Shenandoah Valley Business Journal - March 2020

Volume 21, No. 5, March 25, 2020

Warm Winter No Walk In The Park For Construction

Spotlight

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SHENANDOAH VALLEY BUSINESS JOURNAL

Inside This Issue Focus Section: Construction The Shenandoah Valley Business Journal is a monthly publication of the Daily News-Record, 231 S. Liberty St., Harrisonburg, VA 22801.

■ Mild Winter Presents Construction Hurdles........Page 10

Other Business News ■ Businessman Advocates For Broadway Building..Page 4 ■ General Store Celebrates 2 Years....................Page 5

Editorial Staff

■ Unemployment Likely To Increase..................Page 5 ■ Custer Uses His Brain To Navigate Junkyard....Page 7

Publisher: Craig Bartoldson

■ Cooperative To Celebrate 100 Years...............Page 8

Managing Editor: Jim Sacco

■ Locals Talk Hemp At Expo............................Page 12

■ SVO To Create ‘Secure Complex’.................Page 11 ■ Event Explores Workplace Diversity..............Page 13

Harrisonburg, Va.

Contact us By mail: Shenandoah Valley Business Journal P.O. Box 193 Harrisonburg, VA 22803 By email: svbjnews@dnronline.com By fax: 540-433-9112 By phone: 540-574-6281 (news) 540-574-6223 (ads)

■ T&E Meats Helps Sustain Local Farms.............Page 14

Contributing Writers: Ian Munro, Jessica Wetzler, Pete DeLea, Kathleen Shaw, Megan Williams Contributing Photographers: Daniel Lin, Ian Munro, Jessica Wetzler

Columns

On The Cover:

■ Leadership by Robert McFarland....................Page 2 ■ Investments by Matthew Frakes....................Page 3 ■ Financial Focus by Kathy Armentrout.............Page 6

Daniel Lin / DN-R Construction is underway on residential property along Stone Spring Road south of U.S. 33.

How To Operationalize Your Core Values Values are important to corporate culture. Companies go to great lengths to list these lofty sounding concepts. Then they put them on plaques on the wall in their lobbies. But values do not have any power unless those companies operationalize their values.

Simply listing your organization’s values is only the first step. If you stop there, then the list may have the opposite effect. If you do not operationalize your values, your team will likely laugh at them because they ring hollow. Unless operationalized, values will just be words on a plaque.

Once you have identified your values, here are four steps to take so you can operationalize your values.

Leadership

Context is everything in operationalizing your values. To incorporate your stated values into your culture, they need to be demonstrated in order to be lived out.

3. Reward Your Values Robert McFarland

Common values like Service, Excellence, and Integrity sound great on paper, because everyone thinks they know what they mean.

But in reality, no one really knows what they mean.

All your company values need a thorough explanation. Otherwise they will remain 1. Explain Your Values If you just list your values, then they will nebulous. And values only have power to be subject to interpretation. Instead, you create culture when everyone knows what need to explain them so everyone has the they mean. same definition.

When I work with clients, I tell them to 2. Contextualize Your Values Not only do you need to explain your watch out for using platitudes for values.

values, it’s important to show what they look like in context within your organization. It’s one thing to have a good definition of the word. It’s another thing entirely to know what it looks like in action in what you do every day.

It’s important to show what your values look like in your everyday actions.

The Bethesda Health Clinic in Tyler, Texas, goes so far as to have their employees act out their values in a drama at their annual retreat to drive the values deeper into the culture.

Once you have defined and contextualized your values, then it’s important to assess behavior through the lens of your values. You must continually remind your team of your company values through your company processes.

It’s important to incorporate your values into how you assess your employees’ performance. Letting them know you will evaluate them based on your company values demonstrates the importance you place on your company values.

In my first bestseller, “Dear Boss: What Your Employees Wish You Knew,” I explain how important your rewards will be to your team: “People want to be recognized

See LEADERSHIP, Page 3

Harrisonburg, Va.

SHENANDOAH VALLEY BUSINESS JOURNAL

Review Your Investment Objective Periodically reviewing your investments to help ensure they are on the right track is an important and meaningful measure in working toward your financial goals. Here is a simple but valuable way to get more from your investment strategy. When your next brokerage statement arrives, check your account profile to make sure that all the sections are accurate and up to date.

This includes your investment objective, risk tolerance, and time horizon.

Investment objective. Focusing on your investment objectives helps your financial advisor align the other parts of your investment strategy – risk tolerance, time horizon, and liquidity needs – appropriately. Asset allocation models are grouped within three overarching portfolio orientations: Income: Portfolios that primarily seek current income with minimal consideration for capital appreciation. They usually have less exposure to historically more volatile growth assets.

Growth and Income: Portfolios that seek a blend of current income and capital appreciation. They usually have some exposure to historically more volatile growth assets.

Growth: Portfolios that primarily seek capital appreciation with minimal consideration for current income. They usually have significant

exposure to historically more volatile growth assets.

Risk tolerance. Many investors differ when it comes to factoring risk into their investment strategy. Each investment strategy should include an appropriate mix of investments, based on the client’s objectives. Risk tolerance is the amount of risk you’re willing and able to accept in order to pursue your financial goals. Risk tolerance should be viewed along the following continuum: • Conservative investors accept the lowest amount of risk.

• Moderate investors seek a balance between stability and appreciation in their portfolio.

• Aggressive investors accept a higher risk for losses while seeking greater potential for returns.

Time horizon. How long do you plan to invest before you’ll need the money? The answer, of course, depends on your stage in life and your goals. Your time horizon is the expected number of months, years, or decades you plan to invest toward your financial goals. Time horizon is generally expressed as: • Immediate – Less than 1 year • Very short-term – 1 to 3 years

Leadership

mediately called the airline to determine if the passenger could be located and the ticket reissued. Upon hearing that was not possible, the Nordstrom associate caught a cab to the airport, paid the cab fare, located the traveler, and personally delivered the ticket. Not only did Nordstrom reimburse the cab fare, the company endorsed her actions—because it was the Nordstrom way.”

Here’s the key takeaway: Identifying your core values is only a first step. Unless you contextualize, reward, and curate those values, you are missing an opportunity to create your culture. But through intentionality and consistency, you can operationalize your values and create the culture you and your people will want to have at your workplace.

Robert McFarland is the author of the bestsellers, “Dear Boss: What Your Employees Wish You Knew” and “Dear Employee: What Your Boss Wishes You Knew.”

Robert is also President of Transformational Impact LLC, a leadership development consultancy helping companies improve their employee cultures to make the companies healthier, more productive, and more profitable.

FROM PAGE 2

and rewarded—and they want to be recognized and rewarded by you. If you reward their positive behaviors, they will repeatedly respond in the way that you want them to. … As a result, you will change the culture in your workplace.”

4. Curate Your Values Once you have recognized and rewarded your company values in action, it’s important to curate those stories to preserve your team’s institutional memory. Through committing those stories to writing, you will preserve an important part of your culture.

Nordstrom has long encouraged their people in their Code of Business Conduct and Ethics to “USE GOOD JUDGMENT IN ALL SITUATIONS.” I record this story in my book Dear Boss to show what Nordstrom’s idea of good judgment looks like in action. “Before the invention of electronic tickets, a customer shopping at Nordstrom accidentally left at the counter her airline ticket for a flight she was going to take later that day. A sales associate noticed the ticket and im-

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Investments Matthew Frakes • Relatively short-term – 3 to 5 years • Intermediate – 5 to 10 years • Long-term – More than 10 years When checking your portfolio’s alignment, it’s also a good idea to make sure you’ve accounted for your liquidity needs. Liquidity need represents the extent to which a customer desires the ability or has financial obligations that dictate the need to quickly and easily convert to cash all or a portion of an investment. For reference, cash is the most liquid asset, while real estate, fine art, and collectibles are all relatively illiquid. Liquidity needs include: • Significant (primary need is liquidity) • Moderate (may need quick access to cash) • None (have other sources of cash) When building your portfolio, it’s important to evaluate whether your current plan is aligned with your current goals and risk tolerance. Talk with your financial advisor to help ensure your

strategy is on track to achieve your goals.

Our firm does not provide legal or tax advice.

This information is not intended to be a client-specific suitability analysis or recommendation, an offer to participate in any investment, or a recommendation to buy, hold, or sell securities This article was written by/for Wells Fargo Advisors and provided courtesy of Matthew Frakes, Financial Advisor in Harrisonburg at (540) 801-3211.

Investments in securities and insurance products are: NOT FDIC-INSURED/NOT BANK-GUARANTEED/MAY LOSE VALUE Wells Fargo Advisors is a trade name used

by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, Member SIPC, a registered broker-dealer and non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company. © 2018 Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC. All rights reserved.

(540) 568-1844 1854 E Market St, Suite 102, Harrisonburg, VA 22801

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Harrisonburg, Va.

Businessman Advocates For Historic Broadway Building

By JESSICA WETZLER Daily News-Record

BROADWAY — When traveling on North Main Street in downtown Broadway, one gray structure with a garage-door front stands out among the rest.

In between one white and one yellow building sits Deering Hall, but its identity has changed over the years. While its history dates back to the 1890s, its characteristics outside and inside could make it the first building in Broadway to be added to the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.

Anthony Slater, of Broadway, has years of experience with historic renovations through his company A-Able Plumbing, making his purchase of Deering Hall in 2018 a perfect fit.

“I am from Broadway, so I wanted to do something for the community,” he said. “This [building] fits our needs as a company and will become a home for A-Able Plumbing.”

Slater also purchased the structure for its historical business presence in the community.

“It wasn’t prominent, but it was always used in the community and has a long history of business owners,” he said.

Knowing it was a building still standing from the 1890s led Slater to start the process of getting Deering Hall on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.

“The town doesn’t have any buildings on the register and I want to try to be the first,” he said.

Due to Broadway not being a designated historical place, Slater had to not only prove the historical significance of the building, but also the history of the town.

He started the process in January 2019 and has since uncovered history town staff didn’t know about — like how the town municipal building holds a book containing the town minutes from 1896-1914.

Inside the book is a piece of information Slater was able to use to pinpoint a historical moment in time as part of the application for the Department of Historic Resources.

During a town meeting in January 1902, Mayor Nice Warner, who owned Deering Hall, made a motion to hold a convention for nominations at the hall for the upcoming May election.

While Slater is unaware if the convention was held at Deering Hall, the name of the building was mentioned in the town minutes, which makes a historical reference

Jessica Wetzler / DN-R

Built in 1890, Deering Hall was home to Broadway’s first town hall and an opera house. Performers and visitors signed their names on the hall’s walls and are still visible. point for the town.

It is also known that while the property was owned by Warner, the upper level of the building was used as a town hall and an opera house that showcased one-act plays, poetry readings and performances.

Many of the people who performed at the opera house wrote their names on the walls and can still be seen today.

On March 16, 1895, a trombone player with Chow Chow Company left their mark on the building.

On Oct. 31, 1916, it was “the last wet day in Virginia … and sober,” with the word “drunk” scratched out in pencil.

“They used the walls for everything,” Slater said.

Writing on the walls, and chalkboards, encompass every inch of the upstairs, with Slater believing the floor housed school children in the late 1900s after the local school burned.

One edge of a wall is covered in math equations, possibly due to the building being a home to a milling company at one point in time. In the attic, Slater found a mill bag that he intends to preserve.

“I am trying to preserve as much as possible,” he said.

Information for Deering Hall could include how the building was home to the first town hall and holds a period of significance beginning in 1890 and continuing to 1933. During that time, the structure was believed to have been sold to the Broadway Motor Company and used as a storage space.

Slater said he intends to use the original

barn doors from the building and maintain the penmanship during an open house. the original flooring from the 1890s. To preContact Jessica Wetzler at 574-6279 or serve the writing on the upper level, Slater jwetzler@dnronline.com. Follow Jessica said he could use plexiglass to keep everyon Twitter @wetzler_jessica thing intact and later allow people to view

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Unemployment Likely To Increase

By IAN MUNRO

Daily News-Record

Jon Henry, proprietor of the Jon Henry General Store in New Market, poses for a photo with locally grown apples.

Daniel Lin / DN-R

General Store Celebrates 2 Years

By MEGAN WILLIAMS Daily News-Record

NEW MARKET — Jon Henry’s family began its business by selling produce at roadside markets in Mount Jackson, where they live. One roadside market became two, and eventually they realized a larger venue was the best way to make the business profitable.

In 2018, Henry’s family bought the old BB&T building that sat abandoned on the busiest intersection in downtown New Market and made it Jon Henry General Store.

It celebrated its second birthday on March 6 with an official founding date of March 1, 2018.

Jon Henry General Store features an assortment of Virginian, American, and fairtrade gifts, snacks, toys, pro-

visions, memorabilia, crafts, and of course, produce.

Henry’s family still operates their roadside markets as well.

Although the building was most recently a bank before becoming Jon Henry General Store, its roots are in the small town market. Before becoming a bank, it was Neff General Store. Henry said it’s exciting to take it back to its roots.

On Friday the store will celebrate its birthday with a visit from the Chamber of Commerce, which will use ceremonial scissors to cut up birthday pies from Red Truck Bakery located in Warrenton.

A lot of changes have happened recently at the general store. Staff converted everything to a computer system that now takes EBT and SNAP. They’ve also been

hosting a lot more events since opening, both on- and off-site.

Once a month the general store co-hosts a game night at Shenvalee Golf Resort, which is attended usually by between 25 and 40 players.

One of the exciting things about the digital conversion has been going through the store’s guest book and seeing the diversity of people who have come through the store in the past two years.

“We’ve had people from Jerome to Japan,” Henry said.

“This little store in New Market has both a local audience and an international one.”

Jon Henry General Store is located at 9383 N. Congress St. Contact Megan Williams at 574-6272 or mwilliams@ dnronline.com. Follow Megan on Twitter @DNR_Learn

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Regional economic groups are expecting the local unemployment rate to rise as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Jay Langston, the director of the Shenandoah Valley Partnership.

Many area restaurants and businesses have been fully or partially closed temporarily and all events were canceled, resulting in a reduction in work opportunities.

“I am not surprised at all, unfortunately, that we are seeing the displacement of people in the service industry and retail food particularly,” Langston said.

The Shenandoah Valley Workforce Center has closed its doors in Harrisonburg to the public as employees of the Virginia Employment Commission continue to support area residents who have found themselves without work since the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 20 Virginia Employment Commission offices have also closed until further notice, according to the commission’s website.

On March 15, Gov. Ralph Northam announced the suspension of the required oneweek waiting period and weekly job search

from the requirements to receive unemployment benefits, according to an email Joyce Fogg of the Virginia Employment Commission.

Benefits for claimants are slated to arrive “shortly” after the first full week, according to Fogg’s email.

Fogg was unable to provide the most-up-to date jobless claim numbers for the city and county.

The Harrisonburg metro area reached its lowest level of unemployment in 2019 during December, dropping to 2.1% from 2.2% the month before, according to the most recent data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Harrisonburg metro area includes both the city and county, with more than 67,060 employed residents out of a workforce of 68,527.

In Rockingham County alone, unemployment dropped below 2% for the second time in 2019, reaching 1.9% in December, matching October.

Contact Ian Munro at 574-6278 or imunro@dnronline.com. Follow Ian on Twitter @iamIanMunro

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Harrisonburg, Va.

Don’t Let Fears Drive Your Investment Choices First, the coronavirus rocked the financial markets. Then, oil prices dropped more than 20 percent after a breakdown in OPEC production discussions. Not surprisingly, the markets took another nosedive. Yet, despite these events, this recent market volatility may well be attributed more to fear than the forces that usually drive the markets. Ultimately, in the investment arena, as in all walks of life, facts matter. And right now, if you look beyond the headlines, the facts that matter to investors may be far less gloomy than you might have imagined.

So, here are some things to keep in mind over the next several weeks: This isn’t 2008. If you were an investor in 2008, you well remember the market crash that resulted from the bursting of the housing bubble, which had severe ripple effects throughout the economy. The situation is different now. While it’s quite likely that the U.S. economy will take a hit in the short term, the overall economic fundamentals were strong before the coronavirus came along and may indeed prove resilient enough to withstand the recent shocks.

Specifically, the labor market conditions

Financial Focus Kathy Armentrout were the best in decades, housing activity was improving and interest rates remained low. And even the recent events may have a bright side: The drop in oil prices will likely reduce prices at the gas pumps, leading to more money in the pockets of consumers, which, in turn, can boost spending, a key driver of our economy. And the large decline in interest rates will make home purchases and mortgage refinancing even more attractive – again, positive moves for the economy.

We’ve been here before. From the time the markets bottomed out in early 2009 until just a few weeks ago, stock prices climbed about 300 percent. Yet, during that time,

we also saw three separate market drops of more than 15 percent, similar to what we’re seeing now. These market corrections always feel unsettling, but it’s important to recognize that they are actually a normal part of the long-term investing process.

So, given these factors, how should you respond to the current situation? Instead of simply selling your stocks in an attempt to cut your losses, review your portfolio to see if it is properly balanced between stocks, bonds and other investments in a way that reflects your goals, time horizon and risk tolerance. Those investors with properly balanced portfolios are not seeing the same

level of decline as those whose holdings are almost entirely in stocks. And while diversification can’t guarantee profits or protect against all losses, it can help reduce the impact of volatility.

Here’s another suggestion: Look for good buying opportunities, because they are certainly out there. A well-managed company with a solid business plan that produces quality products and services is going to be that same company after the coronavirus and oil price panics subside – and right now, that company’s stock shares may literally be “on sale.”

While it’s not easy for you to look at your investment statements today, remember that you’re investing for goals that may be decades away. By keeping your eyes on this distant horizon, so to speak, you’ll be less likely to overreact to the news of the day – and more likely to follow a long-term strategy that can work for you.

This article was written by Edward Jones for use by Kathy Armentrout, an Edward Jones financial adviser at 560 Neff Ave., Suite 100, Harrisonburg; 540-5741013.

Harrisonburg, Va.

SHENANDOAH VALLEY BUSINESS JOURNAL

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In Digital World, Custer Uses His Brain To Navigate Junkyard

By PETE DELEA Daily News-Record

FULKS RUN — Immediately off of Hopkins Gap Road in Fulks Run, along Bare Ridge Road, sit a few poultry houses.

Further down the winding dirt road — about a mile in, past a few homes — drivers begin to see scattered vehicles.

They pass a gray Ford Mustang, a bright yellow bus and dozens of other cars before getting to the heart of Custer’s Used Parts, a roughly 13-acre treasure trove of some of the world’s most historic cars.

Standing off to the right, working on a car by a brown and white garage, is the junkyard’s curator, 64-year-old Frank Custer.

“He’s a mechanical whiz,” said Ron Turner, owner of Turner Hams and Fulks Run Grocery and Custer’s longtime customer.

After years of working at poultry plants, Custer opened his junkyard in 1980.

Since then it’s grown to more than 2,000 vehicles.

Custer, who still uses a flip phone, refuses to use a computer to keep track of his inventory. He said he doesn’t need one.

After a brief quiz of his lot, it appears he really doesn’t.

“I can pretty much tell you what’s in my yard and where it’s at,” he said. “It’s all in my head.”

Custer, who also operates a towing business and a fabrication shop, obtained most of his vehicles from buying out collections or from auctions from local towing companies.

He’s working to purchase nine cars from a guy in Mount Jackson and 70 from a guy in Stephens City.

There’s one other junkyard in Rockingham County — Hillside in Broadway — and two in New Market.

“We all work together.

We’re competitors, but we’re

Daniel Lin / DN-R

Frank Custer, owner of Custer’s Used Parts, answers a phone call in his shop Tuesday in Fulks Run. not really competitors,” Custer said. “If I don’t have something, I send them to them, and if they don’t have something, they send them to me.”

Every day, Custer greets several people, some local, but many from states up and down the East Coast searching for the parts needed to restore their dream car.

Custer said he enjoys seeing customer’s eyes light up when they learn he has the part they’ve been hunting for.

“The people are happy when they find it,” he said.

Turner said Custer is a regular at the grocery store. He’s known him just about all his life.

“He’s got the biggest heart around,” Turner said. “He’ll do anything for you.”

Turner, who used to restore Volkswagens, visited Custer’s frequently to search for used parts.

“He knows his junkyard

like the back of his hand,” Turner said. “It’s just amazing how well he’s got it organized.”

Years back, Turner purchased an old aluminum boat from Custer to restore. At the time, they couldn’t find the boat cover.

“I spent three hours over there looking around for it,” he said. “Two years later, he walks in and says he found it.

I had forgotten what he was looking for.”

Turner still visits the yard to find parts for cigar-box guitars and various art projects he creates.

At the grocery store, Turner said, he gets a lot of lost customers searching for Custer’s business. Eventually, Turner just printed out directions.

“We wrote down the exact directions, including mileage,” he said. “We tell them, ‘1.9 miles. Don’t go any further.’”

One customer, Larry Reedy, 74, of Fulks Run, doesn’t need

directions. He’s been digging through the junkyard for at least 30 years, he thinks. Either way, it’s been long enough for them to become friends.

“He’s a good ole boy,” said Reedy, who most recently bought a rear end for the 1950 Ford pickup he’s restoring.

“He’ll bend over backwards for you.”

Custer said he always tries to find the part his customer needs, no matter how old the car is.

The oldest car on the lot is a 1923 Chevrolet. He also has a 1930 Ford Model A. While most vehicles can be pilfered from, there’s one he’s not letting anyone touch: His 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. For 40 years, Custer begged and pleaded for his longtime friend, Bill Smoot, to sell him the Bel Air. Smoot, who died about three years ago, wouldn’t budge. But one day, about

six years ago, the pair were walking out of Mount Grove Church of the Brethren when Custer heard the words he had dreamed about.

“You need to come get your car,” he recalled Smoot saying.

Custer said he plans on keeping the Bel Air, and the

junkyard, for as long as he can.

“I’m going to stay in this business to the day I leave this world,” he said. “I’m not going to retire.”

Contact Pete DeLea at 574-6267 or pdelea@dnronline.com. Follow Pete on Twitter @pdelea_DNR

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Harrisonburg, Va.

Rockingham Cooperative To Celebrate 100 Years

By JESSICA WETZLER Daily News-Record

Contributed Photo

The Rockingham Cooperative’s original warehouse, circa 1924, that was rented from Rockingham Milling Co. on C.W. Drive in Harrisonburg.

When C.V. Smith became the first employee and general manager of the Rockingham Cooperative Farm Bureau, now Rockingham Cooperative, operations of the company were vastly different than today.

He worked from a borrowed desk, took out personal loans and helped save members hundreds of dollars.

It was what started then with only two employees, Smith and Elmer B. Kaylor, and annual revenue of $17,495 that has led the Rockingham Cooperative to celebrate nearly 100 years in business as a retail farm and consumer products store in six counties.

“Their decisions made were the most important,” said Adam Ford, marketing and social me-

dia specialist for the Rockingham Cooperative. “It was pretty impressive.”

Ford has been with the cooperative for more than two years, working on events for stores and coordinating media.

When Ford was just a year into the position, he spoke with CEO Norman Wenger regarding ideas he had for the cooperative’s 100th anniversary in 2021.

In January 2019, Ford formed a committee of members from all locations and employment levels to get ideas on how to celebrate not only the cooperative, but the agriculture industry.

“I wanted to make a book,” he said. “I had never seen the history shared, and we have a decent amount of archives that show the change throughout the years.”

Ford said he wanted to tell the stories of the founders,

Harrisonburg, Va.

Smith and Kaylor, and how the cooperative worked with community organizations, along with telling the stories of all the locations the cooperative has acquired.

“Their history is just as important as our history,” he said.

Rockingham Cooperative was founded on Oct. 29, 1921, and started as part of the Farm Bureau movement. Within its first year in business, the cooperative gained 268 members and has since grown to more than 5,000, according to Ford.

For the first 50 years in operation, Ford said, it was centered around Smith and Kaylor, who only worked on a part-time basis.

“Those two provided leadership in the early years,” Ford said.

In his search for history, Ford came across a term paper written by a Don Burkholder, who attended Eastern Mennonite University in the 1960s.

“It was a true treasure,” Ford said. “He provided his personal insight, and it has been a very unique experience to look through these archives.”

While the Rockingham Cooperative has seen many changes over its nearly 100 years, one thing that has remained the same is the cooperative’s ability to adapt to the area and time it is operating in.

SHENANDOAH VALLEY BUSINESS JOURNAL Ford said that within the first several years of the cooperative being open, the business found its niche in the poultry market. Into the late 1940s, the cooperative began filling shelves in Krogers across Virginia with eggs. In the present day, there are stronger ties to the dairy industry.

“As the market changed, we made changes to adapt to it,” Ford said.

The ability to adapt led Rockingham Cooperative from being a less than $20,000 business to a $100 million company.

“We are tied to the agriculture industry here in Rockingham County the most because it is still the largest industry in Virginia and to provide goods and services to members and anyone else and letting any customer take advantage of savings is a big impact,” Ford said. “We do business in five to six different states so the impact expands beyond Rockingham County.”

Ford said the goal is to provide savings on products and services. Anyone who would like to contribute a story to be included in the book can contact Ford at 540-437-2562.

“I am always looking for stories, and the more I hear is only going to help,” he said.

Contact Jessica Wetzler at 574-6279 or jwetzler@dnronline.com. Follow Jessica on Twitter @wetzler_jessica

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Harrisonburg, Va.

Mild Winter Still Presents Construction Hurdles

By IAN MUNRO

Daily News-Record

Virginia experienced a mild winter this year, but Wayne Whitmer, president and CEO of Harman Construction, said the weather conditions still presented a challenge.

“It’s really a tale of two different stories,” he said.

Weather conditions, no matter what kind, heavily impact the construction process, whether it is scheduling for completion and for workers, site condition or task-shifting.

Whitmer said the last half of December and January had much more challenging conditions than February.

Bad weather costs construction firms billions annually, according to a 2017 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It’s an interesting scenario given that the temperatures were warmer, we had an extreme amount of persistent precipitation, primarily rain, in January,” Whitmer said.

In December, the temperature reached as high as the mid-50s on some days, according to past weather data from timeanddate. com. Most of the days that month were sunny.

According to the same data, some January days the temperature even reached the 60s, though not for very long, as the warm weather would give way to the colder afternoons and evenings.

Whitmer said the winter’s cold temperatures did not allow moisture to evaporate, which makes construction easier even when there is rainfall in the warmer months.

“When you get rain in the winter and you don’t have the warm and drying,” Whitmer said.

“It’s those 70-plus [degree] days that dry out the ground,” he said of the spring and summer months.

Whitmer said that since February, conditions have been improving, making construction easier.

“The last six weeks of winter, so to speak, were substantially better

Daniel Lin / DN-R

Work continues March 19 on a recently cleared lot beside First Presbyterian Church on Court Square. Despite a lack of snow and freezing temperatures, mild winters can present challenges to builders. and there was substantial progress made on [construction] sites,” he said.

He said in all, the winter was just a little worse for the building sector than a typical winter in the commonwealth.

“In Virginia, we have varying winters and it feels like one out of three is really cold with lots of snow, one out of three is just reasonable and balanced, and one of out three is warm and wet,” Whitmer said.

In the harshest winters, construction crews cannot even pour concrete on frozen ground, otherwise it will crack during warmer months as the ground thaws, according to Earth Networks, a weather data network company.

“There’s a lot of work out there

to be built,” Whitmer said. “Once the weather broke, there’s plenty to do.”

Harrisonburg and Rockingham, along with the rest of the state and even country, are going through a housing shortage, specifically of affordable homes priced under $200,000.

Builders and developers have seen rising costs in both materials and labor, along with what they say are increased codes and requirements for developments.

These costs are driving up prices, according to experts and those in the industry.

Interest in prefabricated buildings and homes has also been growing, according to various economic reports. Proponents of modular and prefabricated homes ar-

gue that the structures can help reduce costs for consumers compared to traditional “stick-built” homes.

Revenue from the world’s prefabricated building market is expected to reach $170 billion over the next five years, according to a report released on March 18 by Arizton Advisory and Intelligence, a market research firm.

However, Rockingham County building official Joe Shifflett said in an email upon review of data from 2018 to current, there was no “substantial increase” in modular or mobile home permits in the county.

Contact Ian Munro at 574-6278 or imunro@dnronline.com. Follow Ian on Twitter @iamIanMunro

“

When you get rain in the winter and you don’t have the warm and drying.

It’s those 70-plus [degree] days that dry out the ground. n Wayne Whitmer,

president and CEO, Harman Construction

SHENANDOAH VALLEY BUSINESS JOURNAL

Harrisonburg, Va.

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

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SVO To Create ‘Secure Complex’ at Massanutten, North Liberty Streets

By IAN MUNRO

Daily News-Record

Shenandoah Valley Organic purchased two parcels of land adjacent to its site on North Liberty and Massanutten streets in Harrisonburg, according to Corwin Heatwole, the CEO, and city documents.

In the $850,000 January deal between Shenandoah Valley Organic and JWK Land LLC, the poultry processing company bought 715 Massanutten St. and 744 Massanutten St. “Most importantly, what this property did for us was it put back together all the properties that were part of [the complex] back when it was Pilgrim’s Pride 15, 18 years ago,” Heatwole said. “Cause of that, we will now be able to create a secure complex with fences and a turnstile so we’ll be able to add to food safety and benefit for the employees with this.”

The purchase will not directly result in the creation of new jobs, according to Roy Norville, vice president of human resources.

“It will allow us to expand our parking capability, which is a big, big thing, and gives us a little bit more flexibility when we’re

moving trucks in and out,” Norville said.

Heatwole said the renovations and improvements to the plant site are slated for completion in mid-summer.

Part of the work involves renovating a building previously used by G & W Ambulance, a locally-owned emergency and non-emergency transportation business, for offices, meeting areas and to “substantially” expand dry storage space, according to Heatwole.

Gordon Driver, an owner of G & W Ambulance, said the business has moved from the previous building on Massanutten Street to a new location on Whitmore Shop Road in Hinton and the move has not impacted the business.

“We’re still in full operation, 100%, 24-seven,” Driver said.

In July, the processor became the first in the country to own an automated giblet remover from Dutch-owned American company Meyn and added a new highspeed line.

Contact Ian Munro at 574-6278 or imunro@dnronline.com. Follow Ian on Twitter @iamIanMunro

Ian Munro / DN-R

Chance Griffith, of Luray, with Moyer Brothers Contracting, grades gravel on some of Shenandoah Valley Organic’s new property.

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Wednesday, March 25, 2020

SHENANDOAH VALLEY BUSINESS JOURNAL

Harrisonburg, Va.

Locals Talk Hemp At Rockingham County Expo

By IAN MUNRO

Daily News-Record

Daniel Lin / DN-R

Becky Hobden, CEO of East Coast Cannalytics, right, talks with Reed Anderson, left, and Cameron Trickey, co-owners of Kame Naturals in Goochland, at the Shenandoah Valley Hemp Expo on Feb. 29.

Daniel Lin / DN-R

Attendees at the Shenandoah Valley Hemp Expo listen to a panel on hemp processing at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds.

Local agriculture business partners Gretchen Nyce, of Harrisonburg, and Brian Witmer, of Port Republic, were part of the first wave of hemp farmers to legally grow the crop once again in the commonwealth when they planted 2 acres in the county in June.

“It sounded like an interesting new venture,” Whitmer said. “It seemed like there was a good profit to be made.”

But on Feb. 29, they said they were not sure if they would grow another hemp crop on their Port Republic land this year.

“Partly because [we’re] worried about compliance with the government standard and worried about markets and the sell-ability of the final product,” Nyce said.

So they went to the first Shenandoah Valley Hemp Expo at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds to look for answers to some of their concerns.

The expo, which included panels on best practices, hemp processing, legislation and compliance along with numerous industry vendors, was hosted by local hemp growers and processors Shenandoah Valley Hemp, operated by the Johnson brothers of Harrisonburg.

“We also wanted to reach out to local farmers as well because we want them to have the most successful opportunities as possible,” said Jacob Johnson, one of the brothers. “We don’t want them to have some of these learning curves that a lot of people did this first season.”

He estimated 150 to 175 people came to the expo.

“We’re trying to shine a

light on all the benefits and positive aspects of cannabis and bringing a network of people together to build a healthy hemp industry in Virginia,” Johnson said.

He said the networking of the event helped people to find what part of the industry they can succeed in.

“Not everyone can do everything,” Johnson said, adding there is a “huge” bottleneck in hemp processing.

Hemp can be processed for final products of cannabidiol oil or fiber.

O n H a l l o w e e n , G o v.

Ralph Northam announced the first hemp processing facility in the state. Appalachian Biomass Processing invested nearly $900,000 and created 13 jobs for a fiber processing plant in Wythe County.

In December, Elkton Town Council approved Shenandoah Valley Hemp for a processing facility for CBD oil at 154 W. Spotswood Ave. Last year, Nyce and Witmer grew hemp for CBD oil.

Nyce said having a contract with a processor for their hemp would encourage her and Witmer to grow it this year.

“Most commodities or vegetables that you can grow you know where you’re going to sell it,” he said. “Hemp is different.”

Witmer has experience growing vegetables and said the marketing chain is more reliable.

“I think we’re going to have just [to think about it] and keep talking to processors and buyers and seeing if there’s any way we can make any sort of deal ahead of time,” Nyce said.

Contact Ian Munro at 574-6278 or imunro@dnronline.com.

Follow Ian on Twitter @iamIanMunro

Harrisonburg, Va.

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Wednesday, March 25, 2020

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Ian Munro / DN-R

Andrea Coyle, left, and her husband Travis Coyle, a veteran, speak about Living Waters Farm Initiative at the second Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber of Commerce Diversity in Business event at the Lucy F. Simms Center in Harrisonburg on March 4.

Chamber Of Commerce Event Explores Workplace Diversity

By IAN MUNRO

Daily News-Record

Over 100 guests attended the second Diversity in Business event hosted by the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber of Commerce at the Lucy F. Simms Center, according to Chris Jones, a city councilman and member of the chamber’s diversity council.

“The more we understand diversity in the workplace and diversity in business, the more it will help to fulfill the employment needs of a diverse workforce and help to fulfill the employment gaps in business,” Jones said. “We need people of all ages. We need people of varying abilities. We need our veterans. We need women in leadership positions.”

Topics of conversation at March 4’s fourhour event included discrimination based on age, and the hurdles and solutions that

women and veterans face in the job market.

Kevin Coffman, a veteran employment representative with the Virginia Employment Commission, spoke about linking veterans to jobs.

“A lot of people are actually willing to hire veterans, but they don’t know how to get to ‘em,” he said.

Coffman spoke about the improving exposure for the Jobs For Veterans State Grant, a program that uses federal funding to connect veterans to local jobs matching their skills.

Veterans “can excel at anything,” he said.

“We’re a very cross-trained group of people and we tend to be successful whatever we do.”

A panel with women from various education, business and government institutions discussed workplace issues.

One of the panel’s speakers was Tisha McCoy-Ntiamoah, a Bridgewater entrepre-

neur who founded PrePOPsterous Popcorn in 2015. The company sources its kernels from local farmers, according to its website.

She said some women often unnecessarily count themselves out for higher positions in their career.

“Sometimes a lot of the self-doubt that we go through of ‘I don’t check every box that the position is looking for, so therefore I’m not qualified enough to apply,’” McCoy-Ntiamoah said.

“When the truth is many times you are, and sometimes our male counterparts will fall into that same category, not being able to check all the boxes but they’ll apply and end up into the role,” she said.

Other issues the panel discussed included the wage gap between men and women, best methods to negotiate a salary and how to address the pitfalls of resume gaps, which could be caused by taking care of children or elderly parents.

She said women are more “visible” in the workplace than past decades, but the question remains about the number of women in leadership roles.

“Certainly, we’ve made improvements, but I think there’s a ways to go,” she said.

The first local Diversity in Business event was held in June to focus on workforce opportunities.

In 2019, the national unemployment rates for workers with and without disabilities hit notable lows, at 3.6% and 7.3%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

This labor shortage forces employers to look harder and wider at the pool of candidates to bridge their labor gap and increases the competition between employers for workers.

Contact Ian Munro at 574-6278 or imunro@dnronline.com. Follow Ian on Twitter @iamIanMunro

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Wednesday, March 25, 2020

SHENANDOAH VALLEY BUSINESS JOURNAL

Harrisonburg, Va.

T&E Meats Helps Sustain Local Farms

Daniel Lin / DN-R

T&E Meats employee LeRoy Michael works on slicing bacon.

By KATHLEEN SHAW Daily News-Record

Perched at the corner of Liberty and Charles streets less than 2 miles from downtown Harrisonburg is a stout brick building, leftover from 1939, that looks like a five-door garage. But inside, the operation is constantly in the flux of life and death, playing a key role in keeping local farms afloat.

From millennials celebrating the farm-to-table movement to rural families preparing a roast from their backyard piggies, meat processing plants are the middle men

that guarantee clean and quality cuts of red meat that find its way into favorite dishes.

T&E Meats is a small, multi-species processing operation that serves between 250 and 300 farms each year in Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. General manager Joe Cloud said the company offers processing for a variety of meats from beef, pork, lamb and goat to the occasional yak and water buffalo. Operating from the small lot, it is less efficient and hard to compete against larger, national processors. Still, Cloud said he is satisfied with

the scale of business because it guarantees each packaged item is local and uses as few animals as possible.

“We’re a cow-calf operation state. What does that mean? They all end up on our plate, but they go through Oklahoma and Colorado and Nebraska to get there,” Cloud said. “The basics to that story is that agribusiness in America, everything is a huge commodity.

Everything gets pulled apart and put back together again. … We’re like one of the places that doesn’t happen.”

Monday is bacon day at the

plant, and anywhere from 200 to 500 pounds of pork strips will be prepared for the week. Cloud said the business’ output is small compared to national competitors, but it is a system that caters to local farms.

“That’s the niche we’re in, being able to work with smaller, more traditional farmers,” Cloud said.

Cloud grew up on a 100-acre farm in Pennsylvania where his family raised sheep, but he and his siblings were less interested in the agricultural business. Cloud pursued landscape architecture

for 20 years. When his parents decided to retire their Staunton-area farm, Cloud returned to take care of them.

The plot was leased to Polyface Farm, owned by Joel Salatin, and the two began the meat-packaging venture in 2008, serving four local farms under their own private labels. Today, T&E Meats services over 60 farmers who brand their own meats, plus clients and farmers who process for personal consumption.

Joel’s son, Daniel Salatin, is the director of operations at Polyface Farm, and credits meat processing

Harrisonburg, Va.

as the market tool that allows farmers to concentrate and sustain business in spite of stipulations that limit farmers’ economic venues.

“It’s quite impossible, practically speaking, for a farm like ourselves to raise beef, pork, lamb and other large meats and be able to sell it in a retail form other than just alive, so the problem is farmers are not getting that retail dollar,” Salatin said. “If you just sell a cow walking around, not a lot of people can do much with that. Having it in beautiful little packages in your freezers adds a lot.”

Beyond extending ease of retail access, he said keeping the footprint local cleans up a lot of red tape and permits farmers to focus on maintaining their farms.

“It directly allows me to be farming full time, making a living wage off of a medium-sized operation ... and create a situation where we are creating a very reliable and comfortable food system because it’s not being shipped around the globe,” Salatin said. “Having things done locally is a way to have that security and peace of mind.”

Once sliced, diced and packaged away, T&E Meats sources to various retailers like the Friendly City Food Co-op. Co-op general manager Steve Cooke said the shop has partnered with T&E Meats since it opened as the main provider of fresh meat, and both quality and proximity to the area are huge draws for customers. The shop’s bulk of meat sales come from Polyface Farms and J&L Green Farm, also packaged

by T&E Meats.

“We’re ordering an entire cow per month,” Cooke said. “It’s high quality. They have a good reputation for a reason. Most of it is Polyface and J&L Green, but they have really good reputations, and people will seek them out. People will drive here from Charlottesville or even further and buy 10-packs of sausages at once.”

Besides the reliable quality of product that customers associate with the farms, Cooke emphasized that T&E Meats is also an educational resource that partners with businesses to ensure they understand the processing and purchasing rhythms of agribusiness.

“They’ve been very supportive

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Wednesday, March 25, 2020

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Daniel Lin / DN-R

Beef carcasses hang in a new room at T&E meats. of giving us advice and helping us,” Cooke said. “It’s nice to have a meat processor that’s 3 miles away that provides the kind of service we get. Without T&E Meats, the nearest processors that could provide that kind of service for us is in Highland County, which would be a lot more difficult for us.”

Cloud said co-packing facilities are few and far between that offer United States Department of Agriculture and state inspection labels to allow retail of processed meats, especially larger animals like cattle.

“They don’t have a lot of processing capacity in West Virginia, so we have folks that come a fair amount of distance,” Cloud said.

“It almost doesn’t happen at all for beef in Virginia.”

The meat processing plant is also a benefit for students of agriculture production. Three years ago, T&E Meats began partnering with Massanutten Technical Center to allow emerging agriculturalists an exclusive opportunity to study the managing and marketing that goes into farm sales.

Eric Fitzgerald is the director of career and technical Education for Rockingham County Public Schools and co-owner of Starview Farms. Fitzgerald’s farm uses T&E Meats’ services, and he said the certified humane processor prioritizes education.

“We are finding more and more people have very little connection to agriculture. Consumers just don’t know where their meat is coming from,” Fitzgerald said.

“They really are good about educating their customers. They’re not just there to cut your meat and get in, get out. I have been really impressed by the quality of service offered, whether you’re a farmer or you’ve never bought meat before. They’re really helpful.”

Announced in 2016, a state Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development grant of $50,000 plus a $50,000 local match, earned with help from the city of Harrisonburg, allowed T&E Meats to begin offering value-added products such as cured bacon and ham over a year ago.

With the additional space, T&E Meats has been able to better contain meats between stages of processing for additional health safety measures and increase

dry aging. Pork is now cured and smoked in a one-truck Kerres smoke-air oven. In the smoker, small beech pellets add another layer of flavor to the meat before packaging.

While known to customers and partners as T&E Meats, the company is actually owned by Salatin & Cloud LLC and uses the trade name T&E Meats out of local tradition in memory of the previous business, Harrisonburg Wholesale Meats, better known to the community as T&E because it was run

by Tommy and Erma May. Now, T&E stands for “True & Essential Meats.”

Contact Kathleen Shaw at 574-6274 or kshaw@dnronline.com. Follow Kathleen on Twitter @shawkareport

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Harrisonburg, Va.