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ValleyStar Credit Union names new CEO

Martinsville-based ValleyStar hired Mike Warrell as , announced Wednesday.

“As ValleyStar strengthens relationships and builds upon its digital integration, Mike Warrell was the clear choice to move the credit union forward,” ValleyStar Chairman James Rorrer said in a statement. “He has the experience and deep understanding needed to optimize member engagement and support the empowered workforce that makes up the ValleyStar team.”

Warrell was and CEO of Fairfield, California-based Solano First Federal Credit Union, which is now a division of Valley Strong Credit Union. In 2015, the National Association Federally-Insured Credit Unions awarded Warrell “CEO of North America.”

“I take this role as CEO of ValleyStar with profound clarity that I am here to support our ValleyStar team, members and community, while ensuring ValleyStar leads innovation,” Warrell said. “I look forward to working alongside the successful and collaborative team in place at ValleyStar and thank the board for its trust in me.”

Warrell has served as president of the northern region of Valley Strong Credit Union, vice president of business development, assistant vice president of member service and president and owner of a lease savings company.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from Plymouth State College, now Plymouth State University, and a graduate certificate in innovation engineering from The University of Maine. Warrell also graduated from the Filene i3 Program, a two-year leadership program for credit union professionals.

Founded in 1953, ValleyStar has more than $550 million in assets and operates branch locations in Collinsville, Danville, , Richmond, Roanoke, Rocky Mount and Waynesboro and a loan center in Fishersville.

Va. Tech names real estate program for Blackwoods

Virginia Tech’s real estate program will now be named for the , a familiar name to those in the state’s real estate industry.

, founder and of Richmond-based Blackwood Development Co. Inc., his wife, Mary Nolen Blackwood, and their children, Morgan Blackwood Patel and Nolen Blackwood, donated $2 million to the program in 2018 and have since committed to enlarging the to a total of $10 million, according to Media Relations.

Willis and Mary Blackwood graduated from Virginia Tech in 1972 and 1973, respectively, and their children, Morgan and Nolen, graduated in 2002 and 2010. The family of Hokies has been avid supporters of Virginia Tech for years.

“We are deeply grateful to Willis, Mary, Morgan, and Nolen for supporting the university in so many ways over the years, and we’re proud to name the Blackwood Program in Real Estate in recognition of their extraordinary generosity and engagement,” said Virginia Tech President Tim Sands in a statement.

“Real estate has been my profession for 48 years,” said Willis Blackwood, who earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from what is now the Pamplin College of Business. “ has been a great industry in which to operate and has been rewarding personally and financially.”

Virginia Tech’s 350-student real estate program has grown over the past seven years, and ranks third among the nation’s top university real estate programs on GreatBusinessSchools.org.

“Willis has worked with us from the very start of the program,” Kevin Boyle, director of Virginia Tech’s Blackwood Program in Real Estate, said in a statement. “He has provided financial and personal support from when it was just a startup idea. He participates in classes, chairs the industry advisory board and supports student scholarships. He’s been as active as an alumnus could be in enhancing student successes and advancing recognition of the program. Quite simply, we would not be where we are today without his support.”

The gift will create new opportunities, such as hiring more faculty and marketing the program to increase enrollment.

“Some prominent ways earnings from the Blackwood endowment may be used are to enhance resources with two additional tenure-track faculty in order to improve the teaching, to support student experiential learning, to send students on trips to see real estate sites, and to participate in professional conferences, to bring experts to campus for enhanced learning, and for diversity scholarships,” Boyle said in a statement.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Blackwood family had donated a total of $12 million to the . A Virginia Tech spokesperson later clarified that the $10 million gift recently announced by the university included a previous $2 million gift from 2018.

 

Va. hotels expect $1.5B loss in 2021 biz travel

The Virginia hotel industry expects to take a $1.5 billion loss this year stemming from sharply reduced business travel — 63.5% below pre- revenue levels, according to projections released Wednesday by the American Hotel & Association.

Business travel is expected to generate about $864.5 million for in Virginia for the 2021 calendar year, down from $2.37 billion in 2019, according to the August study conducted for the AHLA by Potomac, Maryland-based Kalibri Labs, a data analytics firm focused on the industry. “Business travel” in the report refers to corporate, group, government travel, along with business from other commercial categories.

The Washington, D.C., region’s hotel market is expected to end 2021 with $371 million in business travel revenue, down almost 87% from the 2019 total. And the market is projected to generate $281 million from business travel this year, a decline of about 41% from the area’s 2019 revenue.

“We’re very concerned about the lack of business travel in the state,” Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association said. “That’s what drives hotel profitability. I think ‘s going to be a long time before we see the industry recover.”

The national hotel industry’s business travel revenue is projected to be down by more than $59 billion compared with 2019. National business travel revenue was down nearly $49 billion in 2020 and is not expected to reach pre-pandemic levels until 2024, according to the AHLA.

“While some industries have started rebounding from the pandemic, this report is a sobering reminder that hotels and hotel employees are still struggling,” AHLA President and Chip Rogers said in a statement. “Business travel is critical to our industry’s viability, especially in the fall and winter months when leisure travel normally begins to decline.”

Service Center Metals to expand, add 94 jobs

Prince George County-based aluminum extrusions manufacturer Service Center Metals will spend $101.7 million to build two more facilities in the county, projects expected to create 94 jobs, announced Tuesday.

Service Center Metals will build an aluminum extrusion plant and a compact remelt plant in Crosspoint Centre. Aluminum extrusion forces an aluminum alloy through a press to form into the desired shape.

“Service Center Metals has experienced tremendous success in over the past two decades, and an investment of this magnitude is extremely significant for the region,” Northam said in a statement. “The advanced sector is strong in Virginia. …We look forward to the of Service Center Metals and its continued success in the Commonwealth.”

Founded in 2002, Service Center Metals began operating in Prince George County in 2003. The company provides aluminum rods, bars, shapes and tubing to metal service centers across the U.S. It has two plants on its 30-acre campus in SouthPoint Business Park: an extrusion plant with two presses and a compact remelt plant that recycles scraps and produces aluminum logs used for extrusion presses. The new facilities will mirror the existing plants in the business park.

“The commonwealth of Virginia and Prince George County have both played significant roles in catapulting Service Center Metals from a Greenfield startup in 2002 into the North American benchmark for safety and productivity today,” Service Center Metals and Officer Scott Kelley said in a statement. “Our next expansion will be the largest in our history, adding significant capacity to both our billet casting and extrusion operations that will further satisfy our customers’ needs.”

Virginia competed with Tennessee for the project. The Virginia Partnership worked with Prince George County to secure the project. Northam approved a $350,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund for the county. The company will receive $900,000 from ‘s Virginia Investment Performance Grant, which encourages existing Virginia companies to continue investing capital.

Service Center Metals is eligible to receive benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program, administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, and funding and services from the VEDP’s Virginia Jobs Investment Program, which provides state funding to support employee recruitment and training to companies creating jobs.

The company expanded in 2016.

Booz Allen acquires Fredericksburg-based Tracepoint

Fortune 500 global management consultant Inc. has acquired Tracepoint, a -based digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) company, Booz Allen announced Monday.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Baton-Rouge based Plexos Group LLC, Tracepoint Chris Salsberry, Brett Anderson and Rob Driscoll co-founded Tracepoint in December 2019. Tracepoint provides DFIR, remediation and cyber risk and resilience management services.

“Today’s announcement is a testament to our team’s exceptional work in building Tracepoint into the industry leader that is today,” Salsberry said in a statement. “Booz Allen has decades of experience working across the most significant breaches and clients and will provide strong foundations from which we can continue to grow and expand our business.

-based Booz Allen took the option to acquire the remainder of Tracepoint after initially investing in January, and the company plans to combine its Commercial Cyber business and Tracepoint in early 2022. Booz Allen is focusing on creating a business in incident response, enterprise consulting and managed services as part of its growth plan.

“Tracepoint has an exceptionally qualified team with strong brand recognition in the DFIR market and extensive relationships in its core sectors to expand our commercial offering and accelerate our growth,” Bill Phelps, executive vice and leader of Booz Allen’s commercial business, said in a statement. “We have a proven track record of successful collaboration with Tracepoint and will leverage the complementary strengths of both businesses to cement our status as a leading competitor in the global marketplace.”

With $7.5 billion in fiscal 2020 revenue, Booz Allen employs more than 27,600 workers globally, with about 10,000 employed in Virginia.

Harrisonburg’s Farmer Focus hires CFO, R&D head

Harrisonburg-based Farmer Focus has hired Debarshi Sengupta as chief financial officer and Sean McLendon as head of research and development, announced on Aug. 26 and Sept. 9.

“Debarshi is an instrumental hire to guide our future, creating a strategic path forward to plan and resource our tremendous growth,” Farmer Focus and Chief Operating Officer Erik Vaughan said in a statement.

Sengupta will oversee finance and accounting, financial planning and analysis and other financial aspects of the company. He most recently worked with Clarity Ventures LLC, a consumer packaged goods startup that he co-founded. Prior to joining Clarity Food, Sengupta was an executive vice president overseeing mergers and acquisitions, strategy, investor relations and financial planning and analysis at JBT Corp, a machinery provider. He was also division CFO of the company’s FoodTech Protein segment. Before joining JBT Corp., Sengupta was an investment banker at Banc of America Securities LLC, now Merrill Lynch.

“Growing up in the city, I was unaware of the challenges of our food system and how critical farmers are to the future of our food supply,” Sengupta said in a statement. “Joining the Farmer Focus team will enable me to use my experience and talent to help transform an industry and be an example of how food companies can create meaningful and lasting change.”

Sengupta holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a master of engineering management (MEM)  from Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering.

Sengupta succeeds Dan Detamore-Hunsberger.

McLendon was previously the senior director of research and development at JBS USA Holdings Inc. Before that, he was head of research and development for Lumina Foods LLC. He also worked in research and development for CraftWorks Holdings Inc., now owned by SPB . He is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and in 2009 was nominated for a James Beard Award when he was the owner and chef of Sean’s American Bistro.

Sean McLendon is the head of R&D for Farmer Focus.

“As a chef, I have always had the deepest respect for farmers,” he said in a statement. “So working for a company that is committed to the preservation and promotion of generational family farms is incredibly meaningful to me. One of the best ways I can honor our farmers and the birds they so carefully raise is to develop products and flavors that bring out the best in each part of the bird.”

McLendon led the development of Farmer Focus’ pre-seasoned product line, which includes Peruvian, Chophouse, Red Curry, Toasted Lager and Lemon and Cracked Pepper chicken products.

“In addition to his passion for the Farmer Focus mission, Sean brings an abundance of talent and experience to this critical role,” Farmer Focus founder and Corwin Heatwole, said in a statement.

Founded in 2014, Farmer Focus is an organic chicken processing company with a mission to protect and promote generational family farms. The company currently works with more than 70 family farms and has more than 100 more on a waiting list. Its chicken is available in 2,500 stores on the East Coast and in the Midwest, including Publix and Kroger.

EarthLink to create 285 jobs in Norton

Atlanta-based service provider is spending $5.4 million to build a customer support center in , a project expected to create 285 jobs, and Gov. Ralph Northam announced Tuesday.

As part of moving its customer service operations from overseas to the U.S., EarthLink will build a 30,000-square-foot facility on a site in the 200-acre development, owned by Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority, near the northeast junction of U.S. Route 23 and U.S. Highway 58. Wise County is providing temporary office space during construction of the building. EarthLink will be the first tenant at Project Intersection.

“EarthLink’s new support center in Norton will play a major role in bringing the company’s customer service operations to the United States, creating economic opportunity and new jobs for Virginians,” Northam said in a statement. “The rural regions of the commonwealth successfully compete for and attract projects due to their infrastructure, business-friendly operating costs and dedicated and highly-skilled workforce.”

Founded in 1994, EarthLink is a U.S. internet service provider focused on small businesses and homes. The company went public on Nasdaq in 1997.

EarthLink Glenn Goad. Photo by Earl Neikirk/Neikirk Image.

“Having grown up in this area, gives me great pride to further EarthLink’s efforts to provide award-winning customer experiences through our new sales and service center in Norton,” EarthLink CEO Glenn Goad said in a statement. “We look forward to a long partnership with this community and the employees who will become part of EarthLink.”

Called “,” the effort to recruit this project began in November 2019. InvestSWVA marketing campaign team members and Virginia legislators Del. Terry Kilgore, Sen. Ben Chafin (prior to his death on Jan. 1, 2021), Sen. Todd Pillion and Del. Israel O’Quinn, along with Duane Miller, the executive director of the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission, and Will Payne, the lead consultant for InvestSWVA, led the process. The team flew to Atlanta to pitch to the EarthLink team and held more than 100 in-person, Zoom and phone meetings over 22 months, according to a news release.

“This announcement is the culmination of a lot of hard work and effort by local and state leaders, the EarthLink team, and many others,” Miller said in a statement. “We are all excited to have a company with an iconic name like EarthLink, who has been consistently honored with the coveted Great Place to Work Certification, locate to Southwest Virginia.”

The worked with the city of Norton, LENOWISCO Planning District Commission, InvestSWVA, the Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority, and the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission to secure the project.

Northam approved a New Company Incentive Program grant of $686,500 from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund. The Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission approved a $62,500 Tobacco Region Opportunity Fund grant. EarthLink is eligible to receive benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program, administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, and from the Major Business Facility Job Tax Credit for full-time jobs created. The company will also receive funding and services from the the ‘s Virginia Jobs Investment Program, which provides state funding to support employee recruitment and training to companies creating jobs.

Aery Aviation to add 211 jobs, expand Newport News HQ

Newport News-based Aery LLC will add 211 jobs with the $15.3 million of its headquarters in Newport News, announced Tuesday.

The aviation company will build a 60,000 square-foot hangar with access to the runway and an engineering technology center to provide maintenance and modification services.

“Hampton Roads’ rich history in and aviation provides an ideal backdrop for Aery Aviation to grow and become more successful than ever before,” Northam said in a statement. “The region is home to world-class and research institutions that have helped to advance the aerospace industry. We look forward to supporting Aery Aviation as it enters into its next phase of growth here in the commonwealth.”

Founded in 2016, Aery Aviation provides aerospace design, engineering, systems integration, modifications, certification, maintenance and flight operations solutions. The company has mainly government clients, including the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Coast Guard.

“Aery has enjoyed the partnership with the Newport News community and airport staff over the last four years,” Aery Aviation Executive Vice Scott Beale said in a statement. “Their collective support and pro-business environment persuaded Aery to invest more than $15 million into the construction, expansion and upfit of the buildings for this new state-of-the-art facility, which also includes an investment in machinery, tools, furniture, fixtures and business personal property. Aery is happy to call Newport News its home for decades to come.”

Virginia competed with Maryland, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia for the project.

The Virginia Partnership worked with the city of Newport News, the Hampton Roads Alliance and the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport to secure the project. The Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund granted Newport News $280,000.

Aery Aviation is eligible to receive benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program, administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, and funding and services through ‘s Virginia Jobs Investment Program, which provides state funding to companies creating new jobs in order to support employee recruitment and training activities.

Bank of America names new Hampton Roads president

Francisco “Frank” Castellanos has been named the region for , the bank announced Monday.

Castellanos comes to Bank of America from Merill Lynch Wealth Management, where he was the market executive for greater Virginia and a market integration executive. He previously worked in Bank of America’s policy office, concentrating on cyber and international policy issues.

Before starting his career in the industry, he was a U.S. Foreign Service officer for 20 years, serving six tours in the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. He held command positions in war zones and other hostile environments. He was an associate with the National Intelligence Council and has served on a number of inter-agency boards, where he guided U.S. policy, foreign collection and investments to protect American interests abroad.

Castellanos will take over for Charlie Henderson, who is retiring from Bank of America early next year after 42 years, the last 15 of which he spent as the bank’s Hampton Roads president.

Castellanos lives in Williamsburg.

Del Taco expands to Virginia with 10 locations

California-based Inc. is expanding its taco empire into Virginia with 10 new locations, the company announced Monday.

Del Taco signed a deal with -based franchise group Virginia Taco. The nation’s second-largest Mexican quick service restaurant will have locations in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Norfolk, Hampton and . The exact locations were not specified.

“Since inception in 2000, we’ve been able to rapidly expand our portfolio to include household names such as Subway, Tropical Smoothie, Mahi’s and more and are thrilled to add Del Taco to that list,” said Bharat Patel, of Virginia Taco. “Del Taco is an influential brand, so the opportunity to introduce to the state of Virginia was one that we wanted to jump on immediately. We know that the concept, combined with our expertise in this market, is a great partnership and we look forward to seeing many years of growth ahead.”

The into Virginia paves the way for further growth in the South, the company said.