s growth to date,” Rogers said in a statement. “The commonwealth’s leading research universities, thriving food production industry, natural beauty and quality of life in Central Virginia are second to none. Due to Bonumose’s business partners in other states and other countries, we have had opportunities to grow outside Virginia, but we are happy with our choice to deepen our roots here at home.”
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Albemarle County and the Central Virginia Partnership to secure the project, for which Virginia competed with Florida, Idaho and North Dakota. Northam approved a $256,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist Albemarle County. The company received a $300,000 grant from the Virginia Investment Performance Grant, an incentive for existing companies to continue capital investment. Bonumose is eligible to receive benefits from the Port of Virginia Economic and Infrastructure Development Zone Grant Program. The VEDP‘s Virginia Jobs Investment Program will provide funding to support employee recruitment and training activities.
The CGI Building in Fairfax sold for $55.3 million on Oct. 5.
Located at 12601 Fair Lakes Circle, the 10-story office building is 259,511 square feet and occupies 8.36 acres. It is 88% leased to four tenants, primarily government contractors, and anchored by CGI Federal Inc., part of CGI Inc. The property was recently renovated in a $6.4 million capital improvement plan.
Cognac Fair Lakes LLC sold the property to Opal Holdings. Newmark Group Inc.’s Executive Managing Directors James Cassidy and Jud Ryan represented the seller.
To get a turkey on your Thanksgiving table this year, you may have to plan ahead. And even so, ham, pork tenderloin, chicken or even tofurkey might have to fill in as substitutes.
Ukrop’s Homestyle Foods, the Richmond-based prepared food business spun off from the former regional grocery store chain, informed its customers Tuesday that it won’t be able to fill pre-cooked turkey orders for Thanksgiving this year.
The company put in an order for 2,000 turkeys from Butterball and received a notice that the order was canceled due to an operations situation, Robert S. “Bobby” Ukrop, chairman and CEO of Ukrop’s Homestyle Foods LLC, told Virginia Business.
Supply chain issues that started during the COVID-19 pandemic have been exacerbated by several factors, including a national labor shortage and shipping slowdowns, and are likely to continue impacting businesses throughout the holidays, economists and logistics experts say. Last month, the Consumer Price Index rose 5.4 percent compared with September 2020, driven in part by shortages in consumer goods.
The supply chain issue spurred action from President Joe Biden, who announced Wednesday that the Port of Los Angeles would begin operating around the clock in an effort to address a backlog caused by a variety of factors, including trucking labor shortages. Biden also said that major shipping companies and retailers, including UPS, FedEx and Walmart, would be increasing work hours to address problems in ports, factories and shipping lanes that have helped produce shortages, long delivery times and rapid price increases for food, televisions, automobiles and much more, The New York Times reported.
Ukrop’s Homestyle Foods CEO Bobby Ukrop
In an Oct. 12 Facebook post and marketing email, Ukrop’s Homestyle Foods wrote that its supplier cited “the same concerns that just about everyone is experiencing: ingredient, packaging, transportation, and labor shortages.” Instead, the business is urging its customers to order hams and side dishes.
Ukrop says the company has ordered more ham this year: “The pandemic has caused us to expect the unexpected, and surprise is a part of the program.”
Ukrop’s started offering holiday dinner packages in the early 1990s, Ukrop said, and it built momentum.
Last year, the pandemic really shook things up, creating major demand for the pre-made Thanksgiving meals. Ukrop’s filled 2,400 meal order over four days.
“It was like a Chick-fil-A drive-thru on steroids,” Ukrop recalled.
Last year, with a full, expansive catering menu, customers ordered more than 10,000 items, Ukrop said, but this year, the company wanted to only put things on the menu that they were confident they could get.
Due to issues with sourcing ingredients and packaging, Ukrop’s made a decision to reduce its offerings this holiday season, scaling its usual holiday catering menu back to 34 items. For example, London broil, a dish usually offered through the company’s catering service, won’t be available this year. Chicken salad and tuna salad are likewise off the list. Customer favorites such as deviled eggs, ham biscuits and country ham cheese balls still remain, though.
“It’s very frustrating for us because we hate to disappoint people,” Ukrop said. “We place a very high value on not over-promising. We want to deliver on what we say. That’s the way we’ve always done business.”
Despite the supply chain difficulties Ukrop’s encountered, Hobey Bauhan, president of the Virginia Poultry Federation, says consumers shouldn’t panic about whether they’ll be able to get a turkey this year. “It’s not a widespread shortage,” Bauhan said Tuesday. “Supplies are tight, but if people plan ahead, they should be able to get the turkey products of their choice this Thanksgiving.”
Nevertheless, with supply chain problems looming, markets around the commonwealth are preparing for the possibility of shortages of holiday basics and are building up inventory in advance of Thanksgiving and Christmas. A smaller grocer and a butcher contacted for this story declined to comment on the record, worried they could spook customers from buying at their stores.
Ukrop said his company expects to sell more hams this year since it can’t offer pre-cooked turkeys. Last year, the company sold about 400 hams a la carte. Getting hams seems to be less of a challenge, he said, and the company’s pared-down catering menu still represents 80% of what people want on their tables this holiday season, Ukrop said.
Bauhan said that “[poultry] operations in Virginia that are supplying turkeys are cranking. They’re producing and distributing fresh turkeys for Thanksgiving. I’m not getting any indication from them that there is a significant shortage of turkeys.”
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t issues impacting the distribution of turkeys to stores, Bauhan said. “There’s upward pressure on a lot of inputs across our sector, from feed, which is 70% of the cost of producing poultry, [to] labor costs, transportation and packaging [costs].” Feed costs are going up, and just like many other industries, poultry plants also are experiencing staffing shortages.
Packaging is one of the issues Ukrop’s is encountering, too. A shortage of lids and eight-ounce containers has impacted the company’s menu.
Erika Marsillac, an associate professor of maritime and supply chain management at Old Dominion University, said several factors are impacting the food supply chain. “A retail order can be canceled because suppliers anticipate they will be unable to deliver the order at the right time or they find another customer that is willing to pay more,” Marsillac said. “Across all food supply chains, we are seeing food inflation and canceled shipments from supply chain disruptions.”
Balance of power
In the poultry industry, the “workforce was tight before the pandemic hit and now it’s pretty significant,” Bauhan said.
Virginia’s poultry industry is largely centered in the Shenandoah Valley, with other major operations in the Richmond region and on the Eastern Shore. All are facing labor challenges, but it’s hard to say what a normal year would look like, Bauhan said.
“Last year was unique,” Marsillac noted. “With many families socially distancing over 2020, smaller birds were preferred for holiday meals. Most retailers are now estimating that family holiday gatherings will be bigger this year, but those estimates may have arrived too late to change the decisions that were already happening in spring.”
When looking at commercial customers, smaller businesses such as Ukrop’s may lose out to larger ones, like the Walmarts of the world.
“In general, smaller supply chain partners have less ‘power’ or influence in the supply chain,” Marsillac said. “Assuming there are a limited number of turkeys available, suppliers may be forced to make a tradeoff decision to cancel some orders for smaller retail chains in order to be able to fulfill the orders for larger retail chains.”
Much planning is done well before Thanksgiving. One market said they place their order for the next year’s Thanksgiving a year out.
“The poultry industry has a significant lead time, forecasting in as early as late spring what size turkeys will be needed for the holidays,” Marsillac said. “The farmers need to make decisions about volume, sizing and breeding or acquiring the chicks. Once acquired or hatched, the turkeys take more than three months to grow to the right size for processing, and then you must add the supply chain time from processing to getting the turkeys to the grocery store shelves.”
Marsillac suggested that consumers seek locally-sourced options for turkeys and other holiday meats and plan ahead.
“Without trying to feed into any panic buying, I’d suggest consumers buy their preferred holiday protein when they see it available and store it until the holidays or speak with their local butcher or farmer now about the possibility of getting locally sourced holiday protein closer to then.”
Ukrop said companies all over the world are having to make hard decisions every day. And the situation is fluid.
“The various decisions that companies are making all over the world … everybody’s trying to do the right thing. There are just so many unanswered questions and so many decision points where things can get sideways in the supply chain, and I think everybody is trying hard, as best they can,” he said. “It’s just a crazy situation. …. The problem is, the rubber band gets stretched so thin, to an extreme, so the fact that our supply chain is probably very, very efficient in a normal situation, it can’t withstand all the disruptions that we have. It’s a good learning [experience], I guess, we have, for having a certain amount of safety stock and not having a system so tightly wound that when things go sideways, they really get messed up.”
Virginia Business Deputy Editor Kate Andrews and Assistant Editor Katherine Schulte contributed to this report.
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