Roanoke Business- July 2016

The new manufacturing p. 8

Community profile: Blacksburg p. 37

JULY 2016

SERVING THE ROANOKE/ BLACKSBURG/ NEW RIVER VALLEY REGION

The

hero professor

Interview with Marc Edwards

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CONTENTS SERVING THE ROANOKE/BLACKSBURG/ NEW RIVER VALLEY REGION

July 2016

F E AT U R E S

8

The new manufacturing

8

The sector is more sophisticated and less dependent on big, employee-heavy factories.

by Mason Adams

COMMERCIAL INSURANCE Specialized insurance Businesses need tailored coverage. by Joan Tupponce

14

25

HEALTH CARE Extra attention Local training for doctors and nurses means better care for patients.

20

by Shawna Morrison

HIGHER EDUCATION A healthy relationship The impact of medical school and research institute continues to grow. by Sandra Brown Kelly

25 D 30

E

P

A

R

20 T

INTERVIEW: Marc Edwards

M 34

The hero professor Marc Edwards has a clear vision of his goal: ‘You do your best to stop the insanity.’

COMMUNITY PROFILE: Blacksburg Accolades and challenges Blacksburg gets positive reviews and seeks to attract top-notch employers.

by Gene Marrano

2

JULY 2016

E

N

T

S

BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT The Kitchen New incubator helps whip up food-related businesses.

by Joan Tupponce

by Sandra Brown Kelly

37

30

41

PREVIEW

42

NEWS FROM THE CHAMBER

WE’LL TAKE YOU

Discover Virginia Western for yourself. elf.

With nearly 13,000 students, the most in the Roanoke Valley, it’s no secret that Virginia Western Community College offers higher education that is affordable and accessible to everyone. veryone.

At Virginia Western, you can pursue a degree or certificate cate to lay the foundation for a strong career or to move ahead in the career you’re in. Or you can gain college credits and enjoy guaranteed aranteed transfer to many of the state’s top universities.

What you may not know is that Virginia Western also provides rovides a vibrant student life with a wide variety of clubs and activities ctivities across its pristine 70-acre campus. You can work out with brand new fitness equipment in the Student Life Center or take ea peaceful walk in the Community Arboretum. There is something omething for everyone to discover at Virginia Western.

We’ll take you there.

.edu du

FROM THE EDITOR

Collective culture

T

by Tim Thornton

he theme of this year’s Roanoke Regional Business Summit was “Cultivating a Collective Culture,” and a lot of people spent a lot of time talking about how much can be and has been accomplished when people, governments and other organizations work together, regardless of political boundaries, for the common good.

“People may not see it,” said Tim Bradshaw, executive director of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport Commission. “The newspaper may not report on all of it,” but there’s a lot of cooperating going on.

The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute and Roanoke’s developing Health Sciences and Technology Innovation District are perhaps the most obvious examples, but there are more.

The Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority recently signed up the first customer for its 50-mile network.

Virginia’s First Regional Industrial Facilities Authority operates the New River Valley Commerce Park. The Western Virginia Regional Industrial Facility Authority is working to identify and assemble sites for potential industrial development. The recent campaign that brought Deschutes Brewery’s first East Coast facility to Roanoke included all the professional economic development promoters a person might expect, plus Deschutes 2 Roanoke, a strong grassroots social media campaign. That campaign is a particularly encouraging sign.

According to Michael Galliher, the man behind Deschutes 2 Roanoke, when trolls started to criticize the area and the Deschutes campaign online, pro-Deschutes 2 Roanoke people shut them down pretty quickly, fighting complaints with facts and standing up for the Star City and the region.

For a long time, Roanoke compared itself unfavorably to Charlotte, Richmond and Asheville. Roanoke isn’t Charlotte or Richmond. Many people who don’t like to sit in traffic but do like to hike or bike or kayak think that’s a good thing. Just over two years ago, a Roanoke Business cover story explained Roanoke isn’t Asheville. Roanoke has a lower cost of living and a higher median income to go with its trails and lakes and outdoor concerts and festivals. For a while, Asheville’s craft beer culture was far ahead, but this area was catching up even before the Deschutes decision.

As Beth Doughty, executive director of the Roanoke Regional Partnership, told the chamber gathering, “You can’t sell what you don’t have. You can’t sell a message that isn’t true.” But the developing regional narrative is true. The outdoor amenities are really out there. The traffic really isn’t.

Medical education and research really are significant parts of the region and its economy. The commonwealth’s leading research university – and several smaller private and public colleges and universities and community colleges – really are teaching engineers and artists and training workers for high-tech jobs.

And now, finally, the word is getting around.

4

JULY 2016

SERVING THE ROANOKE/BLACKSBURG/ NEW RIVER VALLEY REGION Vol. 5

JULY 2016

President & Publisher Roanoke Business Editor Contributing Editor Contributing Writers

Art Director Contributing Photographers Production Manager Circulation Manager Accounting Manager Vice President of Advertising Account Representative

No. 7

Bernard A. Niemeier Tim Thornton Paula C. Squires Mason Adams Sandra Brown Kelly Gene Marrano Shawna Morrison Joan Tupponce Adrienne R. Watson Don Petersen Natalee Waters Kevin L. Dick Karen Chenault Ashley Henry Hunter Bendall Lynn Williams

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on the cover Marc Edwards Virginia Tech Photo by Don Petersen

Out About &

1

2 1. At The Burton Center for Arts and Technology’s Engineering Expo, students partnered with local companies for internships and innovative projects ranging from 3D printing to Boolean algebra.

2. Warner Dalhouse (left) and Nancy Agee, CEO of Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, presents the Dr. Robert L.A. Keeley Award to Dr. Julien Meyer Jr., (right) for his physician leadership and service to patients.

3. Roanoke County and the Roanoke Regional Chamber welcomed Creative Wellness Therapeutic Massage to the business community at a recent ribbon cutting ceremony.

4. Mahesh Tailor, technology services group director at the Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, won Best in Show at the health system’s employee art show.

3

5. Corrugated Container Corp. accepts the Roanoke County Business Appreciation Month Proclamation. From left to right: Heather French, John Higginbotham and Chad Tyson, all of Corrugated Container Corp.; Jill Loope, Roanoke County Economic Development; and Jason Peters, Roanoke County Board of Supervisors.

6. Roanoke County’s Economic Development Department congratulates the Archer family for being recognized by a resolution from the Virginia House of Delegates for the family’s service and contributions to the commonwealth. Pictured: Jim Archer, Nancy Doucette (Archer), Jacqueline Archer, Bob Archer, Regine Archer and local House of Delegates representatives Chris Head, Greg Habeeb and Sam Rasoul.

3 5 4 5 6

Share photos of your company’s special events with Roanoke Business.

2

Email your candid photos and identifications to Adrienne R. Watson, arwatson@va-business.com.

JUNE 2015

6 Contributed photos

Calendar of events

July

Items on the calendar are just a sample of Roanoke/New River Valley business events this month. To submit an event for consideration, email Tim Thornton at tthornton@roanoke-business.com at least one month before the event.

July 1 July 2

First Fridays Roanoke, Franklin Rd. SW

TAP Hope Fest

HomeTown Bank sponsors this event now in its 28th year. With live music, food, beer and wine, the gathering for professionals inspires networking and raises money for nonprofits in the Roanoke Valley.

Roanoke, Elmwood Park Celebrate Independence Day early with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic; Plunky & the Oneness of Juju; Look Homeward; food, crafts, a kids’ zone and more. Proceeds go to Total Action for Progress. 3 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. www.taphopefest.com

http://firstfridaysroanoke.com/

July 7

Thursday Overtime Roanoke, Martin’s Downtown Roanoke Regional Chamber members unwind after work event. No cost to attend, but food and beverages are on your own. 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

July 8

The Bank of Botetourt Flat Pickin’ Fridays Country Music Concert Series Daleville Music provided by the Natalie Brady Band and special guest. With food trucks and beverages for the entire family. The event is open to people of all ages (children 12 and under are free), and 100 percent of ticket proceeds benefit local nonprofit Council of Community Services. Sponsors: The Bank of Botetourt, P.A. Short Distributing/Budweiser and the Daleville Town Center. Put on by Big Lick Entertainment. http://biglickentertainment.com/

ROANOKE BUSINESS

7

SPECIAL REPORT

The new manufacturing The sector is more sophisticated and less dependent on big, employee-heavy factories

by Mason Adams

LiteSheet Solutions technician Justin Ansley inspects LED lights before they are shipped.

8

JULY 2016

S

outhwest Virginians know too well the downside of globalization when it comes to manufacturing jobs.

For decades, they have watched long-running textile and furniture manufacturers shutter factories as their owners moved operations to new locations with lower labor costs.

Roanoke author Beth Macy’s 2014 book, “Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - and Helped Save an American Town,” won accolades and was picked up for a miniseries by HBO because it documented the cost of globalization in Southwest Virginia communities while heralding John Bassett III, the titular hero and an exception to the rule.

The 21st century, however, has seen a resurgence of manufacturing in western Virginia. New facilities and expansions of existing factories drive the region’s recovery from the Great Recession. In a twist, it’s largely foreign-owned companies driving this new wave

Photo by Don Petersen

of manufacturing as they look to establish footholds in the U.S. and tap into domestic markets.

From 2009 through 2015, the Roanoke region saw a 7.7 percent growth in employment within the manufacturing sector, more than twice the total nonfarm employment change of 3.1 percent.

“If you look at the numbers, manufacturing absolutely did lead us out of the recession,” says Beth Doughty, executive director at the Roanoke Regional Partnership.

A strong U.S. dollar has made it tougher to compete globally, which has slowed the growth rate in recent years. However, manufacturing in the Roanoke area still grew 1.2 percent from 2015 to 2016, according to John Hull, the partnership’s director of market intelligence. That number lags Northern Virginia and Lynchburg, which grew at 2.5 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively, but it’s well ahead of Charlottesville, which showed no growth, and Hampton Roads and Richmond, which saw declines.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

9

Special Report Automated manufacturing instructor Daniel C. Horine and the rest of Virginia Western Community College’s mechatronics lab have trained workers and helped attract manufacturers to the region.

Manufacturing also accounts for half of the region’s biggest growth sectors. From 2002 to 2014, jobs in motor vehicles parts manufacturing grew 52 percent to 818; specialized textile product mills grew 49 percent to 118; metalworking machinery manufacturing grew 20 percent to 170; other general machinery manufacturing grew 19 percent to 82; and communications 10

JULY 2016

equipment manufacturing grew 8 percent to 264 jobs.

In 2015, regional manufacturing companies advertised 435 open jobs, with an average annual wage of $33,466.

These aren’t your grandfather’s manufacturing jobs, however.

For one, modern manufacturers don’t employ nearly the numbers of workers they once did. Pu-

laski County has hosted a string of success stories in recent years, with Mexican greenhouse tomato growers Red Sun Farms, firearms manufacturer Alexander Industries and Volvo Trucks each announcing new jobs and investment. Yet manufacturing employment has fallen by half since 1990, and shuttered furniture and clothing factories still line town streets. These new companies are vulnerable to shifts in the global economy: Just a year after the announcement of 200 new jobs, Volvo laid off about 500 workers due to a slump in the North American trucking industry. The company expects to lay off more workers next month.

When Hanover Direct closed its catalog distribution facility in 2012, it resulted in the loss of 189 jobs.

A year later, the arrival of Luxembourg-based Ardagh Group, which makes food packaging, was trumpeted as a major success story. Yet while it brought $93.5 million in capital investment, it created only 96 jobs – a little more than half the jobs lost in the Hanover closing.

“With Ardagh, you go there, and there is a lot going on, but it is highly automated and you see very few people,” Doughty says. “It’s a simple answer of how technology has changed manufacturing. You can look at any field, health care or manufacturing, and the way they do business now is totally different than 30 years ago. The effect of automation is significant.”

At the same time, the economy in which these manufacturers operate is much different than it was during the era of big factories. During the last 50 years, the region’s economy has become much more diversified and less reliant on a handful of dominant companies that employ hundreds or thousands of workers.

Another difference from oldstyle manufacturing is the type of skill set required by employers. It used to be that a high school degree and a family connection could secure a lifetime job.

Photos by Don Petersen

Today’s manufacturers incorporate cutting-edge technology and a high level of automation, and their jobs require specialized skills and training. That’s where workforce training programs come in.

One of the hottest workforce programs in Roanoke right now can be found at Western Virginia Community College, where students and manufacturers both have fallen in behind the mechatronics career studies certificate.

“The word ‘mechatronics’ was coined by the Japanese back in the 1960s,” says Daniel Horine. “You’ve probably heard the term ‘electromechanical.’ Mechatronics is just those words in reverse. It’s the incorporation of mechanical systems, electrical systems and information technology all into one career pathway.”

Horine helped start the mechatronics program nine years ago after a career spent working in design and engineering. Four years ago he received training in Berlin that allows him to offer Siemens mechatronics systems certification, a designation highly sought by employers, especially those in manufacturing.

It includes a high school component through the Regional Academy, a two-year certificate or associate degree through VWCC, and transferability to four-year degrees at Old Dominion University and Purdue University Calumet.

Horine says the program is constantly evolving with employers’ needs. “We added physics to the mechatronics degree because our partners say, ‘We want graduates who know physics,’” he says.

Judged by its students, the program has been a success. Last summer, one of its students interned in Washington state at Boeing, the commercial aerospace company.

This summer, another is interning at NASA. Horine tells of others who went on to work for a variety of regional and national manufacturers or who started their own companies.

“It’s been so exciting,” Horine

Tina McDonald operates a machine that builds circuit boards for LiteSheet Solutions’ products.

says. “My big thing is, I want these students to think about careers, not jobs. You can lose a job; you can’t lose a career. That’s what the associate degree is, a career in mechatronics.”

VWCC’s mechatronics program has succeeded on another level, too, serving as enticement for economic development prospects.

“The skills they’re teaching there are advanced manufacturing skills that apply to all kinds of manufacturing companies in the region,” Doughty says. “We typically use the mechatronics program at Virginia Western as part of our orientation to the region for companies looking here. They look at it as, ‘This is a program that is built on the same principles that we operate on in our manufacturing facility.’”

Both Eldor Corp. and Deschutes Brewery cited the program as a factor in their respective decisions to build facilities in the Roanoke Valley.

Eldor is an Italian-owned com-

pany that manufactures automotive parts, including ignition systems, engine control units, braking systems actuators and power/electronics management systems. It announced in March that it would build a production plant in Botetourt County, investing about $75 million and creating about 350 jobs.

In the announcement from the governor’s office, Eldor President and CEO Pasquale Forte mentioned the mechatronics program by name when listing the various reasons for his company’s decision.

“Virginia is particularly business-oriented, with its pro-business laws, Port of Virginia access, logistics and infrastructure,” Forte said. “We found top-class universities and a great community college, with programs dedicated to the mechatronics sector that will grow excellent young engineers with the skills necessary to run Eldor’s advanced automated lines.”

Eldor’s broader decision to build was based on factors shared ROANOKE BUSINESS

11

Special Report Virginia Western Community College student David Hornberger may be one of the “excellent young engineers� in the making that Eldor President and CEO Pasquale Forte referenced when his company announced its Botetourt County investment.

by other international companies looking for a foothold in the U.S.: proximity to customers, logistic and lead time optimization, a relatively stable environment and management of fluctuating currency risk.

Virginia also used incentives to lure Eldor. They include a $3.2 million grant from the Commonwealth’s

Opportunity Fund, as well as benefits from the Port of Virginia Economic and Infrastructure Development Zone Grant Program and funding and services from the Virginia Jobs Investment Program to support employee training.

The company already has begun construction of its plant at the

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JULY 2016

Greenfield Industrial Park, and it expects to begin production by the end of 2017.

Doughty says Eldor follows in a long line of automotive parts manufacturers that have chosen to locate in western Virginia, including Yokohama Tire, Altec Inc., Graham White Manufacturing and Dynax America. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a strong cluster and sector for us for a while,â&#x20AC;?

Doughty says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re near capacity at all. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s absolutely room to grow. Success breeds success. We do have a cluster of transportation-related manufacturing, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a strong competitive advantage. We have the support systems that go with it, whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mechatronics, the supply chain or access to markets. It creates a level of comfort that a company is in good company, so to speak.â&#x20AC;?

For all that success, however, most of the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economic growth comes not from new business location but from expansions.

The Roanoke Regional Partnership released figures showing that 78 percent of economic development announcements come from expansions â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t include smaller, incremental growth that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t merit a formal announcement.

One example would be Ply Gem Windows in Franklin County. Since 1990 it has announced nine different expansions totaling 1,282 new jobs and $41 million in investment.

Two of those announcements have come since the recession, including the most recent in April, which will add 76 jobs and $1.98 million to increase capacity for its vinyl window lines. The expansion will be supported by a $100,000 grant from the Commonwealthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Opportunity Fund, $160,000 in Tobacco Region Opportunity Funds and funding and services through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program.

Ply Gem was already Franklin Countyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest private employer, producing a line of windows and patio doors, vinyl and aluminum Photos by Don Petersen

siding and accessories, designer accents, cellular PVC trim and mouldings, vinyl fencing and railing, stone veneer and gutterware.

Another Franklin County manufacturer, Fleetwood Homes, which makes prefabricated housing, also announced an expansion this year that will result in 100 new jobs and $2.3 million in investment.

Virginia’s newest homegrown manufacturers blur the lines between technology and manufacturing. Take LiteSheet Solutions, a maker of highly energy-efficient LED lighting and processes that is based in Bedford and in Hartford, Conn. The company’s AC Direct LED light engine reduces energy consumption by up to a factor of 15 times, delivering 140 lumens/watt.

LiteSheet recently received a vote of confidence from the Center for Innovative Technology.

CIT is a nonprofit sponsored by the state to foster innovation and startup companies by assisting with commercialization, capital formation, market development and revenue generation services. CIT GAP Funds, a family of seed- and earlystage investment funds for Virginia-based technology, life science and clean-tech companies, joined a seed-round investment to assist in LiteSheet’s growth.

The GAP Funds program is targeted at “small, seed-stage rounds” to help provide a bridge for smaller Virginia companies before they get to the point of issuing Series A bonds — basically the first round of financing outside of seed capital, and the first time external investors get to buy stock.

“There’s a strong manufacturing legacy in the commonwealth,” says Tom Wiethman, managing director of the CIT GAP Funds program. “There’s a very talented and dedicated workforce. Over time that workforce needs to adapt to changing technology and changing approaches, but I think there’s a real commitment from the state” — both from the governor’s administration and also from the Virginia Tobacco

Tim Wiethman, managing director of CIT GAP Funds program, says Virginia’s workforce needs to adapt.

Region Revitalization Commission, which supports economic growth in former tobacco-producing regions.

Wiethman says that LiteSheet is the third advanced manufacturing company in Southwestern Virginia to receive investment in the program.

In 2007, it invested in Engineered Products of Virginia, a Saltville company that made products for the transformer, motor and energy markets. In 2012, it invested in WireTough Cylinders, a Bristol manufacturer of compressed natural gas cylinders reinforced with steel wire, a concept that may enable the use of natural gas for vehicles.

Wiethman observes that advanced manufacturers and tech companies have become largely indistinguishable from one another.

“I think that manufacturing as we know it will become almost impossible to segregate from tech,” Wiethman says. “Processes become more automated, and the products themselves become enhanced with greater technological attributes.

It will get to the point so that we don’t think of manufacturing as separate from tech in process and products.”

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COMMERCIAL INSURANCE BROKERS

Specialized insurance Businesses need tailored coverage

by Joan Tupponce

T

here is no one-size-fitsall solution for businesses when it comes to commercial insurance policies. “Businesses have to get away from the cookiecutter mentality,” says Mike Weber, vice president of Baltimore-based RCM&D. Weber, who works in the company’s Richmond office, has many clients in the Roanoke Valley and throughout Virginia.

Insurance is an important part of a risk-management strategy “and every industry faces a different set of challenges and risk

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JULY 2016

management issues,” says Duke Baldridge, president of Dominion Risk Advisors in Roanoke. “Your broker needs to understand your industry from a risk perspective as well as you understand the operational side of your business.”

The insurance industry spends a lot of time offering new products and new solutions but “it’s just as important now to make sure we are spending the right amount of time ensuring that primary policies are written properly,” Baldridge adds. “The only way

to do that is for the broker to understand how the coverage applies to the specific industry.”

It isn’t uncommon for business owners to believe that as long as they have coverage in four primary areas – general liability, workers’ compensation, property and auto – their interests are protected.

That type of thinking could leave them vulnerable to other types of exposures, such as cyber attacks, that could cripple the company financially.

“As an agent we have to peel

Even craft brewers such as Soaring Ridge need insurance tailored to the way they do business.

back the onion and determine what their exposures are and talk with owners to see how much of the risk they want to transfer, how much they want to finance and how much they want to mitigate in order to determine their risk tolerance,” says Stephen Hamilton, executive vice president of HAWK Advisers in Roanoke.

Often businesses are reluctant to talk about all of the facets of their organization, but it’s important that insurance brokers have an in-depth understanding of the business and the income it proPhoto by Don Petersen

duces so they can determine where the company is vulnerable. Take, for example, motor carriers. A motor carrier might be renting out a warehouse or a shop on its property to someone else. “Do your underwriters know you have landlord exposure?” says RCM&D’s Weber.

“You have to look at all of your sources of revenue.”

Information on the type of cargo a motor carrier hauls is also important in determining the correct coverage. “A lot of underwriters will limit things like designer apparel and athletic footwear as

well as electronics because they are items that are targeted for theft,” he says. “If you are a motor carrier, you need to check the policy that you are paying for to make sure it’s applicable for what you are hauling. Don’t just focus on the dollar rate.”

Other considerations for motor carriers include pollution coverage, which would cover cleanup costs if a truck overturns; employment practices liability for issues such as unlawful termination; and contractual liability, the liability the company assumes in a contract.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

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Commercial Insurance Brokers

Trucking companies may need more than standard coverage, depending on what they carry.

“Contracts have a lot of insurance language and all kinds of requirements,” Weber says. “A motor carrier may be agreeing to something they don’t have coverage for. For

instance, I may be hauling for Amazon, and they will want me to sign an agreement that includes payments, terms, routes, etc. There will also be insurance requirements.”

Manufacturing is another important industry in the Roanoke and New River valleys, a category that includes the current proliferation of new breweries. Brewery owners need to consider options such as beer leakage coverage, which would include spoilage and contamination as well as transit coverage if the brewery distributes beer.

Brewery owners also should look at equipment breakdown coverage to cover items such as the pressurized vessels that hold beer.

“The coverage will pay for property damage if the equipment goes down because of something like an implosion,” Hamilton says. “Owners should also look at business interruption coverage, which will pay for net income and ongoing operations expenses if they have to shut down the business for a time period.”

Manufacturers aren’t the only group that would benefit from busi-

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Though it looks tranquil, a golf course needs to insure mowers, carts, greens, fairways and against pollution liability.

ness interruption coverage. “Following a property claim more businesses fail because they don’t have adequate business interruption coverage … They failed to carry adequate protection for the build-

ing and its contents,” says Baldridge, noting that business interruption limits are determined by time and expertise. “The process takes into account what-if scenarios.”

The hospitality industry, which

includes everything from hotels to country clubs, has its own set of needs. Equipment breakdown, spoilage and pollution liability coverage would be warranted as well as liquor liability.

Country clubs with golf courses also would need to consider coverage to insure their greens, tee boxes and fairways. “Putting in one new green could cost $50,000 to $60,000,” says Roy Bucher, chairman and treasurer of Roanokebased Chas. Lunsford Sons & Assoc.

“They will also need contractors equipment coverage for damage to golf carts or mowing equipment.

And, they would need pollution liability coverage to protect against runoff from herbicides or pesticides used on the golf course.”

Bailees coverage will protect any items that belong to members of a country club. “A lot of people, if they are members, will leave their golf clubs at the country club,” Bucher says. “Bailees coverage will

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protect them if their clubs are stolen or damaged by something such as a fire.”

Most industries as well as nonprofits and social services organizations should consider cyber liability, which protects sensitive information – credit card numbers and other personal information – stored by the entity. The coverage provides reimbursement for expenses that a company incurs after a breach or hacking.

“Cyber liability is one coverage that a lot of businesses don’t understand,” says Hamilton. He suggests that business owners go to the site IBMcostofdatabreach.com

Stephen Hamilton, executive vice president of HAWK Advisers

to calculate their exposure. “They can get on the site and answer a set of questions and, it will tell you ap-

proximately what your exposure to a data breach or cyber liability is.”

Health-care organizations are often targeted by hackers because of the “nature of the information they collect in their databases,” says Hamilton.

If a business, nonprofit or social services organization doesn’t have this type of coverage, it must deal on its own with the aftermath and financial losses after a breach.

“You could have an organization that has been in existence for 20 years and all of a sudden you have a claim like this,” says Weber, “and it wipes them out if they are not covered properly.”

Commercial insurance brokers Company

Address

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3130 Chaparral Drive, Suite 202 Roanoke, Va. 24018

540-904-7559

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BB&T Insurance Services

310 First St. SW, Suite 201, PO Box 1600 Roanoke, Va. 24011

540-982-1600

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Brown Insurance

100 Hubbard St., Suite A Blacksburg, Va. 24060

540-552-5331

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Campbell Insurance

801 Main St., Suite 400, Lynchburg, Va. 24505

434-847-5541

www.campbellins.com

Chas. Lunsford Sons & Associates

16 East Church Ave. Roanoke, Va. 24011

540-982-0200

www.chaslunsford.com

Dominion Risk Advisors

8-A Kirk Ave. SW Roanoke, Va. 24011

540-366-7475

www.domrisk.com

HAWK Advisers

206 Williamson Road Roanoke, Va. 24011

540-343-4309

www.cis-agency.net

HSH Insurance

100 East Main St. Salem, Va. 24153

540-389-2327

www.hshi.com

Richards Group Inc.

4931 Boonsboro Road Lynchburg, Va. 24503

434-384-3900

www.richardsgroupinc.com

Rutherfoord, a Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC Co.

One South Jefferson St. Roanoke, Va. 24011

540-982-3511

www.mma-midatlantic.com

Scott Insurance

10 Franklin Rd., SE, Suite 550 Roanoke, Va. 24011

540-343-8071

www.scottins.com

Source: Roanoke Business

ROANOKE BUSINESS

19

HEALTH CARE

Third-year Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine student Kevin McElroy is one of many doctors in training at work in the Roanoke and New River valleys.

Extra attention

Local training for doctors and nurses means better care for patients

by Shawna Morrison

T

he Roanoke and New River valleys are home to two medical schools educating doctors and to several schools educating nurses. This steady stream

20

JULY 2016

of trainees benefits the region, according to leaders in health care, in ways large and small.

For starters, patients tend to receive an extra layer of individ-

ualized care. Longtime doctors and nurses keep current on their training so they can better train students. Plus, students and physicians drawn to the area choose to Photo by Natalee Waters

practice not only here, but also in more rural areas of Southwest Virginia, where there is a great need for medical professionals.

“This area is blessed to have two medical schools and a number of nursing schools,” says Timothy Haasken, chief financial officer of LewisGale Hospital Montgomery.

“The impact that it has on hospitals and clinics in the area is that a patient is typically going to experience a greater number of caregivers providing them attention and seeing to their needs and providing quality care.”

As a teaching hospital, LewisGale Montgomery allows nursing students from Radford University and New River Community College to work with nurses there.

Some graduates of the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in Blacksburg and other schools also perform their three-year residencies at the hospital. Haasken stressed that students can’t make decisions or order tests for patients; they make suggestions and seek approval from the high-level physician or nurse who oversees them.

Daily, he says, residents, senior residents, interns, medical students and nursing students are among those seeing patients. “Generally speaking, our patients are overwhelmingly receptive of the extra attention that they get from having, really, a team approach of physicians seeing them. They get more care, and more personalized care, as a result,” Haasken says.

“I think that they really give some of the best care that you would ever receive,” Lisa AllisonJones, dean for academic affairs at Jefferson College of Health Sciences, says of health-care students.

They have fewer patients to care for and carefully study each one, developing care plans and getting feedback from faculty members.

“The initiative to increase the number of well-prepared practitioners in nursing and medicine and Top photo by Natalee Waters Bottom photo by Don Petersen

Timothy Haasken, chief financial officer of LewisGale Hospital Montgomery, a teaching hospital.

respiratory therapy and emergency services, all of those programs, are so beneficial to us as our popula-

tion ages, as we are able to successfully care for more and more complex diseases,” Allison-Jones says.

“Having a health-care workforce that is well-prepared, well-trained, can’t help but benefit us.”

The Institute of Medicine, a subset of the National Academy of Sciences, has set a goal of increasing the percentage of nurses with a bachelor of science degree in nursing from 50 percent to 80 percent by 2020. Many health-care facilities, including LewisGale Montgomery, are working toward that goal by hiring nurses who already have a bachelor’s degree or allowing some nurses who have an associate degree to continue working while they obtain their bachelor’s.

Nursing students working toward a bachelor of science spend their junior and senior years in clinical rotations, training in hospi-

Newly minted doctors, like these members of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine Class of 2016, often add a layer of care to area patients.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

21

Health Care Family Medicine Program Director Amy Doolan talks with resident Ryan Greemann at LewisGale Hospital Montgomery. Doolan teaches at Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine and also is a graduate of the medical school.

tals and clinics. Radford University nursing students provide about 60,000 hours of direct care to patients in the Roanoke and New Riv-

er valleys each year, says Ken Cox, dean of Radford University’s Waldron College of Health and Human Services. In addition, he says,

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they impact the region’s health care by providing dental health education at elementary schools and physicals for high school athletes and volunteering at Roanoke Rescue Mission, Habitat for Humanity and the Wounded Warrior Project.

“Those graduates go on to practice in our region, and they definitely affect the overall health and well-being of the citizens of the commonwealth of Virginia but particularly in those areas of the Roanoke Valley and New River Valley,” Cox says. There are currently 414 bedside and advanced-practice nurses who graduated from Radford University employed with Carilion Clinic, he says.

Dr. Donald Kees, a pediatrician who provides oversight to all of Carilion’s residency and fellowship programs, says a major impact on the quality of health care in the Roanoke Valley came with the announcement of the creation of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute.

“At Carilion, we have almost doubled the size and the number of programs of our graduate medical education over the past five to six years,” Kees says. “Having the medical schools and having graduate medical education here has really attracted, I would say, a more sophisticated group of physicians, and then it’s allowing our folks to populate the area with practitioners as well.”

While Carilion works hard to help train its own students from the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, which graduated its third class in May, it tries to keep an appropriate ratio of physicians to residents and medical students.

“We do have a certain capacity, and we bump up against that,” Kees says. A student’s experience won’t be as good if he or she isn’t able to see many patients or get enough time with his or her preceptor, or mentoring physician.

“It was the fact that Carilion Clinic was going to reinvent itself as part of an academic health Photo by Natalee Waters

center that would have a medical school and research institute that brought between 200 and 300 physicians,” says Cynda Johnson, founding dean and president of Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. “Before we ever even graduated a class, these physicians wanted to join Carilion for many reasons. They liked the new model, but in part, and in some cases in very large part, because they knew that they were going to be a part of a new medical school.”

The research institute also has been a draw for some physicians, leading to better patient care, Johnson says. “Patients who seek their care in a place where research is going on also have opportunities for better care. They have more inquisitive physicians. They have more opportunities to participate in trials. They are on the cutting edge of science and medicine, and therefore they reap the benefits of that as well.”

Carilion Clinic is now able to provide patients with more advanced care that wasn’t available 10 years ago, says Kees, who has practiced in the Roanoke Valley since 1988 and served with Carilion since 1991. He has plenty of examples: a new dermatology program; specialized surgeons, gastroenterologists and cardiologists; plastic surgeons; “the list could go on and on.” And many of them – himself included, Kees says – are in the Roanoke Valley for the opportunity to participate in graduate medical education. “I wanted to be in an environment where I had people asking me questions because I knew … I would always have to stay ahead of them and stay fresh,” he says.

Physicians who are helping to educate medical students and residents are inspired “to constantly enhance and keep up-to-date on the latest advances in medical education,” Haasken says. “For them to be good educators they’ve got to remain very well-educated themselves.”

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ROANOKE BUSINESS

23

Students and their advisor gather around an anatomage table at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. It resembles an operating table or hospital bed while the â&#x20AC;&#x153;patientâ&#x20AC;? illustrates the anatomical realism of a living human. The table comes pre-installed with 3D imaging software with anatomy viewing.

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JULY 2016

Photos courtesy Virginia Tech

HIGHER EDUCATION Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute

A healthy relationship The impact of medical school and research institute continues to grow

by Sandra Brown Kelly

T

he Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute have given the regional economy a major boost since they opened in Roanoke in 2010, and their impact is about to get bigger.

In fiscal year 2015, the research institute alone spent $112 million. Using a multiplier of $2.21 for each $1 spent, its economic impact in the region is estimated at $250 million annually.

That spending is expected to increase with the addition of a second, $67 million research building that will double the size of the institute within three years. The expansion was made possible by $45 million in bonds approved by the 2016 General Assembly and another $21 million from Carilion Clinic and Virginia Tech, which founded the medical school and research institute as a joint venture.

As part of the growth plans, the medical school will become a Virginia Tech college, and some of Tech’s bio-

Photo credit

medical engineering program and neuroscience discipline will move from Blacksburg to Roanoke.

“This is an opportunity for the university to broaden its presence in the New River Valley-Roanoke Region with the addition of these educational and research resources,” Tech President Tim Sands said in a statement. “Working alongside Carilion Clinic, we also have the opportunity to influence global health outcomes and have a positive impact on Southwest Virginia communities.”

Along with these changes, the Riverside Center campus in Roanoke — now shared by the medical school, research institute and Carilion Clinic’s largest clinic — will anchor a Health Sciences and Technology Innovation District. It will stretch from a new Gill Memorial Business Technology Center downtown to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, a Level I trauma hospital that also is being expanded. The district will include the city’s main library and Carilion’s

Jefferson College of Health Sciences, which has more than 1,000 students.

The district positions the area for more research grants, says City Manager Chris Morrill. “What’s so exciting is having an independent regional medical center working with a major research institute connecting biosciences to technology.”

Morrill notes the city will improve the innovation corridor to encourage pedestrian and bike traffic and add amenities to the city’s Riverside Park across from Riverside Center.

How it all came about The medical school and research institute resulted from a decision more than a decade ago by Carilion Health System — a Roanoke-based network of eight hospitals — to reinvent itself as Carilion Clinic, which now employs more than 1,000 physicians.

Nancy Agee, Carilion’s CEO, recalls a discussion at the beginning of the transformation about what elements ROANOKE BUSINESS

25

Higher Education 3,000 residents and watched the number of local restaurants multiply. “Every time they open a new restaurant, I feel like they do it for me,” she says.

No one starts a medical school as an economic generator, but “it’s so rewarding that the Roanoke one has served that purpose,” Johnson says. “I told people this would happen.”

She often had heard Greenville residents talk about how its local economy changed “when the medical school came to town” at East Carolina in 1977.

Dr. Cynda Johnson, founding dean of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.

constituted a clinic. Someone at the table said “education,” and someone else asked, “Why not do a medical school?”

Then-CEO Dr. Edward Murphy next had a conversation with Charles Steger, who was then president of Virginia Tech, and the two approached state leaders. A decision was made to start a small medical school focused on research, which meant the project needed a research institute, Agee says.

Carilion and Virginia Tech each provided $35 million for the school and research institute. The school opened in 2010 with Dr. Cynda Johnson as its founding dean. The first students graduated in 2014.

The newest class, the class of 2019, attracted nearly 3,600 applicants for 42 spots. Applications rose to 4,600 for the class of 2020, now being recruited.

All of the students coming to the medical school have had research experience. That type of background fits with the school’s philosophy of involving students 26

JULY 2016

in research throughout their medical studies. They learn to look at health care beyond the individual patient, becoming “physician-scientists,” Johnson says. Many Carilion Clinic physicians teach at the medical school.

Johnson came from East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., where she served as dean of the Brody School of Medicine and then senior associate vice chancellor for clinical and translational research in the Division of Research and Graduate Studies.

Johnson considers her experience in Roanoke as evidence of the growing influence of the facilities at Riverside Center. When she arrived in 2007, “I was dead set on living downtown,” Johnson says.

Downtown Roanoke, however, offered limited housing options and had only 400 residents at that time.

Nonetheless, Johnson joined them and now considers herself a “downtown restaurant snob.” In recent years, she has seen the downtown population soar to about

Raising money Fundraising for the medical school and the research institute is overseen by Mike Moyer, Tech’s associate vice president of development for colleges. In the spring, Moyer was interviewing candidates for fundraising positions to be based at the medical school and institute.

He declines to share numbers for money raised thus far but says the medical school’s “smart way of educating people” and the institute’s “world-class lab” are good selling points.

“I’m most impressed with how well they have done plugging their mission into the DNA of Roanoke,” he says. “We have no goal per-se because we’re not in any sort of campaign,” The expansion of the research institute “doesn’t change what we are doing; it will just elevate what people expect us to do,” Moyer says.

Institute’s influence The institute now has 25 research teams employing more than 250 people. They are collaborating on projects with 125 institutions around the world. The researchers’ influence on the area is broad, says Michael Friedlander, the institute’s founding director who earlier this year was named Tech’s first vice president for health sciences and technology.

Photo courtesy Virginia Tech

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Higher Education Michael Friedlander, the Virginia Tech Carilion Institute’s founding director, is Tech’s first vice president for health sciences and technology.

“Most [researchers] who moved here bought homes,” Friedlander says. “We tend to recruit from large medical centers in major cities where an hour’s commute is common, and the recruits are excited to live closer to work. Scientists tend to work long hours and to be able to run home and have dinner with the family is appealing. A nice draw for the area is that it lets hard-working scientists have a life.”

Many medical students and some institute scientists live just across Jefferson Street at South16 apartments, part of The Bridges, a retail and housing project. The Bridges sits on land bought from Carilion Clinic for $400,000. It once housed a flour mill and scrapyard. The site now includes a Starbucks coffee shop, a new sandwich shop and an event stage. Soon there will be a canoe-kayak put-in nearby on the Roanoke River.

Residents include doctors, researchers “and a 92-year-old man who can get to his doctor’s appointments easily,” says Bridges developer Aaron Ewert, who has started construction on another 127 apartments with a pool and rooftop deck on the site. The medical complex across the street “means almost ev28

JULY 2016

erything to us,” he says.

A Cambria Hotel & Suites adjacent to Carilion property on Reserve Avenue also has a close relationship to the medical-research complex. Manager Kyle Clingingsmith says the hotel is used by the medical school and research center for conference space, lodging for visitors and an orientation reception for medical school applicants.

Stephen Workman, the medical school’s associate dean for admissions, uses that reception to tell the prospective students what to expect during interviews.

“The night before the interviews, we put out finger foods and drinks in the lobby so they can mingle with each other and current students,” says Clingingsmith.

Expansion plans Changes at Riverside Center could eventually include student housing, says Friedlander. Tech’s expansion of programs at Riverside should mean some 500 additional students will be traveling between Roanoke and Blacksburg.

Currently, students can move between the two locations on shuttle buses that run several times a day.

Student housing would serve those who have to stay over for several nights and also provide accommodations for visitors.

Friedlander expects the number of research teams at the institute to grow to 27 by next year and 30 by 2018, which is the capacity of the current facility. The second research building would have space for another 25 teams.

The institute’s “bread and butter,” Friedlander notes, are grants, many of which are from the National Institutes of Health. The institute’s research portfolio totals about $65 million. Outstanding grant requests amount to another $60 million of which Friedlander expects researchers will get $15 million to $20 million. The facility has a 27 percent success rate in getting grants, he says. “The reason we do well is we have good people. We compete well.”

In addition to the spending generated by grants, Friedlander points to the broad recognition the area receives when institute scientists publish their work. For example, a paper on dopamine research recently published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences included five authors from the institute, led by Read Montague. He is director of the institute’s Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and a physics professor at Tech’s College of Science.

Montague is the lead investigator in a research project measuring dopamine release in the brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease.

The medical school, research institute and the innovation district have been hailed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe as “a tactical investment to grow the state’s biomedical and health research enterprise. We are building a statewide portfolio that will accelerate bioscience and medical research as a major component of the new Virginia economy,” he said recently in a news release. Sounds like a winning prescription for both Roanoke and the state.

Photo courtesy Virginia Tech

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INTERVIEW: Marc Edwards Charles Lunsford Professor, Virginia Techâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Charles E. Via Jr. Department of Civic and Environmental Engineering

Marc Edwards already had a genius grant and experience with lead in public water in Washington, D.C., but the crisis in Flint has made him famous beyond academic and water quality circles.

30

JULY 2016

Photo courtesy Virginia Tech

The hero professor

Marc Edwards has a clear vision of his goal: ‘You do your best to stop the insanity’

by Sandra Brown Kelly

M

arc Edwards’ office in Virginia Tech’s Civil Engineering building looks like a typical professor’s cubbyhole stuffed with books, although the number of awards on the wall and packed in boxes atop cabinets is a giveaway that the engineer’s academic career has been extraordinary.

Edwards has testified before a congressional committee twice about governmental cover-ups of high lead levels in public drinking water. The first time was about Washington, D.C. That testimony resulted in a House of Representatives inquiry that concluded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention knowingly used flawed data to negate high lead findings.

More recently, Edwards explained findings of high lead levels in drink-

ing water in Flint, Mich., where criminal charges are pending against three governmental employees allegedly involved in a cover-up.

He appears on Fortune’s “World’s Greatest Leaders 2016” list and is one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People,” propelled there by findings by him and his 25-member team of volunteer academic researchers and Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the Flint pediatrician who brought attention to the lead levels.

Hanna-Attisha on May 13 joined Edwards to speak at Virginia Tech’s graduation where they received the Ut Prosim Scholar Award, created by Tech to recognize “the application of scholarship in truly extraordinary service to humanity.”

Edwards’ specialty concerns prob-

lems of corrosion in the infrastructure that delivers public drinking water. In 2008, he was named a Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and given a “Genius Grant” of $500,000 to spend as he wished. A great deal of that money went into the Flint project that began much like the D.C. investigation – with contact from a mother worried that her children were being poisoned by lead in the drinking water and had been unable to get government officials to help.

“It’s interesting that two of my best scientists are moms,” says Edwards, who has called scientists and engineers “cowards” for not using their knowledge to help humanity and blames their cowardice on the culture of academia.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

31

Interview Roanoke Business: How are you dealing with the celebrity of being the national hero of the moment? How has the attention changed your life?

Marc Edwards: So, it hasn’t changed me or my life at all, really, except that I have no time, so I disappoint everyone. What I witnessed over the last 12 years was so profoundly disturbing. So many good scientists and engineers laid down their professional lives on behalf of the public, and their lives were destroyed.

No one thanked them. So, I’m a survivor; I’m one of the lucky ones who emerges from this with a job and my family still with me. People think you want to open champagne and celebrate, but that’s not the story here.

RB: Are there more Flint, Mich. water controversies in the pipeline? Is this problem really going to be widespread?

Edwards: Just do a search on the internet. Chicago.

Philadelphia. Sebring, Ohio.

Jackson, Mississippi. I get a call at least twice a week from a reporter uncovering another city breaking the law. These are not shades of gray; these are cities that are not following the federal law, period, just like Flint, in how they are doing their water sampling. This is exactly what we have been screaming about for 10 years … trying to get EPA offices to enforce the law, and they back up the bad actors every single time. You’re already seeing no reason to trust the existing system that we put in place to protect us. How many utilities are following the law? I won’t 32

JULY 2016

Honored by Fortune, Time, Virginia Tech and the MacArthur Foundation, among others, Marc Edwards says his newfound celebrity hasn’t changed his life at all.

say a majority, but many are, and they have to suffer the same consequences that fall out from this loss of trust.

If you can’t handle anything as simple as drinking water, which is as black and white as it gets, there’s no disputing the health harm of lead … It’s a 25-year-old law … how can you trust these agencies with anything? [Flint is] probably the clearest example of a failure by government civil servants in our country’s history, where federal and state public health agencies, engineers and scientists betrayed a city. They broke the law; they covered it up. They would have let the kids continue to drink that water and destroy the city’s vital infrastructure.

RB: Has this experience made you even more distrustful or cynical?

Edwards: It made me more resolved to get this fixed. I

feel I’m the most optimistic person on the planet. I see what happened in D.C. I see what happened in Flint, and I say, “This is not good enough.”

This is not America.This is not science. I am just speaking the truth, and people think that’s cynicism. Never once has anything I’ve said been refuted factually.

RB:You’ve said that what happened in Flint is a matter of environmental injustice, that high levels of lead in water tend to be found more frequently in poor neighborhoods. What should be done to reduce the risks for children of the poor?

Edwards: I think the task force the governor appointed to look into this and investigate did an extraordinary job.

In their report, they said this is a clear example of environmental injustice. It need not be purposeful or intentional

to have that as an outcome. If you look at health disparities in our poorest and predominantly minority urban centers, there’s very clearly something going wrong. People have a much, much lower life expectancy because they live in one neighborhood versus another. At the end of it all, it’s resulting from environmental toxins, poor infrastructure or poor public health service delivery.

RB: How is it going to get solved?

Edwards: You have to first recognize there’s a problem.

I think this is a watershed. Is access to clean or any water a right in this country? And, that’s an evolving debate.

Clearly with water shutoffs in Detroit [for nonpayment of bills] and Flint, an argument could be made that if you cannot afford to pay your water bill you should leave. The fact is people are not leaving, and kids are suffering the consePhoto courtesy Virginia Tech

quences. I think most Americans would argue that access to sufficient quantity and quality of water is a minimum expectation of our civilization.

RB: Was there an “aha” moment in Flint, when you and your team realized what you had found?

Edwards: I think when we started seeing the high water lead results in late August [2015]. We weren’t sure. It could have been the science and engineering was wrong, but everything I’ve learned in 25 years as a professor said the city had lead-in-water problems. Once we started getting results, it was so bad, you’d have to work very, very hard to say the water was safe, when it wasn’t. Somebody had covered this up.

RB: Has the Flint experience made you think about how you are going to spend the rest of your professional career?

What is your role in creating change?

Edwards: I use the term “dark age” to describe that we have accumulated all this wisdom and knowledge about civilization and, frankly, at some point, that was lost.

We’ve got 7 billion people on the planet, and science and engineering are the best hope to solve the many problems facing mankind, and there are many. We once again have to make science and engineering worthy of the public trust.

You have to reach out to young people coming into the field and point out to them that this is how the world works. I co-teach an “Ethics in the Public” class with a mom I met in Washington, D.C. It’s funded by the National Science Foundation. We really try to give them ethical street smarts. We teach them the pressures they can experience that can change them from these altruistminded, optimistic people in the world and instead to somehow make it all about the money and the fame. The next step is to broaden the message so people understand exactly what happened in Washington, D.C., and Flint and why it’s relevant to everyone in this country.

RB: During the D.C. project, you ended up in the hospital because of exhaustion. How do you manage work-life balance?

Edwards: You’re fighting for something that’s larger than yourself, and you have this sense of purpose, and you know that every minute that’s wasted, children are being hurt, and a city’s vital infrastructure is being destroyed. You do your best to

stop the insanity, and you run up against human limitations, and something‘s got to give. I woke up on the floor once in Flint, too. At some point, I just passed out one night. I don’t know what that was about, and others involved experienced the same thing. Mona Hanna-Attisha says she had a normal life before this started.

She’s like, “Wow, this is hard,” and she was only involved for a couple of months.

RB: In a recent media conference you noted your project needed money to continue.

How much of the MacArthur grant funds are left? What is your arrangement with Flint, which has hired you to oversee its water testing?

Edwards: If you ever waited for a financially secure path to do what we did, you would never take the first step. The second you start thinking about it, you’ll convince yourself there is no way it can work, but for me it has always worked out. That doesn’t happen to a lot of people; it should.

We’ve spent, to date, about $250,000 on Flint out of my discretionary money at Virginia Tech and gave six person years of effort that we volunteered. So the school’s been great. We started the Go Funding campaign, and incredibly, we’ve recouped 75 percent of what we spent.

I got enough as of April 1 to pay eight hours a week of my time to work on Flint, but if I’m working 65 hours a week, we’re not quite there yet. I had to work out something so [Flint] could pay the school so I could work on this, and everyone’s kind of

happy … The school is happy I’m helping Flint, but they’re not funding me.

RB: What people do you admire?

Edwards: First and foremost, the people around me. My best friend, Dr. Amy Pruden at Virginia Tech; she’s my collaborator and she’s an amazing young professor. We’re teamed on a lot of these projects. The two moms I collaborated with in Washington, D.C., Dr. Mona, from Flint. She’s every bit as amazing as people think she is.

As I’ve learned the history of our field, I admire people who went this path, and it’s remarkable how few there are. One guy I learned about was Peter Buxton, [a U.S. public health worker] who fought to stop the Tuskegee syphilis experiment [in which African-American men were left untreated from 1932 to 1972 so health-care workers could follow the progression of the disease]. His story should be taught in every classroom across the country. He had to fight them for seven years to stop this injustice from occurring.

RB: You say you grew up in a small community, Ripley, N.Y., around “resilient hardworking people who were really [up] against it economically.” Did that background influence how you are now?

Edwards: I can respect and talk to normal people. I realize that just because someone lives in a small town, is relatively poor and uneducated, doesn’t mean they are stupid and ignorant. A lot of people could go far just learning this lesson.

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BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT

What’s cooking at The Kitchen in Roanoke?

by Joan Tupponce

T

he Kitchen may sound like the catchy name for a restaurant. The recently opened Roanoke facility, however, is designed to create food-related businesses, not meals.

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The 769-square-foot facility includes two kitchens that can be rented out separately. They are available 24 hours a day, seven days week.

“We don’t have any limits on

the number of businesses that can use it. It depends on space usage,” says Maureen Best, executive director of the Roanoke-based nonprofit Local Environmental Agriculture Project (LEAP), which

Photo by Don Petersen

opened The Kitchen. “One company might need it for three hours a day, and another might need it for five hours.”

One of the aims of The Kitchen is to help prospective business owners network and find the resources they need to get started.

“We already have relationships established in the community, and we have a lot of strong programs that already exist,” Best says. “We will help with the regulatory side.

We are versed in that. We run two farmers markets in Roanoke where they could sell their products. We have permanent vendors and some flex booths, and that is a test market option for tenants.”

The Kitchen is located in Roanoke’s West End neighborhood,

The Kitchen aims to grow food businesses in a Roanoke food desert.

an area of the city considered a “food desert,” with little access to grocery stores. The project received a $25,000 grant from U.S.

Department of Agriculture’s Local Food Promotion Program and a $100,000 grant from the Roanoke Women’s Foundation.

Sam Lev manages The Kitchen, which is available to renters all day every day.

LEAP’s Maureen Best says there’s “a huge interest” in The Kitchen.

The facility also received a $20,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Agriculture with matching funds from Roanoke’s Economic Development Authority as well as other funding.

“There’s a huge interest,” says Best, noting that she has received several applications from companies. “One is starting a food truck business. They will be doing food prep. Other companies interested include a salsa company, a doughnut company, a company that makes a specialty sauce and people making ethnic cuisine.”

Top: File photo Best photo by Don Petersen

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COMMUNITY PROFILE: Blacksburg

Chantal Ittah, of La Bonne Crepe, prepares a crepe at the Blacksburg Farmers Market.

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JULY 2016

Photo by Natalee Waters

Accolades and challenges Blacksburg gets positive reviews and seeks to attract top-notch employers

by Gene Marrano

F

or a town of less than 50,000 – albeit home to a major public university and a well-known college football team – Blacksburg has received its share of attention in recent years.

Bloomberg Business Week and Homes.com have called “The Burg” one of the best places to raise a family. In 2010 U.S. News and World Report named it a Top-Ten

“Best Affordable Mountain Town for Retirement,” and, in 2013, Blue Ridge Country said Blacksburg was a “Best Mountain Town.”

Yet, along with the accolades are challenges. With competition from other localities in the New River and Roanoke valleys, attracting strong employers is at the top of Blacksburg’s to-do list.

Mayor Ron Rordam, a

retired insurance company owner, says fitting prospective new businesses into the town’s overall plan is a major concern. “We’ve always been a very strong quality-of-life community. So how do we attract those businesses that will [appeal] to startups and young professionals – the newer folks that are moving into town?”

Rordam notes that

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Community Profile Virginia Tech’s Moss Arts Center has brought musical theater, dance and the Uklele Orchestra of Great Britain to Blacksburg.

there’s a mix of ex-Virginia Tech students who stay after graduation to start a business, and others who move to Blacksburg for the quality of life. Amenities such as the Huckleberry Trail, a scenic 5.7-mile paved bike and pedestrian path, appeal to those who like outdoor recreation.

Rordam – Blacksburg’s mayor for 10 years and a council member for 20 – says bringing passenger rail to the New River Valley – even if it involves Rordam shuttle buses from possible stops identified next door in Christiansburg – is “very important” in connecting Blacksburg to Roanoke and Northern Virginia.

Cultural attractions are another drawing card for Blacksburg. Rordam points to Virginia Tech’s new Moss Arts Center, which has been a boon to nearby eateries. “It always pleases me anytime I’m downtown,” Rordam says. “It’s active. It’s humming. There’s a lot going on.”

The Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center employs about 2,500 and is in the middle of a major expansion. The center includes many independent businesses that pay taxes. Other startups have 38

JULY 2016

now taken up residence in the Kent Square development.

Rordam says Blacksburg has worked hard in recent years to streamline internal processes, making it easier to set up a business in town. “That was one of the top goals for council,” Rordam says. He credits Town Manager Marc Verniel for bringing in outside consultants to help foster the changes. The mayor also says the town has talked about, but has not resorted to, using tax reduction incentives as a way to attract new companies.

Diane Akers is president of The Blacksburg Partnership, an independent nonprofit organization focused on projects that attract visitors and retail prospects to the town.

Blacksburg Fork & Cork, the Brew Do and the Virginia Cheese Festival are all the handiwork of the partnership. “Anything from redevelopment of property to the revitalization of retail districts Akers … and community arts endeavors,” says Akers, who used to work in economic development for Roanoke.

She says there is sufficient retail space in town, with additional op-

portunities at an old Holiday Inn that’s being redeveloped and at the First & Main property. “Then,” she says, “it comes down to how do you convince someone to come to a college town?” Demonstrating to retail prospects that Blacksburg is more than just Virginia Tech – or that students have more spending power than some might think – is part of the battle.

The Blacksburg Partnership is a collaboration between the town government, Virginia Tech and the local business community. It also supplies demographic and marketing information to local property owners and out-of-town prospects looking to develop a retail business.

The Partnership’s website, stepintoblacksburg.org, is “really a portal for anyone looking for information about the community,” says Akers, who helped found the partnership in 2002.

An Arts Collaborative subcommittee promotes cultural attractions “as a way to make Blacksburg a hub for the arts,” she says. There’s also a downtown revitalization committee with many stakeholders involved, she says, since that part of Blacksburg “is the heart of the community.”

The Blacksburg Partnership also created New River Valley Rail 2020. It wants Amtrak to bring passenger rail service to the New River Valley three years after it rolls into Roanoke from Lynchburg in 2017.

The completed market demand analysis supports a train station.

“We think it’s really important for the New River Valley,” says Akers of the regional initiative. “We want the next stop to be [here].”

Deputy Town Manager for Community Development Chris Lawrence, who assumed that post in January after seven years as town manager in Vinton, is still learning about challenges to growing the local business base. Lawrence had previously worked in Blacksburg as an assistant to the town manager.

One thing he hears: Blacksburg and Photo by Natalee Waters

the New River Valley are too remote from other major business centers. A lack of competitively priced flights from Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport is another obstacle at times. So is the perception that there’s not much in Blacksburg outside the Virginia Tech campus.

Fighting those perceptions, Lawrence says, can make it difficult for local companies — especially in the high-tech field — to recruit talent.

One way around that, he says, is for local firms to “find super-talented people that like the outdoors.”

He concurs that passenger train service would be a “huge win for the New River Valley.” Lawrence also praises the cooperation between Blacksburg, Christiansburg and Montgomery County on economic development. High-speed broadband is one issue that’s unresolved. Each locality “is in different places” on the issue, Lawrence says, but they are working together.

Laureen Blakemore, director of

Blacksburg at a glance Founded: Incorporated in March 1871 Area: 19.7 square miles Population: 43,609 (2014 estimate, based on figures from Weldon Cooper Center, the University of Virginia and Blacksburg planning department). Includes Virginia Tech students on and off campus.

Government: Town manager appointed by the seven-member Town Council.

Organized into eight operating departments with each department head reporting directly to the town manager or to one of two deputy town managers.

Largest employers: Virginia Tech, Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, Moog, LewisGale Hospital Montgomery, NRV Community Services, FederalMogul, Town of Blacksburg, United Pet Group (Tetra). Tech, a land-grant university, leads the way by far with about 15,000 employees.

Fast Facts: Draper’s Meadow (now Blacksburg) was a frontier settlement in the 1750s, originally surveyed by William Preston. Four of those very large lots (most between 150 and 600 acres) later became his Smithfield Plantation. The original “Sixteen Squares” in downtown Blacksburg is the legacy of Samuel Black, who purchased property that his son laid out in a square grid of streets.

Sources: Blacksburg.gov and the town’s 2014 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report

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ROANOKE BUSINESS

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Community Profile

College Avenue is a pedestrian friendly link between downtown and Virginia Tech.

Downtown Blacksburg Inc., says the organization’s main focus is “bringing people downtown, naturally,” by promoting member businesses and through special events like the annual Steppin’ Out Festival and the Winter Lights Festival. Many visitors are connected to Virginia Tech, which abuts the downtown business

district.

Member businesses pay dues and must be downtown. DBI promotes that “community feeling,” says Blakemore, to attract people downtown to eat, shop or perhaps to see a movie. “There’s something special about these small businesses,” she adds. Blakemore says the town

government does seek guidance on business matters in the downtown corridor. “That has improved over the past five or six years,” she says. “We’re feel- Blakemore ing we have more input, particularly on construction issues.” Downtown public parking – or a perceived lack of it – remains an issue.

A Blacksburg Town Council member is appointed as a liaison to DBI every year and attends the organization’s meetings. That channel of communication was helpful when improvements to make College Avenue more pedestrianfriendly meant traffic rerouting.

“We still have a small town feeling of friendliness, where everybody knows everybody,” says Blakemore, “but it’s also very welcoming to new people. We hear that a lot from people that visit.”

DOWNTOWN BLACKSBURG ...it’s not on your way, it’s where you’re going!

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Photo by Natalee Waters

Preview of next month’s Roanoke Business

Passenger trains in the NRV?

Passenger rail service is expected to resume in Roanoke next year and the push is on to get trains all the way to Bristol. When will passenger trains pull into the New River Valley? New River Valley Rail 2020 is working on that.

Also in the August issue:

File photo

•

The unemployment rate is low, but people still say it’s difficult to find a job. Roanoke Business tries to explain that disconnect.

•

This is supposed to be a great place to retire. What are the options and how can you get ready?

•

It’s a new era at The Hotel Roanoke. What does that mean for the Roanoke and New River valleys?

•

Education: Jefferson College of Health Sciences

ROANOKE BUSINESS

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SPONSORED CONTENT | Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce Chamber champions are members who support the Roanoke Regional Chamber through year-round sponsorships in exchange for year-round recognition.

2016-2017 CHAMBER CHAMPIONS BNC Bank

Pepsi Bottling Group

Brown Edwards

The Roanoke Times

Cox Business

Rockydale Quarries

Elizabeth Arden

Servpro of Roanoke, Montgomery & Pulaski Counties

Gentry Locke Attorneys LifeWorks REHAB (Medical Facilities of America)

Spilman Thomas & Battle PLLC Trane

MB Contractors

EVENT SPONSORSHIP

NEW MEMBERS

Thursday Overtime – May 5 Soaring Ridge Craft Brewers

The following new members joined the Roanoke Regional Chamber between April 11 and May 6.

Policymakers Breakfast with Gov.Terry McAuliffe and cabinet Members – May 6

1st and 3rd Business Builders

Appalachian Power The Branch Group Cox RGC Resources Virginia Tech Foundation

Benny Marconi’s

Bank of the James

Creative Wellness Therapeutic Massage Devine Building Services

2016 Business Summit – May 10 Spilman Thomas & Battle, PLLC Appalachian Power AAF Roanoke Cox VirginiaFirst.com/WFXR Fox Virginia Western Community College Wells Fargo PBG Quality Coffee Co. Carrabba’s Italian Grill

Fortunato Holdings LLC MurphyUSA Network Computing Group Inc. Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs Smith Mountain Eagle/Womack Publishing Sunbelt Business Brokers of Roanoke

MEMBER NEWS & RECOGNITIONS B2C Enterprises has announced the addition of Jamie Miller as the new communications coordinator. Miller will specialize in public and media relations for existing and new clients. She comes to B2C EnMiller terprises with experience in news writing, public speaking and television production.

Virginia’s Chateau Morrisette Winery has announced its newest wines, including the release of its first-ever Petit Manseng (2015), made from a rare French grape that’s thriving in Virginia wine-making country. This spring

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JULY 2016

has been a time of renaissance for the winery, which announced its new Founders Club wine club, latest award-winning wines and the Restaurant at Chateau Morrisette’s innovative new cuisine – Appalachian French Fusion.

Sylvia McDowell-Kent with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices – Smith Mountain Lake Real Estate, has earned the prestigious certified luxury home marketing specialist designation in recognition of McDowell-Kent her experience, knowledge and expertise in the luxury home market. McDowell-Kent is a real estate

professional who has gone through special training and met performance standards in the upper tier market. She has been in real estate since 2007 and specializes in the Smith Mountain Lake and waterfront markets.

Perry

Cowan

Densmore

The law firm Cowan Perry PC has announced that three of its attorneys – David E. Perry, James K. Cowan Jr. and Douglas W. Densmore – have been named 2016 Super Lawyers.

Ayers

Eure

Ries

Johnson, Ayers & Matthew P.L.C. has announced that five of its atDadak Wallace torneys have been named Virginia “Super Lawyers” or “Rising Stars” for 2016. The attorneys honored are: Ronald M. Ayers, eminent domain; John D. Eure, insurance coverage; Kenneth J. Ries, civil litigation defense; William P. Wallace, civil litigation defense; and Christopher S. Dadak, who has been recognized as a 2016 Virginia Rising Star in personal injury general – defense.

The Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs, Roanoke’s professional hockey team, has announced that Sam Ftorek has been named as the first-ever head coach of the organization. After concluding a 17-year playFtorek ing career during the 2014-15 season, Ftorek made the transition to coaching and guided the Kalamazoo Wings to the ECHL playoffs this season as assistant coach.

The Roanoke County Public Schools Education Foundation has awarded the 2016 Golden Apple Award to Barbara McGrath, a biology/ecology teacher from William Byrd High School. The Golden Apple Award is the single highest honor presented to a teacher by

the Education Foundation. Each year, teachers from across Roanoke County Public Schools are nominated by students, parents, co-workers and administrators to receive the award.

This year 64 teachers were nominated and 21 were selected as semi-finalists. McGrath received a $3,000 check and the use of a 2016 Nissan Altima for one year, courtesy of First Team Auto Mall. The Education Foundation also named three Red Apple winners. They are: Jasmine Herritt, first-grade teacher at Burlington Elementary; Karen Perry-Carroll, seventh-grade teacher at Northside Middle School; and Ann Franco, English, history and geography teacher at Glenvar High School.

McKee

The Roanoke County School Board has named Dominick McKee as the new principal at Northside High School, effective July 1. McKee previously served as assistant principal at Northside from 2009 to 2014. He joined the school system in 2002.

The Roanoke County School Board has named Tammy Newcomb as the new principal at William Byrd High School, effective July 1. Newcomb replaces Richard Turner who retired at the end of Newcomb the current school year. Newcomb began her tenure with the county school system in 1991.

The Roanoke County School Board has announced that Peggy Stovall, acting principal Coleman Stovall at Herman L. Horn Elementary, is now the school’s official principal.

The board also announced that Lisa Coleman, acting principal at Glenvar Elementary, is now the principal at the school. Additionally, the board announced that Susan Peterson, current senior finance manager, will become the director of finance, effective July 1.

The Roanoke County School Board has selected George Assaid as the new director of facilities and operations. Assaid was a licensed project architect for Rife & Wood Architects. An alumnus of Cave Assaid Spring High School, Assaid worked for the school system from 1998 to 2006 in the facilities and operations depart-

ment where he was the daily construction administrator for the building of Hidden Valley High School and other renovation projects under Richard Flora, former operations director.

On April 26, the Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority (RVBA) invited kindergarten and first-grade pupils from Fishburn Park Elementary to be the first to experience the new highspeed, direct-to-door, fiber optic, internet network. The students assisted in the celebration of the lighting of 47 miles of internet service now available across the region through the new RVBA. Four local municipalities, the cities of Salem and Roanoke and the counties of Roanoke and Botetourt, have worked together over the last two years to jointly start and manage the construction of the RVBA in response to about four years of consistent citizen-driven demand. The new network will support continued regional economic development and provide the tools needed to ensure the region and its workforce remain competitive on a national scale as the cultural demand for high-speed and high-capacity Internet and data transport services continues to increase.

The law firm Spilman Thomas & Battle has announced that attorney Carrie M. Harris was selected to the 2016 Virginia Super Lawyers Rising Stars list. Harris, a counsel attorney at Spilman, focuses Harris her practice on litigation matters, with an emphasis on labor and employment law, consumer finance law, and public utility and energy law.

After 31 years of doing business as the Roanoke Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau (RVCVB), the region’s official destination marketing organization, the RVCVB has unveiled its new name – Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge.

The name change is the result of marketing research obtained from the organization’s customers, according to Landon Howard, president of Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge.

Marks

Hankins

Gardner

Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge (formerly the Roanoke Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau), the region’s official destination marketing organization for Virginia’s Blue Ridge, cel-

ebrated its 31st annual meeting in April. The following awards were presented: Jeff Marks was awarded the 2016 Past Chairs’ Tourism Excellence Award; Matt Hankins, assistant town manager/community development manager for Rocky Mount, won the 2016 Gold Star Award; and Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce, won the Patrick A. McMahon Tourism Ambassador Award.

The world’s oldest scientific organization studying addiction, the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, selected Warren Bickel as the 2016 recipient of the Nathan B. Eddy Award. The annual Bickel award is the college’s highest honor and acknowledges outstanding research efforts that advance the knowledge of drug dependence. Bickel is a professor and the director of the Addiction Recovery Research Center at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute.

Maria Belen Cassera, an assistant professor of biochemistry in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech, has been appointed to the National Institutes of Health Center for SciCassera entific Review in recognition of her scientific status and research contributions. Cassera will serve as a member of the Pathogenic Eukaryotes Study Section, which reviews applications involving protozoal, helminthic, and fungal pathogens in animal and human models.

Juan P. Espinoza, associate director in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and director of diversity and access initiatives for Enrollment and Degree Management at Virginia Tech, has been apEspinoza pointed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe to the Virginia Latino Advisory Board. He has been tasked with advising the governor on issues and advocacy opportunities for Latino constituents of Virginia.

Claire Krendl Gilbert has been named executive director of information technology experience and engagement, a new unit within the Division of Information Technology at Virginia Tech. Gilbert has Gilbert been at Virginia Tech for three years and served as the director for strategy and analysis.

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SPONSORED CONTENT | Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce Larry Hincker, retired associate vice president for university relations at Virginia Tech, has been conferred the title of “associate vice president and spokesperson emeritus” by the Virginia Tech board of Hincker visitors. A member of the Virginia Tech community since 1988, Hincker served as the university’s senior communications officer, director of Educational Communications, director of University Relations and finally as associate vice president for University Relations.

Art Keown, R.B. Pamplin Professor of Finance and a multiple award-winning teacher whose textbooks are used at major universities across the nation, received his latest career honor when the Virginia Keown Tech board of visitors appointed him an Alumni Distinguished Professor. The professorship is a pre-eminent appointment, recognizing remarkable scholarship and service, as well as extraordinary teaching that has influenced the lives of generations of students. Fewer than one percent of Virginia Tech faculty members hold this honor, and Keown is the first in the Pamplin College of Business to do so.

Roop Mahajan, the Lewis A. Hester Chair in Engineering and the director of the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science at Virginia Tech, stepped down as institute director in June, the Mahajan end of his second term. He was appointed the first permanent director of the institute, known on campus and in the research world as ICTAS, in 2006.

Andrew Marinik has been named assistant director of emergency management at Virginia Tech. He had previously served as an emergency planner at the university.

He will be responsible for coMarinik ordinating, developing and maintaining comprehensive emergency planning initiatives for the university and will serve as a liaison to employees, students and other community partners.

The Honorable Jim Moran was recently appointed professor of practice in the School of Public and International Affairs in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech. The former congressman will be a guest 4 44

JULY 2016

lecturer in various programs within the School of Public and International Affairs.

X.J. Meng, University Distinguished Professor of Molecular Virology at Virginia Tech, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Membership in the academy is one of the highest Meng honors given to a scientist in the U.S. Meng, a virologist in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, is one of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates from 14 countries recognized for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Joel A. Nachlas, associate professor of industrial and systems engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been conferred the title of “associate professor emeritus” by the Nachlas Virginia Tech board of visitors. The emeritus title may be conferred on retired professors, associate professors and administrative officers who are specially recommended to the board by Virginia Tech President Timothy D. Sands.

Nachlas has been a member of the Virginia Tech community since 1974.

James Earl Orr Jr., assistant provost and director of Virginia Tech’s Office of Undergraduate Academic Integrity, received the Waldvogel Exemplar of Integrity Award. Orr received the award at the InOrr ternational Center for Academic Integrity’s annual awards banquet in San Ana Pueblo, New Mexico.

The National Academic Advising Association named Kimberly Smith, director of University Studies and Undergraduate Academic Advising at Virginia Tech, a Region 2 Outstanding Advising Award winner in the Advising Administrator category.

Brenda van Gelder has been named executive director of information technology policy and strategic engagement within the Division of Information Technology at Virginia Tech. She has previously van Gelder served as executive director of converged technologies for security, safety and resilience. She will serve as the lead point of contact for IT-related poli-

cy development, documentation and updates.

Gary Walton, who played a central role in the renaissance of the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center as a premiere destination in Southwest Virginia over the past 20 years, will retire from his poWalton sition as the hotel and conference center’s general manager July 31 and become a professor of practice in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Virginia Tech.

Virginia Western Community College and the Virginia Western Community College Educational Foundation have dedicated a new sign in front of the Student Life Center to honor the generosity of Hall Associates, a Roanokebased commercial real estate company, and Edwin C. Hall and his late wife, Glenna. An unveiling ceremony was held in April following the Educational Foundation Board of Directors meeting. Hall is a longtime member of the board and a past president.

Woods Rogers PLC has announced that attorneys James W. Jennings Jr., and Mark D. Loftis have been recognized by Chambers USA as 2016 Leaders in Their Field. Chambers USA ranks individual lawyers in their practice areas legal knowledge and experience, ability, effectiveness and client service. Loftis is chairman of the firm’s litigation section. Jennings is a trial lawyer with more than 40 years’ experience in civil litigation in federal and state courts.

Twenty-one Woods Rogers attorneys have been selected to join the 2016 Virginia Super Lawyers list. Eight of the 21 are recognized as rising stars. The 2016 Woods Rogers Super Lawyers in the Roanoke office are: Thomas R. Bagby, labor and employment; D. Stan Barnhill, construction; Neil V. Birkhoff, taxation; Victor O. Cardwell, labor and employment; Agnis C. Chakravorty, labor and employment; Nicolas C. Conte, business law; Frank K. Friedman, appellate law; James W. Jennings Jr., civil litigation defense; Mark D.

Loftis, civil litigation; Richard C. Maxwell, bankruptcy/creditors’ rights; J. Lee E. Osborne, trust and estates; Elizabeth G. Perrow, health law; and Thomas M. Winn III, labor and employment. Named to the rising stars honor are: Erin B. Ashwell, general litigation; Michael P. Gardner, labor and employment; Patice L. Holland, labor and employment; Charles Carter Lee, business litigation; J. Benjamin Rottenborn, business litigation; Daniel T. Sarrell, medical malpractice defense; Joshua R. Treece, intellectual property; and Elizabeth Burgin Waller, business litigation.

THE 2016

Congratulations to all the nominees and finalists The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond June 23, 2016 - 6 :00 PM Read profiles of the winners in the August issue of Virginia Business.

VIRGINIA BUSINESS 2016 CFO NOMINEES Michael Bame Harmonia Holdings Group LLC

Donald Halliwill Carilion Clinic

Jeff Reed* Community Housing Partners

Sean Barden* Mary Washington Healthcare

Andrew Haugh, CPA* Housing Opportunities Made Equal

John Ripp Rochelle Holding Company/ Burger Bach Partners

Julie Hovermale, CPA* Better Housing Coalition

Richard Rose* Barter Theatre

Heath Bryan* Granite Source Inc.

Stephen Huber, CPA* Birdsong Peanuts, a Division of Birdsong Corp.

Hossein Sadid Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Stephanie Bryan, CPA* MEDARVA

Brad Hungate, CPA* Groome Transportation

M. Dwight Shelton Jr., CPA* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Michael Burch, CPA Virginia Automobile Dealers Association

Becky Jester, CPA Highground Services Inc.

Lynne Sorrentino, CPA AHT Insurance

Ashley Johnson* HCA Virginia Health Systems

Guy Stello* JES Foundation Repair/KBH Business Management Systems

Mary Blowe City of Winchester Richard Brown* Commonwealth of Virginia

Brad Carpenter* MYMIC LLC Rene Chaze, CPA* Edelman Financial Services Mike Closter, CPA Capital Interior Contractors David Cunningham Sherpa Financial Guides Inc. Laurie Grabow, CPA*Old Point National Bank Sue Gregory, CPA* Roanoke Higher Education Authority Mike Griffin* Tucker Griffin Barnes PC

Dave Keltner* Ferguson Enterprises Inc. Julie Leatherman FeedMore Kevin Longenecker, CPA Interchange Group Inc. Ashwani Mayur* Cynet Systems Inc. Ellen McIlhenny Cobb Technologies James O’Brien Military Officers Association of America Chrissy Phillips A Bowl of Good Inc.

William Thompson* Impact Makers Rob Tonkinson Centra Health Robert Toye* Foxhole Technology Inc. Richard Welborn Mythics Inc. Ned Wheeler* The Frontier Project LLC Steve Winsett Cander Construction Sue Wood HighRoad Solution

Nominees N No omi mine ine nees es a are re cchief hieff financial nanciiall ooffi fficcers ffi cer erss or h hold old ol ld eq equivalent uiva ui iva valle lentt p positions. osiit os itions iti ions **Category Cate Cat Ca tego tego gory ry finalists. nal ali list ists ts

PRESENTING SPONSOR:

Bank Smarter Jeff Forlines

Senior Vice President Commercial Lending 540-774-0269 NMLS # 506274 or contact Debra Cline at 276-228-1125

Consumer and Business Lending 540-774-0269

Kevin Reeder

Dianne McGuire

Debbie D bbi S Scott tt

H. B H B. Hunter

Justin Barnes

Mortgage Lending 540-484-0338 NMLS # 788759

Agricultural Lending 434-455-0888 NMLS # 491079

Mortgage Lending 540-774-0269 NMLS # 713064

Commercial Lending 540-484-0338 NMLS # 476223

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