Big plans are in place for a 103-acre plot on the Loudoun-Fairfax county line, property originally pitched by the two counties as a potential location for Amazon.com Inc.’s HQ2 East Coast headquarters.
Rivana at Innovation Station, the first phase of the 4.4 million-square-foot Innovation Station mixed-use development project announced in March, is ideally positioned for a changed business world, says Loudoun Economic Development Executive Director Buddy Rizer.
“This is coming online at a time when we can react to post-pandemic demand. We can respond to what office users of the future want,” in terms of safe building design such as smaller elevators and wider hallways, he says. “We can compete for large Class A office users. I think it’s a game-changer.”
Innovation Station will be connected to the planned Innovation Center Metro station, expected to open in Herndon this summer on the Silver Line.
In addition to more than 1,950 apartments and 1.8 million square feet of office space, Rivana’s plans call for an 11-acre park that will allow for the kind of open-air activities that have become popular since the start of the pandemic, Rizer says. “We’ll be able to capture that new dynamic. You can do all kinds of things. There can be corporate meetings on the lawn, yoga in the park.”
There also will be a 3,000-seat performing arts venue. “There can be concerts or TED Talks, community use. It will be a great location for corporate meetings,” he says.
The goal of the project is “to create a sense of place,” says Jeffrey D. Young, managing partner of Origami Capital Partners LLC, based in Chicago. Origami is one of four real estate and investment firms, most based in Texas, that co-own Novais Partners, the master developer of Innovation Station and co-developer of Rivana with Houston-based The Hanover Co.
“We want to draw people in, so they want to come and spend the day,” Young says. The developers plan to do that by “curating local culture into the retail, having farm-to-table restaurants, celebrating the Loudoun winemaker who sells wine, so that people have something they’re not getting at any other place.
“I envision people wanting to get married there,” he adds. “There’s the park setting and the entertainment venue and a hotel nearby.” (Rivana plans also call for a 265-room hotel.)
Groundbreaking for Rivana is set for early 2022. Fairfax County will be more involved in the development’s second phase, Young says.
In late April, Salem-based LewisGale Regional Health System broke ground for a new freestanding emergency room in Roanoke. Located on West Ruritan Road, the nearly 10,000-square-foot facility will be named LewisGale Medical Center Blue Hills ER and staffed with board-certified emergency room physicians and nurses. It is expected to open in 2022. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
In May, Roanoke’s Mill Mountain Theatre had its first in-person performance since 2019, staging Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” on the front lawn of Heights Community Church in Roanoke’s Grandin Village. The theater’s COVID-19 compliance officers put in their share of work. While seven members of the cast and MMT’s full staff already were vaccinated, actors who hadn’t yet been vaccinated were tested before performances. MMT plans to return to indoor performances at its theater in mid-June, including a production of “Legally Blonde” opening in late September. (WVTF)
Passenger train service will return to the New River Valley for the first time since 1979, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in early May. The $257.2 million deal with Norfolk Southern Railway is in addition to the $3.7 billion rail expansion Northam announced in March as part of the Transforming Rail in Virginia program. The agreement, called the Western Rail Initiative, extends service to the city of Radford and the counties of Floyd, Giles, Montgomery and Pulaski. It also increases intercity passenger rail service between Roanoke and the Northeast Corridor, and the initiative includes $219 million in infrastructure investments. The completion date is set for 2025. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
A new government website and interactive map was launched in late April for citizens to monitor progress on a variety of broadband expansion projects dotting Roanoke County. After a final vote in April to approve a $3 million project with Cox Communications that will expand internet access to more than 300 homes in Windsor Hills, Cave Spring and Catawba, the county has amassed close to $4 million in private, local, state and federal funds for rural broadband in the past year. (The Roanoke Times)
In May, unionized workers at the Volvo Trucks North America plant in Pulaski County soundly rejected a five-year contract, negotiated after a strike that ran from April 17 to April 30. According to a notice posted on the United Auto Workers Local 2069 website, workers voted “no” on aspects of pay, benefits and work schedules by margins ranging from 83% to 91%. It was not clear whether production at the Dublin plant proceeded normally after the vote, with the expected level of UAW-represented staffing, or how or when negotiations would resume. The plant employs more than 3,300 people, about 2,900 of whom are UAW members. (The Roanoke Times)
Wing, a subsidiary of Google corporate parent Alphabet, started using drones to deliver Girl Scout cookies in April to residents of Christiansburg. The town has been a testing ground for commercial delivery drones since 2019, with packages ranging from drugstore offerings, FedEx packages and cold brew coffees, but this is the first time Girl Scout cookies have been delivered by drone. Wing said it began talking to local troops because they’ve had a harder time selling cookies during the pandemic when fewer people were out and about. Federal officials started rolling out new rules in April that will allow operators to fly small drones over people and at night, potentially giving a boost to commercial use of the machines. (The Associated Press)
Eastern Virginia
People in Hampton Roads reported in early May that gas stations were sold out of fuel and station owners saw a spike in demand for gasoline in the days following a cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline, which was shut down for several days. The fuel frenzy hit several states but was particularly hard on Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia, due in part to a shortage of tanker truck drivers. Gov. Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency that loosened the state’s regulations to make it easier to get gas in tanks and also punished suppliers for price gouging. (The Virginian-Pilot)
Integrity Bank for Business opened for business in Virginia Beach in early May. The first new community bank established in Hampton Roads
since 1998, Integrity received regulatory approval in April and is led by former Heritage Bank President and CEO Michael S. Ives. In January it announced that it had raised more than $20 million in stock purchase commitments. The bank plans to focus on serving business customers in Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Chesapeake. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
A modular housing manufacturer plans to establish its first East Coast facility in Newport News, investing $2 million and producing 220 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in mid-May. A public-benefit corporation and Certified B Corporation founded in 2018, indieDwell turns recycled shipping containers into small homes with one to four bedrooms to help solve the affordable housing crisis. The company currently has facilities in Idaho and Colorado, with plans to expand to other states, building factories in areas with low to moderate income and a need for affordable housing. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Signs are pointing to the Hampton Roads region’s COVID recovery picking up steam if workers return to fill thousands of jobs that are coming open again, according to Bob McNab, director of Old Dominion University‘s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy. Before the pandemic, the region had a tight labor market with low unemployment — 2.9% in February 2020. Wages and income began to rise then, and now broad-based growth is returning on rising consumer confidence, increased vaccination and an increase in demand from deferred consumption and travel. Businesses, particularly in hospitality, have reported they’re having trouble finding workers, with many advertising sign-on bonuses. (The Virginian-Pilot)
Norfolk-based Sentara Healthcare was named one of the top five large U.S. health systems in an annual ranking by Fortune and IBM Watson Health released in late April. Sentara landed in fifth place, receiving five stars for clinical outcomes and operation efficiency and three stars for patient experience. This is the second year Sentara was ranked among the nation’s top 15 health care systems. Also, Sentara Leigh Hospital in Norfolk was named the No. 2 teaching hospital in the U.S. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Agriculture startup Sunny Farms LLC plans to build a $59.6 million, 32-acre hydroponic operation in Virginia Beach, creating 155 jobs and one of the East Coast’s largest greenhouses, the governor’s office announced in April. The facility, which will cover 1.2 million square feet when completed in three years, will be at Taylor Farms off Dam Neck Road. The company’s co-founders, Jim Arnhold and Wayne Zinn, worked with the School of Plant and Environmental Science at Virginia Tech and other industry experts to develop the greenhouse. The development will be the site of a new workforce training nonprofit, One Matters Inc. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Shenandoah Valley
The Frederick County Board of Supervisors has been sued for denying a conditional-use permit for a utility-scale solar power-generating facility in Gore. The lawsuit from Hollow Road Solar LLC, National Fruit Orchards Inc. and Diane Holmes, filed in April in the county’s Circuit Court, seeks a court order for supervisors to approve the permit. The suit also states the plaintiffs are entitled to a redress of $7.5 million. Supervisors voted 6-1 in March to reject the permit, which was part of the parties’ request to approve the county’s third solar facility within the past year. (The Winchester Star)
The Front Royal Warren County Economic Development Authority reached an agreement with its former executive director that requires her to pay the EDA $9 million to settle claims she used its money for her benefit. The EDA board voted in May to adopt a resolution that directs the Sands Anderson law firm to move forward with the judgment against Jennifer McDonald for no less than $9 million. The settlement cannot be discharged through her Chapter 7 bankruptcy case currently in federal court. (The Winchester Star)
Mary Baldwin University announced in late April it will require students 16 and older as well as faculty and staff to have a COVID-19 vaccination before returning to the Staunton and Fishersville campuses this fall. Earlier in the month, Attorney General Mark Herring said that Virginia colleges and universities have the right to require proof that anyone attending class in person has been vaccinated, although he left individual decisions up to schools. MBU, like most other schools with a vaccine requirement, is making an allowance for medical and religious exemptions. (News Leader)
Modine Manufacturing Co. will invest $7 million to convert its Rockbridge County warehouse into a manufacturing plant that will produce data center cooling solutions, creating 60 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in late April. Modine has had a manufacturing facility since 1963 in Buena Vista, where it employs more than 260 people. The new operation will be at Modine’s former warehouse at 360 Collierstown Road.(VirginiaBusiness.com)
Virginia Military Institute, which was pressured last year to remove a prominent statue of Confederate
Gen. Stonewall Jackson, took more steps to reduce its lingering tributes to the Civil War leader, a former professor at the college who owned six enslaved people. In its most notable decision made in early May, the college’s board of visitors voted to erase Jackson’s name as the author of a quotation mounted in bronze in the student barracks — a mantra that cadets and alumni memorize and has been engraved in class rings: “You may be whatever you resolve to be.” The maxim will remain, but the words “Stonewall Jackson” will be scrubbed. (The Washington Post)
The Washington and Lee University board will announce its name change decision in June, almost a year after the formation of a special committee to reconsider the university’s relationship to Robert E. Lee. The deliberation over dropping Lee’s name from the university has been lengthy. It began in July 2020, when the board formed a committee to gather input from all campus constituencies, analyze data and consult relevant experts. Mike McAlevey, rector of the board, announced the June deadline in a May email to the university community. (The Roanoke Times)
Southwest Virginia
Without naming Bristol, the executive director of the Virginia Lottery in April all but ruled out the possibility that a temporary casino could open this year. Officials of the Hard Rock Bristol Hotel and Casino Resort have on multiple occasions voiced plans to host temporary gaming while the casino project is being developed at the former Bristol Mall. The enabling legislation allows for a temporary location for up to one year before the permanent site opens but only after the gaming license is approved and several other steps occur. Lottery officials are currently developing regulations to govern the operation of five casinos in the state. (Bristol Herald Courier)
The federal Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities identified Southwest Virginia as the fourth most coal-dependent area in the United States in a report in late April. The finding, which is based on the percentage of total direct coal jobs relative to all employees within a region, designates the region as a priority community for “initial federal investments.” Roughly $38 billion in federal funding could be available for communities likely to be hard-hit by coal mine and power plant closures. The working group, which was created in January, consists of 11 federal agencies and the Appalachian Regional Commission. (Virginia Mercury)
Faulkner
Traeger Grills, manufacturer of the world’s top-selling wood pellet grill and signature hardwood pellets product, plans to build a $3 million manufacturing operation in Wythe County, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in late April. The company plans to purchase wood products exclusively sourced from
Virginia and create 15 jobs in Wythe. The Utah-based company will partner with Musser Lumber Co. Inc., which produces materials for wood pellet producers, decking manufacturers and plastic extrusion companies. Last August, Musser announced its own $2.4 million expansion in Wythe. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
In May, a Bristol, Tennessee, woman pleaded guilty in federal court in Abingdon for her part in a scheme to defraud the Virginia Employment Commission. The scheme involved dozens of co-conspirators, federal prosecutors said. Melissa Hayes conspired with others, including several people previously convicted in the case, to file claims for pandemic unemployment benefits through the VEC website, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. The scheme involved submitting claims for several individuals who weren’t eligible to receive unemployment benefits, including inmates incarcerated in Southwest Virginia, prosecutors said. At least $499,000 in false claims were made. (Washington County News)
PEOPLE
Clark
Appalachian School of Law named its next president and dean, B. Keith Faulkner, in late April. He will begin his new role July 1, succeeding former Virginia Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth A. McClanahan, who will become president of the Virginia Tech Foundation in Blacksburg. Faulkner, previously dean of the Liberty University School of Law, was a litigator and served as the interim dean of North Carolina-based Campbell University’s law school. (Bristol Herald Courier)
Ballad Health named a new CEO of Smyth County Community Hospital in Marion. Dale Clark will succeed James Tyler, who is retiring, in early June, the health care system announced in May. Clark, a Bland County native who previously served as interim vice president and CEO of Ballad’s Wise County hospitals, will lead operations and services for the 44-bed acute care hospital and 109-bed nursing care facility. (SWVA Today)
Northern Virginia
Engineers working for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority determined in May thatAmazon.com Inc.‘s Helix structure at PenPlace is roughly 13 feet taller than the maximum allowable height for structures near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. MWAA, which manages both Reagan and Dulles International airports, is responsible for monitoring construction projects to ensure they comply with Federal Aviation Administration regulations. Amazon is seeking a variance from Arlington County to allow the Helix to reach a height of 354 feet. (Washington Business Journal)
Aerospace and defense contractor Boeing made a record $50 million, multiyear commitment to foster diversity at the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus under development in Alexandria, Virginia Tech announced in early May. It’s the largest corporate donation ever made to the university, and the commitment from Chicago-based Boeing also ties
the largest private donation made to Virginia Tech, a $50 million gift made in 2019 from the Horace G. Fralin Charitable Trust and Heywood and Cynthia Fralin for the Fralin Biomedical Institute at VTC. Boeing’s donation will include student scholarships, recruitment of faculty and researchers, and funding pathway programs for underserved K-12 students seeking STEM degrees and technology careers. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Guidehouse, a management consulting company with clients around the world, will establish its global headquarters in Fairfax County, producing more than 900 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in May. The company plans to invest $12.7 million in a campus in McLean, where 1,550 people will work at full capacity. Virginia competed with Maryland and Washington, D.C., for the project. Owned by Veritas Capital, Guidehouse employs more than 9,000 people in more than 50 locations around the world and works in public and commercial markets, providing services in management, technology and risk consulting. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, along with Maryland’s senators, wrote President Joe Biden in May, requesting the federal government resume the selection process for a new FBI headquarters in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Springfield is one of three sites under consideration for a potential replacement for the deteriorating J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown D.C. Congress previously appropriated close to $1 billion in the selection process, which also includes two sites in Prince George’s County in Maryland. (Washington Business Journal)
Herndon-based national security contractor Peraton Inc. completed its $7.1 billion, all-cash acquisition of Chantilly-based federal IT contractor Perspecta Inc. in May, according to an announcement by Peraton’s parent company, private investment firm Veritas Capital. The combined companies will be known as Peraton and will be overseen by Peraton Chairman,
Youngkin
President and CEO Stu Shea. The purchase follows Peraton’s $3.4 billion cash acquisition in February of Northrop Grumman Corp.’s federal IT and mission support services business. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
People
Former private-equity chief Glenn Youngkin of Fairfax County became the Republican nominee for Virginia governor in May after his closest rival, business executive Pete Snyder, conceded while votes were still being tabulated. The two candidates, both of whom embraced the politics of former President Donald Trump, had been the leaders throughout the complicated, ranked-choice balloting process that slowly whittled down the field from seven contenders. Youngkin was CEO of Washington, D.C.-based The Carlyle Group and has an estimated personal worth of more than $200 million. Democrats are set to choose their slate of candidates in a June 8 primary. (The Washington Post)
Southern Virginia
The Danville Industrial Development Authority and The Alexander Co. are teaming up to redevelop the city’s White Mill on the Dan River as a mixed-use commercial and residential project, with $62.5 million invested in the first phase, city officials announced in May. Interest in the building, which once housed part of the defunct Dan River Mill’s manufacturing business, grew following the city’s approval of the Caesars Virginia casino project last year. The redevelopment will feature 110,000 square feet of commercial space and 150 apartments in the first phase, set to be completed in the summer of 2023. Another 100 apartment units are planned for the future. The Riverwalk Trail along the river also will be extended, and there will be a whitewater feature on the canal on the mill’s south side. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
The largest single private land conservation gift to the state — 7,300 acres in Halifax County — was donated in April by North Carolina billionaire and Epic Games Inc. CEO Tim Sweeney. Known as Falkland Farms, the tract will be owned and operated by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation and renamed the Southside Virginia Conservation and Recreation Complex. The property will be the first joint project between DCR’s Natural Heritage Program and Virginia State Parks, and the heritage program will conduct habitat restoration to replenish forest ecosystems. The land is home to 17 species of rare plants and animals, state officials said. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Five sites in Pittsylvania County are targeted for environmental assessments and development of clean-up plans under a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Federal officials announced the Brownfields Assessment Grant award in May. Sites targeted under the grant funding include the former Southside Manufacturing mill site, a former diner in Chatham, a block of South Main Street in Gretna, the Staunton Plaza Shopping Center and the 600-acre Burlington Industries property. Work is expected to start in October, and the grant is part of $1.5 million awarded to underserved and economically distressed communities in Virginia to assess and clean up abandoned and contaminated industrial and commercial properties. (Danville Register & Bee)
South Hill‘s historic Colonial Theater was the chief point of contention at a Town Council meeting that ran almost five hours in May. The theater is seeking $175,000 in operating capital from the town for the coming fiscal year starting July 1. The debate swirled around what at least two council members said was a mistaken belief that there is a push to end town subsidies to the theater. Some council members and board directors of the South Hill Community Development Authority oppose taxpayer funding for the theater through the CDA until the Colonial is willing to provide evidence of how the money is being spent. The council’s budget committee has recommended a reduction in funding to $155,000. (Mecklenburg Sun)
PEOPLE
Jacqueline Gill Powell resigned as president of Danville Community College in April to become special assistant to Glenn DuBois, chancellor of Virginia’s Community Colleges. She left after serving less than two years in the position. Muriel B. Mickles, who previously served as the vice president of academics, students and workforce development at Central Virginia Community College in Lynchburg, began in May as interim president of DCC. (Chatham Star-Tribune)
Central Virginia
In May, California-based Aditx Therapeutics Inc. pledged to invest $31.5 million over the next three years in a new Richmond facility, producing 300 jobs. Aditxt is planning to build its first AditxtScore Center, a facility that will monitor patients’ immune systems, at Richmond’s Bio+Tech Park, set to open by the second half of 2021. The biotech company’s new platform measures patients’ immune biomarkers and predicts immunity to specific diseases, including COVID-19. Aditxt went public in June 2020 and is developing other programs, including one that is designed to retrain patients’ immune systems to tolerate transplanted organs and allergies. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc. has bought full ownership of a company that makes alternative smokeless tobacco products aimed at people who want to give up smoking cigarettes. Altria said in late April it had acquired the remaining 20% interest in the Swiss maker of a nicotine product called On! Altria agreed to pay $372 million in June 2019 to acquire a majority ownership stake in On!, an oral patch product that consumers buy in small cans. It contains nicotine but no tobacco leaf. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Amazon.com Inc. plans to build a multistory, 650,000-square-foot robotics fulfillment center near Richmond Raceway in Henrico County, creating 1,000 jobs, Gov. Ralph Northam announced in late April. The center, which will be built on 119 acres of ancillary land used for overflow parking by the raceway, is expected to open in 2022. This is Amazon’s second robotics facility in development for Virginia. The mammoth e-tailer also is building a $230 million, five-story robotics fulfillment center in Suffolk’s Northgate Commerce Park. Richmond Raceway, which is owned by NASCAR, sold the 119-acre portion to Dallas-based Hillwood Investment Properties in April. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
Goochland-based food service distributor Performance Food GroupCo. announced in May it will purchase Core-Mark Holding Co. Inc. for $2.5 billion in stock and cash, a deal that will help push PFG further into supplying convenience stores. Core-Mark is one of the largest wholesale distributors to convenience stores in North America, and the acquisition would propel PFG as the Richmond region’s largest publicly traded company based on revenue. The deal would add about $17 billion in net annual sales to Performance’s bottom line, generating pro-forma annual net sales of about
$44 billion. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
On May 20, the city of Richmond‘s
casino advisory panel recommended the ONE Casino + Resort to move forward for City Council and citizens’ consideration. If Council approves the measure and voters support it in a November referendum, the resort would be the first casino under Black ownership in the country. The $600 million resort was proposed by Silver Spring, Maryland-based Urban One Inc., which owns and operates 55 radio stations and the TV One cable network. The casino is proposed to be built on 100 acres owned by Altria Group Inc. on the city’s South Side, near Interstate 95. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
West
PEOPLE
Jennifer L. West starts July 1 as the University of Virginia’s first female dean of its School of Engineering and Applied Science. A researcher, inventor and entrepreneur, West comes from Duke University, where she was associate dean of doctoral education at the Pratt School of Engineering. She succeeds Craig Benson, who will remain on the engineering faculty. (VirginiaBusiness.com)
A 700-acre solar farm on a former surface mine outside of Hurley willbe more than it appears, according to Adam Edelen.
“Buchanan County and the entire region of Southwestern Virginia intends to benefit from the digital economy rather than be a victim of it,” says Edelen, CEO of Edelen Renewables.
Based in Lexington, Kentucky, Edelen’s company has partnered with Savion, a Kansas City-based solar developer involved in 156 projects in 28 states, including five in Virginia, but this is Edelen’s first collaboration with Savion in the commonwealth.
With groundbreaking set for 2023, the $100 million, 75-megawatt solar farm will generate about $100,000 in annual tax revenue for Buchanan County, create about six permanent jobs and 250 construction jobs. Edelen says there will be a “heavy focus on hiring local.” He plans for workers to finish the yearlong job with “an academic credential that will certify them as utility-scale solar installers.”
The largest anticipated economic impact is the business the solar farm might attract.
“Access to green energy is a precondition for modern economic development,” Edelen says. “To be relevant to the opportunities of the digital economy, you have to have clean energy.”
Jonathan Belcher, executive director of the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority, agrees. “That’s clearly where the national and global economy, [the] energy economy, is headed.”
In this case, the new energy economy will be sharing space with the old.
“They will actually be installing solar panels while they’re still mining coal,” says Del. Will Morefield, R-Tazewell, whom Kentucky-based CM Mining asked to help arrange the project. The company also plans to put several thousand mined acres in a conservation easement. Morefield calls it “one of the country’s first mining operations that is not only mining coal, but they’re making efforts to reduce the carbon footprint.”
Surface mines and solar farms have considerable overlap in infrastructure: high-capacity transmission lines; access to roads and rail lines; and flat land, according to Edelen. Surface mines require the first two and create the third.
Government support helps, too.
“Virginia has done a better job than almost any state in the entire United States in envisioning a renewable energy future,” Edelen says. That support runs from the county to the General Assembly and across party lines, he says. “Green energy isn’t partisan. It’s just smart.” ν
The past year or so in America has often seemed a dark time, with headlines dominated by COVID-19, the tumult surrounding social justice issues and our deeply politically divided nation. Yet, it also has been a time of breathtaking generosity, as uber-wealthy philanthropists and well-heeled corporations have opened their wallets to fund groundbreaking initiatives, especially in the fields of education and health care.
Here are the stories of two Virginia families whose altruism could make a major difference for many, many years to come, along with a roundup of some other impressive gifts made in the last year, either by Virginians or benefiting the people of the commonwealth.
The Goodwins
In 2016, then-Vice President Joe Biden launched the federal Cancer Moonshot initiative to fight the disease that killed his son, Beau. And as president, in his first joint address to Congress, Biden urged lawmakers this April to “end cancer as we know it” and support the creation of a new federal agency, the Advanced Research Project Agency for Health, which, Biden explained, would “develop breakthroughs to prevent, detect and treat diseases like Alzheimer’s, diabetes and cancer.”
Biden wants to turbocharge the fight against a disease that kills almost 600,000 Americans annually.
Philanthropists Bill and Alice Goodwin announced in March they are committing $250 million to establish a new national cancer research foundation. Their son Hunter died from cancer in January 2020. Photos by Caroline Martin
Virginia philanthropist William Goodwin Jr. and his wife, Alice, who lost their son Hunter to cancer in January 2020, share Biden’s zeal for finding cancer treatments and cures. The couple announced in March that they are donating $250 million to kickstart a national cancer research foundation called Break Through Cancer. Half of the funding will come from their late son’s estate.
The Goodwins have generously and consistently supported cancer research and other endeavors for 20 years. (They were in the news in April for giving $5 million to Mary Baldwin University to establish a doctor of nursing practice degree program. See page 13.)
But their funding of Break Through Cancer is on a different scope entirely. It is nothing less than an ambitious attempt to change the nature of cancer research.
Goodwin, the retired chairman and president of Richmond-based Riverstone Group LLC, explains that medical research is largely a territorial enterprise, and intellectual property — along with the royalties it generates — “is protected like it’s in a vault.” But the impressive rapidity with which vaccines to fight COVID-19 were developed through cooperative scientific efforts shows that competition is not the only way forward, or even the best way. Break Through Cancer is a daring initiative to test that theory.
The new foundation, which will be based in Boston, brings together five of the nation’s most prestigious cancer research institutions — Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston; Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins in Philadelphia; MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City; and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Researchers at the institutions will collectively focus on four of the deadliest kinds of cancer — the kind that usually kill in 18 months or less: pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, glioblastoma (which killed Beau Biden) and acute myelogenous leukemia.
“We’d like to be seeing real results in three years,” Goodwin says. “If we don’t see results within five years, we aren’t making it.”
Tyler Jacks, director of MIT’s Koch Institute, will oversee Break Through Cancer. Three or four years ago, he says, the research institutions began discussing whether “there would be value in joining forces.” That long journey, he says, leads “directly to the generosity of the Goodwin family.”
The foundation is in the “brainstorming phase” now, he says, but Jacks hopes to begin funding research grants by this summer. The research teams dedicated to each of the four types of cancer will have no physical lab space but will be more akin to think tanks.
“Think of it as a poker game with five expert players all trying to come up with a winning hand,” Jacks says. “We’ll be taking the best cards from all the hands.If things go very well, we’ll see major scientific breakthroughs.”
Reston-based Octo Consulting CEO Mehul Sanghani and his wife, Hema, gave $10 million to their alma mater, Virginia Tech, in 2020. The gift supports a center for artificial intelligence and data analytics as well as efforts to improve food access for students. Photo by Will Schermerhorn
The Sanghanis
Mehul Sanghani and his wife, Hema, grew up in nearby towns in Central Virginia and met when both attended Virginia Tech. Since the couple graduated in 1998 and 1999, he went on to found Reston-based Octo Consulting, which delivers information technology and artificial intelligence services to government and commercial clients. She became a manager at Fairfax-based CGI Federal Inc., which also provides IT services to federal clients.
With their shared focus on technology, it’s not surprising that the two loyal Hokies might support their alma mater’s efforts involving artificial intelligence and data
analytics. What is surprising is the size of the $10 million gift the couple made to the university last year. Announced this January, $7.4 million of their donation is earmarked to support the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, formerly called the Discovery Analytics Center. The remainder of their gift will support an initiative to improve food access for students; Virginia Tech Athletics; and the Global Business and Analytics Complex planned for the Blacksburg campus.
Some of the Sanghanis’ gift also will support disadvantaged and minority students.
The Sanghanis are the youngest alumni couple to ever have made a gift of such size to their alma mater.
“Virginia Tech is where we both met and it opened the doors of opportunity to both Mehul and myself,” Hema Sanghani said in the university’s announcement. “We believe we have a responsibility to give back to the school that has afforded us so much.”
Projected to be completed in 2024, the Sanghani Center will be housed in the first building slated to open on Virginia Tech’s new $1 billion Innovation Campus in Alexandria.
“The gift will allow [Virginia Tech] to expand efforts to make strategic hires and bring on folks in AI,” says Mehul Sanghani.
Naren Ramakrishnan, who heads the Sanghani Center, expects his current faculty of 20 to grow to 30 to 35. The center’s population of about 120 full-time graduate students will double in size. “I view this as an excellent opportunity to enlarge our ambitions,” he says. “It’s a huge step and an opportunity for us.”
Ramakrishnan plans for the center to leverage the proximity of Amazon.com Inc.,
which is building its HQ2 East Coast headquarters in Arlington, and other heavy-hitting tech organizations in the area to create a “back-and-forth synergy.” The emphasis, he says, will be on “use-inspired research with practical applications.”
About $1.5 million of the Sanghanis’ gift will support The Market of Virginia Tech, a food-support program that initially will provide up to 75 students with ingredients for a full week of meals.
“There’s this cliché of college students and ramen noodles,” Sanghani says, but food security among students, especially graduate students who may have families, “is a major, major issue.” The scope of the need, he says, “was eye-opening for us.”
In a January news release announcing the Sanghanis’ gift, Virginia Tech President Tim Sands said the alumni couple’s “decision to step forward in such a meaningful way exemplifies the Virginia Tech spirit of Ut Prosim (That I May Serve).”
Other major gifts
Last year, MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon.com Inc. founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and the world’s third-wealthiest woman, gave away nearly $6 billion to hundreds of nonprofits and organizations across the United States. She emphatically demonstrated her commitment to supporting historically Black universities and colleges with gifts of $40 million to Norfolk State University, $30 million to Virginia State University and $30 million to Hampton University. All of Scott’s gifts fell into the category of largest-ever donations to the colleges from a single donor.
In December 2020, Scott further gave $10 million to Goodwill of Central and Coastal Virginia, another “largest-ever” gift for that institution. And that same month, she split $22 million among South Hampton Roads’ YMCA, YWCA and United Way. All three of the nonprofits described her gifts as “transformational.”
Other notable gifts made by Virginians or to Virginia-based organizations over the last year include:
A $50 million, multiyear commitment in May from Chicago-based aerospace and defense contractor Boeing to foster diversity at the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria. The largest corporate donation ever made to Virginia Tech, the commitment also ties the largest private donation the university ever received. Boeing President and CEO David L. Calhoun is a Virginia Tech alumnus.
A $24 million gift in December 2020 from the C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Foundation to Virginia Commonwealth University and VCU Health Foundation. Since 1999, the Wrights, now deceased, and their namesake foundation have given the university more than $70 million. About $16 million of the most recent donation will support the C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research, and the other $8 million will be split between the Wright Engineering Access Scholarship Program and the Health Adult Outpatient Pavilion, which is expected to open this year.
A $9 million gift in November 2020 from Amazon.com Inc. in honor of the second anniversary of its decision to locate its East Coast headquarters in Arlington. The gift will be shared among a variety of NoVa nonprofits. Community organizations that support small businesses, military families, the environment and the arts received $3.5 million, and organizations offering legal assistance, such as the Virginia Poverty Law Center, were given $3 million. Amazon gave $1 million to nonprofits dedicated to community empowerment and racial equity, such as the Arlington Branch NAACP Scholarship Program, while another $1 million was shared by health care providers such as the Arlington Free Clinic. Amazon earmarked an additional $500,000 for organizations dedicated to literacy programs and workforce development and economic development in low-income communities, including La Cocina VA and the Literacy Council of Northern Virginia.
Philanthropists Carolyn and James Hartman donated $3.7 million to James Madison University toward the construction of Hartman Hall. Photo courtesy JMU Creative Media
A $3.7 million gift announced in October 2020 from James and Carolyn Hartman to James Madison University. The Hartmans’ gift helped make JMU’s $66.5 million state-of-the-art Hartman Hall possible. The new building on the Harrisonburg campus is the first step in an ambitious plan to create a College of Business learning complex.
A $2 million gift in January from the Estes family and their freight-shipping company, Estes Express Lines, to the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at Virginia Commonwealth University. The money will go toward a new inpatient facility called the Wonder Tower. The Children’s Hospital Foundation, which is dedicated to maximizing the impact of donations, will match the gift. The 16-story tower will include a pediatric trauma center, an emergency room, inpatient units, operating rooms and improved amenities for families. It is expected to be completed in 2023.
A $1 million grant in November 2020 from Bank of America to Northern Virginia Community College to help minority students with education and training. Specifically, the grant will support the community college’s short-term credential program, which provides training in areas such as information technology and health care.
This spring, for the sixth consecutive year, Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc.’s charitable foundation made $1 million in total funding available as grants of up to $25,000 for nonprofits in 16 states, including Virginia, to help meet local housing and food needs along with improving access to medical services.
A $500,000 gift made in November 2020to Hampton University from Virginia Natural Gas to improve the university’s remote learning infrastructure. The donation was part of a $50 million, multiyear initiative by Virginia Natural Gas’ parent company, Southern Co., to provide HBCU students with scholarships and internships as well as access to upgraded technology.
With NASA on the verge of returning astronauts to the moon and one day to Mars, Virginia’s federal contractors also are taking a giant leap into space, fulfilling millions of dollars in NASA-related contracts over the next decade and possibly beyond.
In a 2020 economic impact study commissioned by NASA, Virginia was ranked sixth in the nation for spending by the aeronautics and space agency, which was responsible for generating 27,000 jobs in the commonwealth (including 2,623 workers directly employed by NASA) in 2019, as well as $2 billion in labor income and $5.5 billion in economic output, including $219.9 million in state and local tax revenue.
In 2019, NASA was responsible for hundreds of millions in sales in several Virginia industries: $489.3 million in truck transportation, $475.8 million in electronic and precision equipment repair and maintenance, and $461.3 million in scientific research and development services, mostly from the agency’s procurement budget. NASA’s Virginia presence includes Hampton’s Langley Research Center, where the Project Mercury astronauts trained, and the Wallops Flight Facility, a rocket launch site in Accomack County.
Recent headlines have focused on NASA’s Artemis program, the mission to the send astronauts back to moon and, ultimately, land the first humans on Mars. Artemis is set to send its first unmanned rocket up in early November, with plans for a new generation of astronauts, including the first woman, to land on the moon in 2024. (A Government Accountability Office report released on May 26 expressed skepticism that NASA can meet the 2024 goal, noting remaining “technical risks” and the fact that the program’s original landing goal of 2028 had been accelerated by the Trump administration in 2019.)
The November unmanned spacecraft mission will be launched with a set of rocket boosters produced by Falls Church-based Northrop Grumman. It’s part of a potential $49.5 million contract through which the Fortune 500 aerospace and defense contractor will produce twin boosters for the next three Artemis missions and three other Space Launch System flights by 2030.
Northrop Grumman also is producing the living space for astronauts during their lunar exploration missions. Known as the Habitation and Logistics Outpost — or HALO — the module is based on Northrop’s Cygnus spacecraft, which is used to deliver supplies and equipment to the International Space Station. Awarded in June 2020, the $187 million HALO contract calls for the module’s launch with a power and propulsion element by the end of 2023.
“This contract award is another significant milestone in our plan to build robust and sustainable lunar operations,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement last year. “The [Lunar] Gateway is a key component of NASA’s long-term Artemis architecture, and the HALO capability furthers our plans for human exploration at the moon in preparation for future human missions to Mars.”
David Ray, who leads Science Applications International Corp.’s space unit, says lower costs are allowing smaller companies to enter the space industry. Photo by Stephen Gosling
Rising competition
Another major player is Reston-based Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), which is involved with several aspects of the Artemis program, including the launching system, lunar gateway, the Orion crew vehicle and the Human Landing System. The Fortune 500 contractor also has a hand in Commercial Crew Program flights to and from the International Space Station. And it provided validation and verification software services for the Mars Perseverance rover, which landed on the red planet in February. SAIC also will provide support for the eventual manned mission to Mars, ensuring that mission systems software performs correctly.
David Ray, who earlier this year became senior vice president of SAIC’s Space Business Unit, says the space contracting world is becoming more competitive.
In coming years, he suggests, tech and engineering companies of all sizes will enter the industry as the costs of space exploration and travel continue to come down. As technology evolves, he says, the satellites, sensors and payloads used on space missions are becoming smaller and less expensive, while maintaining effectiveness.
“It used to be that the cost of doing business in space was a high barrier to entry, but the lower costs create an opportunity,” he says. “It will open things up for new commercial players, with different avenues. It’s an opportunity for companies to say, ‘How do we take what we do well today, and the partnerships that are available to us now, and how can we add more value to customers in areas that weren’t in play for us a few years back?’ It’s a very exciting time.”
This shift in the space industry is already happening. Commercial firms such as SpaceX and Blue Origin — owned respectively by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest men — are pushing the boundaries of space travel, including plans from both companies to offer space tourism flights for deep-pocketed civilians as soon as this summer.
More crucially, however, these space startups also are now competing head to head with traditional, Fortune 500 defense and aerospace contractors.
Bumpy landings?
In April, NASA awarded Musk’s California-based SpaceX the contract for Artemis’ Human Landing System (HLS) that will carry the next two American astronauts to the lunar surface. SpaceX, which bid $2.89 billion, beat out Bezos’ Washington-based Blue Origin and Reston-based Fortune 500 defense contractor Leidos Holdings Inc.’s Dynetics subsidiary in Huntsville, Alabama. Each of the companies was a finalist for the contract, with each producing its own design for the lunar lander.
Blue Origin, which bid $5.99 billion, and Leidos filed formal protests with the General Accountability Office over the award. Although Leidos did not disclose its bid amount, NASA’s statement said that Dynetics’ price tag was “significantly higher” than the other finalists’ bids.
“Dynetics firmly believes our HLS design offers great potential to contribute toward NASA’s HLS program goals, and we believe NASA’s initial plan for continued competition remains the best approach to ensure program success,” the company said in a statement. “Dynetics has issues and concerns with several aspects of the acquisition process as well as elements of NASA’s technical evaluation and filed a protest with the GAO to address them. We respect this process and look forward to a fair and informed resolution of the matter.” The GAO is required to decide on the protested contract by Aug. 4.
Dynetics isn’t out of the picture, though. In the statement awarding SpaceX the contract, NASA’s Kathy Lueders said, “With time now to address the technical concerns as development continues, Dynetics could be positioned for future missions to the moon, either with NASA under Artemis or with commercial customers.”
Leidos, both under its current name and earlier iterations, has contracted for NASA for decades and is still at work on a 10-year, $2.9 billion contract providing tech support for 10 NASA centers across the country. The NEST (NASA End-user Services and Technologies) contract expires in May 2029. Leidos deemed it “a marquee win” in a statement when the company was awarded the contract in 2019.
As the mission dates get closer for the Artemis program, Virginia companies are likely to get more shots at NASA contracts.
In March, Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, who represents Virginia’s 8th District and is the new chairman of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, said the successful test of NASA’s Space Launch System “brings us one critical step closer to returning to the moon and, someday, landing humans on Mars. After years of development, it’s gratifying to see important and encouraging progress in this key system, which we hope will eventually open opportunities for other scientific missions, in addition to NASA’s moon-Mars program.”ν
Freelance writer Mike Holtzclaw contributed to this story.
Apex Clean Energy Inc. continues working toward a day when wind turbines standing atop Botetourt County’s North Mountain might generate enough energy to power up to 21,000 homes each year.
Dubbed Rocky Forge Wind, the proposed wind farm north of Eagle Rock would be Virginia’s first onshore wind project in operation. However, some residents have filed a lawsuit in hopes of quashing it.
County and state officials have been discussing the wind energy project for six years with Charlottesville-based Apex, which constructs, owns and operates wind and solar power facilities across the nation.
In 2019, Gov. Ralph Northam announced the state government had entered into an agreement to purchase Rocky Forge Wind’s approximately 75-megawatt output — a move designed to help the state meet its goal of obtaining at least 30% of the electricity required for state agencies from renewable sources by 2022.
Limited tree clearing on the property began in mid-March “and marked the commencement of construction for Rocky Forge Wind,” Apex spokeswoman Natasha Montague says. Apex plans to erect 14 turbines, each standing 612 feet high and generating up to 5.5 megawatts apiece. The company expects the wind project to be operational in fall 2022.
However, a grassroots group called Virginians for Responsible Energy and 13 residents of Botetourt and Rockbridge counties filed a December 2020 lawsuit in Botetourt Circuit Court alleging that Rocky Forge Wind’s application to the state Department of Environmental Quality, approved last year, was “woefully incomplete” and that state reviewers rushed to approve the application even though it contained “old and irrelevant documents.”
A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Aug. 20. Jeff Scott, a member of Virginians for Responsible Energy and one of the suit’s plaintiffs, lives on about 30 acres of wilderness in Rockbridge and is concerned about the project’s impact on wildlife. “I’m not opposed to renewable energy,” he says. “I’m opposed to renewable energy that is not situated appropriately.”
In a response filed in court, attorneys representing Rocky Forge Wind charged that the lawsuit was an “opportunistic, last-ditch effort to stymie the project.”
Dan Crawford, chair of the Sierra Club’s Roanoke Group and chair of onshore wind promotion for the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, believes the lawsuit, in the end, will amount only to a speed bump.
“They’ll clear the legal hassle and start construction,” Crawford predicts.
Minor League Baseball is back for 2021, after the coronavirus pandemic canceled the 2020 season. And there’s no question that this summer will look much different than a typical baseball season. But the Richmond Flying Squirrels are optimistic.
The team kicked off its season May 4. All fans who had vouchers or credits for 2020 tickets could redeem them for the 2021 season. Still, at the Diamond, the Squirrels’ home ballpark, capacity was limited to 3,448 fans as of May 15, but the team planned to return to its nearly 10,000 capacity by June 1.
“Those tickets are going to be pretty in demand,” says Trey Wilson, the Squirrels’ director of communications and broadcasting.
Various entertainment venues in Virginia, from ballparks to theme parks, expect to see a gradual increase in business during the 2021 summer season, compared with last summer, even amid uncertainty over whether some lingering COVID-19 restrictions might still be in place.
Visitation numbers at Historic Jamestowne were nearly back to pre-pandemic levels by May, even though the historic attraction was forced to close from Dec. 21 to March 1 due to regional coronavirus spikes, says Kelly Beckley, director of visitor services for Jamestown Rediscovery/Preservation Virginia, which along with the National Park Service, jointly administers Historic Jamestowne. It’s the site of the 1607 James Fort, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas and an archaeological treasure trove.
“I expect visitation numbers will continue to trend upwards as the weather grows increasingly warmer and larger numbers of people are vaccinated, making travel feel safer,” Beckley says.
There are no attendance limits in the outdoor areas of Jamestowne, where all daily tours and programs are offered. As of mid-May, people who have not been fully vaccinated were required to wear face masks inside buildings such as the archaeology museum. Also, in lieu of on-site field trips, Jamestowne has been offering virtual educational programs for schoolchildren.
“We are thrilled to be able to safely welcome visitors to Historic Jamestowne,” Beckley says. “We are continually assessing and making changes as needed to our operations in order to maintain a safe guest experience and working environment.”
A little more than 75 miles northwest from Jamestown in Hanover County’s Doswell area, the Kings Dominion amusement park reopened its gates May 22. The park did not open for its regular season in 2020, the only such closure in its 46-year-plus history. Kings Dominion’s Soak City water park opened May 29. All 2020 Kings Dominion season pass holders can extend their passes through 2021.
“We’re ready to welcome back our guests for a new season of safe family fun,” says Maggie Sellers, the park’s communications manager. “Our leadership team and associates have invested a lot of time and effort in developing stringent safety plans that incorporate guidelines and recommendations from medical experts, the CDC and health officials.”
Some Virginia communities expect to offer increased entertainment options this summer, welcoming travelers back. That’s happening in Southwest Virginia, where several national sports championships will be played this summer.
The USA Softball Gold National Championships for girls 16 years old and younger is scheduled for July in Salem. The competition draws teams from around the country, says Landon Howard, president of Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge, a destination marketing organization in Roanoke. “These people have already bought airline tickets from multiple states, and they’re flying in with family and friends and coaches. That is huge,” Howard says.
Also, Roanoke’s Carilion Clinic Ironman 70.3, a triathlon that was canceled last year, is slated for June 6 and it’s sold out.
After the challenges of the past year, holding the competition will help the region’s psyche, Howard says. “That’s a great psychological shot in the arm for our industry and for local residents.”
Twenty years ago, John Zirkle was just starting out in the Virginia Beach hotel business as a houseman, stripping bed sheets and doing laundry. Fast-forward to today and he is general manager of the Doubletree by Hilton at Virginia Beach and president of the beach’s hotel association.
Lately, though, Zirkle’s had to recall some of his skills as a houseman. He’s been pitching in as part of the hotel’s housekeeping staff as needed. That’s been necessary in order for the Doubletree to grapple with a severe staffing shortfall amid what Zirkle calls the worst labor market he has ever seen.
“We do what you have to do, any staff member who can lend a hand,” he says.
Meanwhile, there’s strong competition for staff among hotels. “It seems like we are all fighting over the same housekeepers,” Zirkle says.
Hotels and even restaurants throughout Virginia and the nation are facing the same hiring hurdles. After a devastating year for the hospitality industry, during which the COVID-19 pandemic forced many businesses to lay off staff, hoteliers in some tourism destination markets, such as Virginia Beach, are expecting travelers to return slowly this summer as more of the population are fully vaccinated and feel comfortable with taking trips.
But to operate efficiently, businesses need employees. And many hotels are struggling to find workers for jobs ranging from front desk attendants and housekeepers to maintenance and restaurant servers.
Half full or half empty?
This summer, roughly 72% of Americans plan to travel, according to the U.S. Travel Association. That’s compared with 37% last year. And nine out of 10 of those planning to travel will be staying in the United States.
Business conference travel remains “tragic” going into the summer, says Brian Wells, general manager of the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center. Photo by Don Petersen
But just ahead of the traditional busiest hotel season of the year, only about 40% to 50% of the jobs at Zirkle’s Doubletree were filled as of late April. Typically, his staff doubles to about 200 employees during the summer months. Reaching that total this year is questionable, he says.
“We don’t have the staff to maintain standard occupancy,” says Zirkle, whose hotel is adjacent to the new Virginia Beach Sports Center. “Normally heading into summer, we run 80% to 90% occupancy. We don’t have the staff to run the hotel at that kind of occupancy, to clean the rooms and turn them.”
Similarly, Delta Hotels by Marriott Virginia Beach Bayfront Suites, which opened in March, had filled only half of its staff positions leading into May. The hotel is offering signing bonuses and referral bonuses to attract employees for a variety of open positions.
“I have been in this business for over 25 years, and I have never seen the lack of workforce we have right now,” says Duane Gauthier, managing director of Commonwealth Lodging, a company that manages hotels in Virginia, Florida and Connecticut, including Virginia Beach Bayfront Suites.
“The hotels in general have been doing very well,” he says. “It’s the staffing components, the ability to get people to work, that is the issue.”
This all is happening as state tourism officials predict that leisure travel will improve this summer, compared with a major drop-off during the pandemic last year.
Though travel likely won’t return to pre-pandemic levels this year, “we are seeing that traveler confidence is increasing,” says Caroline Logan, director of communications for the Virginia Tourism Corp. “I think fear has abated and people are starting to move again.”
But there are a few reasons why potential tourism employees may not be seeking jobs right now, says Eric Terry, president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging, & Travel Association.
Some who were unemployed at the height of the pandemic still are receiving state and federal unemployment benefits through a variety of pandemic relief programs that have been extended through Sept. 4.
Parents may not be seeking work due to child care needs, as many school systems have not fully returned to in-person classes. And many laid-off hospitality workers may have changed careers, says Terry, adding that some hotel marketing and sales professionals found employment in the insurance and real estate industries.
He estimates that about 56,000 hotel jobs were lost in Virginia during the past year. Nationally in 2020, nearly 4 million hospitality jobs were lost due to the pandemic, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association.
Hotels in leisure vacation markets are the ones bringing back most hospitality jobs, Terry says, not hotels that rely on business travelers. That’s because corporate group travel hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels, and it is uncertain when that will happen.
Meetings adjourned
That’s the case with the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center, where the hotel’s business from companies and other corporate gatherings is “tragic,” says Brian Wells, general manager.
As of mid-April, the Hotel Roanoke’s conference business was 85% below pre-pandemic levels, and plans for the future were unresolved due to ongoing state attendance limits on indoor gatherings.
“Our groups that are contracted continue to have low confidence to meet,” Wells says. “It’s starting to affect our business levels this summer.”
The hotel furloughed 260 employees at the start of the pandemic, but it was able to rehire some with the help of forgivable loans through the federal Paycheck Protection Program.
Advertising on digital billboards and through job fairs, Hotel Roanoke is seeking to fill positions ranging from security officers and line chefs to room attendants and engineering staff. It’s also offering recruiting bonuses to current staff.
Even so, jobs associated with group business sales are not among the hotel’s openings. “Until [the conference and] meeting business comes back, many of the furloughed employees can’t [return]. We just don’t have work for them,” Wells says.
There’s another nationwide challenge to landing employees for hotels and restaurants: the major decline in international employees, often students, who travel to the United States through summer work programs. A Trump-era presidential proclamation to temporarily suspend entry into the United States for exchange workers with J1 visas expired March 31. Still, some J1 visa applications remained stalled, and companies worried that workers would not make it into the country for the summer season.
Nonprofit travel groups, such as New York-based InterExchange Inc., which works with Virginia Beach businesses, have written letters to encourage President Joe Biden to push the U.S. Department of State to work with consulates and embassies to hasten the processing of these visa applications.
Wooing workers
Last year, summer work travel participants under the J1 visa program dropped by 98% in Virginia and 95% across the United States, according to the Alliance for International Exchange. In Virginia, there were 116 summer work exchange students in 2020, compared with 4,621 in 2019.
Typically, these work exchange employees comprise about 12% of seasonal staff at the Doubletree by Hilton at Virginia Beach, Zirkle says. Some may find jobs at restaurants as well.
“It is a large part of the hotel and restaurant community,” he says.
Kristina Chastain has been forced to turn down requests for private parties at her Virginia Beach restaurant, Esoteric, because she can’t find enough seasonal workers. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Restaurants also are feeling the hiring crunch — particularly for seasonal staff.
Kristina Chastain receives at least three calls a day from people asking to hold private events at her craft beer and food establishment, Esoteric, in Virginia Beach. But she’s had to turn them all down because she has only enough employees to keep the restaurant operating, not to host dining events in the eatery’s private space.
She’s in a rush to find much-needed seasonal help. As of late April, she only had one seasonal employee. Typically, she hires 10 to 15 employees to work during the summer months. Many are high school and college students.
However, Chastain says, “I think there’s a lot of money circulating right now. A lot of people got a lot of stimulus money [and] maybe there’s not that pressure to go and find work.”
Chastain isn’t the only restaurant owner sweating over the search for seasonal help. Some establishments have closed for several days a week due to lack of staff, while others are attempting to attract employees with novel incentives ranging from free meals to end-of-shift cocktails, says Stacey Shiflet, executive director of the Virginia Beach Restaurant Association.
Shiflet is promoting restaurant jobs left and right, including talking with public schools in the area and discussing employment opportunities as part of panel presentations.
As consumers gain increasing confidence to travel in the wake of the pandemic, it’s both a curse and a blessing for a hospitality industry that is struggling to find workers.
“We are seeing [business] pick up as people get their vaccinations,” Shiflet says.“They are comfortable going out and dining where they hadn’t been before. Guests are coming, and people are itching to get out and travel.”
Maia Chaka, a health and physical education teacher at Virginia Beach’s Renaissance Academy, will be the National Football League’s first Black female referee, the league announced in March. A 2006 Norfolk State University alumna, Chaka has been officiating football since 2007, a journey that took her from high school games to the NCAA’s Division I, including bowl games.
Chaka is only the second woman ever to join the NFL officiating staff, and she’s been training with the league since 2014, when she was chosen to be part of its new NFL Officiating Development Program at age 31. This upcoming season, after years of work and perseverance, Chaka has been added to the NFL roster and has been recognized nationally as a trailblazer.
Although her officiating schedule will keep her busy, working with students continues to be her “No. 1 passion,” she says. “I always want to be involved in my community, always want to be within my school district, [and] I always want to be able to give back.”
Virginia Business: Let’s start by just talking about your relationship with sports. Did you like to play sports when you were younger?
Maia Chaka: I was just a gym rat, a complete gym rat growing up. I did everything at a young age: swimming, gymnastics. I played football in the neighborhood with the boys all the time. Outside of football, I organized sports, I played, I ran track, softball. I played everything competitively except for football, for the most part.
VB: Did you watch football much? Were you a fan of certain teams growing up?
Chaka: Not necessarily a fan of teams, but I watched all the time, and I played tons of [“Madden NFL” video games] on Sega Genesis.
VB: You’ve been officiating football for more than a decade now in high school and college leagues. What is the most exciting thing about being on the field as an official?
Chaka: I think just being able to see the plays up close and personal. Especially as you start to progress in your career, and you start looking at high-level competition or highly skilled players. I’m always in awe to see a player run or hurdle [over] someone. In high school, hurdling was illegal. Then once I started officiating college, and in some other professional leagues, that became a big thing. Everybody’s hurdling. When you see those kinds of moves, or when you see a nice spin move or even just a good clean hit, those are the things I enjoy the most.
Maia Chaka will begin refereeing NFL games during the league’s upcoming 102nd season. Photo by Mark Rhodes
VB: Has anyone ever run into you?
Chaka: Never been run into. I’ve never been run over or knocked down. I’ve never fallen on the field or anything. Knock on wood. Don’t jinx me right now.
VB: In 2014, you were chosen by the NFL for its Officiating Development Program. How does that process work?
Chaka: There’s a pool of about somewhere close to 4,000 officials, give or take a few. I believe 2014 was only the second year of this development program. At that time, they were really only selecting 21 officials out of that pool of 4,000. The 21 has now grown to a larger number — closer to 30 or so — but pretty much the criteria are [that] you have to show promise and have a lot of potential. You have to be coachable. Obviously, you have to have a good under-standing of the game of football, and you have to be excelling on the level that you’re currently working. At the time, I was working for [NCAA Division I] Conference USA, and I just finished working at my first bowl game.
Obviously, there was something that they saw in me that they liked, and they wanted to just bring me into the program and train me and work with me.
I really can’t pinpoint exactly what the formula is and why the NFL chooses who they choose to be a part of the program. I just know that they just look for solid officials. You have to be solid both on the field and off the field.
VB: When you go to training, how much time does it take out of your regular, everyday life?
Chaka: Pretty much once the spring hits, you have to prepare for July. All this is before the season even starts. Like, the football season itself doesn’t really start until August, when they really start going pre-season, but after you go to [a training] clinic, you’re sent to a training camp.
At the training camp, you work a pre-season game. Once you finish your pre-season game, you now go back and work your college season. That goes from August all the way up until December and January. At the end of your college season, you’re invited to come back and work for the College Football All-Star Game [in late January].
That’s one of the games where the players are preparing for the NFL draft. You have to switch gears from your college rule book, pick up your NFL Rulebook again, and you have to use that set of rules for those players.
It’s pretty much a yearlong commitment. You sacrifice a lot of holidays. You’re going to miss out on a lot of family time. You’re going to miss out on weddings, birthdays.
VB: After you’ve done training, how long does it usually take to get hired for the NFL season?
Chaka: I think I was on the program longer than anybody else was — four straight years, then two years off. For me, it’s a little different because I was brought in so young. I worked my first Division I football game when I was 28 after only working three seasons of high school football. I interviewed for the NFL when I was 31, after only working three seasons of Division I football. When they brought me into the program, I was very green. I had a lot to learn.
VB: Do you feel like things really shifted for you in your last year of training?
Chaka: During this last year, I felt I had a great understanding of the game because I’ve been around it for a while. I’ve gotten used to what it takes to actually be a professional, what it takes to be successful.
Also, as a female, to establish a solid network of people that I could communicate with is just one of the benefits about being in the program for so long. Pretty much all the new hires, you’ve worked with them.
I’ve got an understanding of how much I had to slow down on the field. As a woman out there, we want to show that we can keep up and that we can compete with these guys, when in all actuality you have male officials that are [in their] upper 50s and 60s who don’t move that fast anymore, but they’re always in the right place to make the right call. [I had] to watch film on the older officials to really get a good understanding of how I needed to slow down. I didn’t need to sprint.
VB: Can you explain to me what a line of scrimmage official does?
Chaka: We do everything, and I’m not even lying about that. We’re probably the only position on the field that can make a call on every single play. We get everything, like the false starts, defensive offsides, anything that deals with illegal formation. We have to have a legal [ball] snap, so the play doesn’t start unless we know that we have a good clean snap. We’re the alpha and the omega of the game.
We look for blocks. We start looking for things like holding [another player] or blocking back. We also have to look for pass interference and illegal contact.
Once the play is over, we’re in charge of spotting the ball where the play ends. We’re also involved in penalty enforcement when there’s a foul that occurs on the play.
We’re the brains of the crew. It’s the most difficult position in the National Football League to work, seriously, because of how intricate everything is. You have to be able to take information and process it quickly once the play is over.
VB: That sounds like so much concentration over a three-hour period.
Chaka: It is, definitely. Players get timeouts; officials don’t. We’re on the field, we’re on our feet, no matter what the weather. It’s almost like the mailman — rain, sleet or snow, they don’t care. It could be 40 degrees below zero, and we’re still out there. We don’t get to go on the sideline by the heaters.
VB: What it was like officiating during COVID-19?
Chaka: I worked in the [Pac-12 Conference] this year. I prepared so much to work in the Pac-12, and when we were supposed to kick off in September, they canceled their season. Then they decided at the last minute that they wanted to have a season. Our season started in November, when the season usually ends. We had a lot of cancellations and movement of games. I had games that I was supposed to work on a Friday that eventually ended up being played on Sunday. Not knowing if your game was going to be canceled or if it was going to be moved, preparation is key.
VB: Why do you think that you’re the first Black woman hired as an on-field official by the NFL? Why not someone years ago, do you think?
Chaka: For me, it’s just by default. If you look at the timeframe and where I was at a specific time, there really were only two women who were working Division I football. [Ed. note: Along with Chaka, Sarah Thomas was a Division I official then. She became the NFL’s first female official in 2015.] It was so weird because it was 2011. You would think that there would be more women involved by then, but there really weren’t. [Now], there’s tons of women that are involved. We actually have a couple that are in the [NFL] development program that are working very hard and they’re actually really good. I think with them, it’s only a matter of time before they get their shots to come to the league. I just think it’s a matter of women actually stepping outside the box and trying something. Also, [for] us in these leadership positions, we have to do a better job at recruiting and giving opportunities for young ladies.
VB: What are your students’ thoughts on your accomplishment?
Chaka: My students are very excited. This is actually funny — [in-person] attendance at my school has actually increased since the announcement was made. All my students come to class now.
Even on the Zoom meetings, it’s funny, I have parents ask, “Is that your teacher? She was on the ‘Today’ show!” I’m happy that it has that type of positive effect. I am able to give them some encouragement to come to school just to achieve and just to work a little bit harder.
We specialize with kids with unique needs, like a lot of behavior problems. Our school is predominantly male, [but] I have had quite a few young ladies throughout the years. I try to be a role model for them, to lead by example and encourage them to do something different.
I just love being able to share parts of my world, expose them to something that they normally wouldn’t be exposed to.
VB: Do you plan to continue working as a teacher?
Chaka: I’m definitely going to continue working as a teacher. Well, I don’t know if I’m going to be a teacher, but I still want to be in my school district. It all depends on what opportunities arise, but working with youth is always going to be my No. 1 passion. Always.
VB: What do you imagine it will be like 10 years from now in the NFL for officials?
Chaka:At least 50-50 in terms of minorities and a staff that really represents the players and the fans, because you have a lot of women who are huge fans of football.
VB: What do you think you bring to this sport?
Chaka: I guess I’m a big fan of humanity, and I just like to bring the human aspects of things. In the game — where everything is professional, where everything is black and white a lot of times — sometimes we’ve got to just stop and think. Let’s do what’s best for the situation or what’s best for this person right now, and not necessarily because it is the hard, black-and-white rule — when you just really work for the spirit of the game. ν
Exactly when it happens remains up in the air, but the city of Martinsville is set on downsizing to town status.
It’s been about a year and a half since Martinsville City Council set in motion the complicated process of dropping the locality’s status as one of Virginia’s 38 independent cities and morphing it into the state’s 191st town, partially consolidating with Henry County. On May 26, the two governments signed a non-legally binding memorandum of understanding supporting Martinsville’s reversion to a town within Henry. Martinsville hopes to revert by July 1, 2022, but Henry County officials are eyeing a 2023 time frame.
Why did Martinsville put the reversion in motion? “Economics,” explains Martinsville Mayor Kathy Lawson. “It’s the financial aspect. We have so much duplication.”
Virginia is the only state in the nation that grants independent status to cities under its constitution, making cities and counties mutually exclusive.
Getting into the weeds of how that happened and what it means especially for small cities in rural areas is not for the faint-hearted, but the bottom line is that it leads to situations in which cities and adjacent or surrounding counties end up with parallel school systems, government administrations and constitutional officers.
Since the late 1980s, the state has let small cities petition to “revert” to town status, partially merging the former city with a surrounding county and shifting major costs, such as operating schools for example, to the county.
“The cost to provide services for the citizens of Martinsville continues to increase, while revenue does not,” City Manager Leon Towarnicki told Martinsville City Council in November 2019.
The next month, the council put the reversion process in motion.
“This is an — undeniably — a negative financial event for the county,” says George Lyle, Henry County attorney. “We think the annual expense will start off at $5 million a year,” excluding one-time capital costs such as moving courthouses.
Options under consideration to meet those financial challenges include raising the county’s real-estate tax rate by 18%, from 55 cents per $100 of assessed value to 65 cents, he adds.
Martinsville and Henry County officials entered mediation talks in late April. The state Commission on Local Government, which must weigh in on the matter, has an Aug. 8 deadline to issue a report. That document eventually will go to a three-judge panel appointed by the Virginia Supreme Court, which typically rules on reversion requests within six to nine months.
Only three former cities in Virginia have successfully reverted to town status: South Boston in 1995; Clifton Forge in 2001; and Bedford in 2013.
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