Continue reading »]]> We’ve had some high-powered visitors in Hampton Roads as of late. Vice President Joe Biden spoke to Maury High School students, while Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed future goals of NATO at a World Affairs Council dinner held in Norfolk.

Biden spoke towards the state education across the country and how it must be improved so that all students can attend college. He also thanked the students in military families for the dedication and service they provide in supporting our military service members. Brock Vergakis, our Norfolk-based Associated Press reporter, said that, “[Biden] gave a lengthy explanation about world markets and the unpredictability of foreign conflicts and their effects on gas prices before pivoting to defend the administration’s advocacy of renewable energy and expansion of drilling.”

Later that day, at the World Affairs Council, Clinton focused on NATO in preparation for a meeting May 20-21 that will be held in Chicago to discuss NATO’s transition from a combatative role to a supporting one by 2013, as well as the organization’s relationship with Afghanistan.

For the full story on Biden’s visit please follow this link.

For the full story on Clinton’s visit please follow this link.

Continue reading »]]> The “Brain Gain Survey” is an initiative of the Greater Norfolk Corporation which brings over 125 business leaders together to support young professional retention and attraction.

Business leaders have launched a public initiative to make our region a magnet for talented young professionals. The month of January 2012 has been proclaimed by Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim as “Brain Gain Month” in the City of Norfolk. The Brain Gain Task Force of the Greater Norfolk Corporation has worked diligently to produce this survey to interact with the region’s young professionals.

The survey will provide data of what young professionals are looking for in work, lifestyle and amenities to increase the competitiveness of Hampton Roads to engage these coveted individuals that are being courted by other markets.

Please have your young professionals take the survey before the close of January 2012 so Greater Norfolk can remain vibrant and attractive to their needs. SURVEY LINK

More on “Brain Gain”…

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It is once again time to recognize the unsung heroes of Hampton Roads. Dominion Virginia Power and WHRO are partnering for the fourth annual Community Impact Awards to honor people or organizations that work at the grassroots level to help others.

Based in community feedback, the categories have been expanded to include health. The five categories for 2011 nominations are: environment; education; health and public safety; regionalism; and social justice. One honoree will be chosen in each category to receive a $1,000 award for the charity of his or her choice. For more information and to download a copy of the nomination form, please visit: Community Impact Awards.

The deadline for nominations is February 3, 2012.

More on previous Community Impact Awards…

Continue reading »]]> By Bill Cresenzo for Inside Business, posted January 6, 2012

2012 – 2011 redux? As Hampton Roads begins another year, Inside Business asked the region’s business, government, civic, educational and community leaders to give readers an idea of what they would like to see happen in the year ahead and what they expect to see.

Leaders such as Greg Grootendorst, the chief economist with the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, who said, “The economic outlook for the coming year is likely to be one characterized by very modest growth.

“Hampton Roads remains entrenched in the process of recovering from the great recession,” he said. “The region has lost in excess of 50,000 jobs since payroll employment peaked in July of 2007; regional employment is now at the same level as it was in 2001.”

Vinod B. Agarwal, an economics professor at Old Dominion University, concurs with Grootendorst. The author of an annual regional economic forecast, Agarwal will present his findings at 10:30 a.m. Jan. 25 at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott at the annual economic forecast event. To register, call (757) 683-5138.

Agarwal said he expects the economy to pick up slightly in 2012, but it will continue to be a “jobless recovery.” While the economy might grow some, unemployment rates will remain steady or rise.

But there are other, exciting things on the business horizon. From Hampton Mayor Molly Ward to Jerry Bridges, the executive director of the Virginia Port Authority, to Dana Dickens, president of the Hampton Roads Partnership, inside this issue you’ll find what the region’s leaders believe 2012 will bring, as well as what they hope it will bring.

Recently seen on the Twitterverse:  What’s your wish for Hampton roads in 2012? See what Dana Dickens and other local leaders think. http://insidebiz.com/news/inside-business-story-257

The Year Ahead: E. Dana Dickens III President and CEO, Hampton Roads Partnership

My one wish for 2012 is that the many years of work in regional cooperation and collaboration by the Hampton Roads Partnership translate into true regional consensus, with significant results in growth and in greater diversification of the economy of Hampton Roads.

We can accomplish this if:

• Entrepreneurs have better access to capital, supported via a multimillion dollar fund organized by investors to promote “grow your own” economic development in the region.
• Taxpayers enjoy enhanced government services and lower taxes, supported via implementation of shared public services identified during the pilot program launched in 2011 with Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Chesapeake.
• Local government implements improved efficiencies and savings, supported via more Hampton Roads cities – and counties – joining in shared services projects across the region.
• Startup businesses achieve explosive growth thanks to mentors, supported via coaching provided by the region’s proven business leaders, both retired and active.
• Growth-oriented companies realize their entrepreneurial goals, supported via a cultural shift enabled by Innovate!HamptonRoads and its “Economic Gardening Network,” a suite of high-end, high-speed business growth resources.
• Serious networking and marketing happens for entrepreneurs, supported via successful events like Start Norfolk, active local entrepreneurs, metropolitan-focused academic institutions and the groups championing the region’s technology clusters of aerospace, bioscience, coastal energy, modeling and simulation, robotics and unmanned systems and sensors.
• Education in STEM/STEAM moves forward rapidly, supported via the various regional efforts such as a full-time boarding school, a governor’s school and curricular/extracurricular activities for public schools tied to Virginia’s standards of learning. [STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math. STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering and applied math.]

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May 17, 2012, will bring a Reality Check to Hampton Roads.

On that day 300 individuals representing real estate, the military, government, agriculture, environmental causes and civic associations will gather on the floor of Old Dominion University’s (ODU) Ted Constant Center.

Their mission to to determine how they believe the region should grow over the next 25 years. Using borderless maps, LEGO® pieces and string, they will plot out where 350,000 more people could live, work and move about.

Conducted by the Urban Land Institute Hampton Roads, the Hampton Roads Partnership, the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission and ODU, Reality Check will be the first visioning exercise of its kind in the area.  Many other regions from Charleston to Baltimore and Raleigh Durham to DC have conducted these one day events.  

If you would like to be a participant, there is an application online at www.RealityCheckHR.org or call (757) 456-5212 for more information. Video information is also on the website as are lists of organizations that have endorsed the effort. 

Continue reading »]]> Virginia Business magazine and VOLUNTEER Hampton Roads partnered again to pay tribute to local leaders in corporate social responsibility at the Hampton Roads Corporate Volunteer Excellence Awards held on December 7, 2011, at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott.

One hundred and ninety guests attended the breakfast to honor these outstanding corporations and individuals.  Vanessa Coria of WVEC 13News served at Mistress of Ceremonies for the event.

A keynote address was provided by Darrell Hammond, Founder and CEO of KaBOOM! a not-for-profit based in Washington, D.C. and author of KaBOOM!:  How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play.  Mr. Hammond spoke about his unusual upbringing, growing up at a resident home for children with his seven siblings and his mother.  Raised in an environment created by charitable giving, Mr. Hammond believes in giving back to today’s children just as he and his siblings were once helped.  Mr. Hammond gave a heartfelt address regarding the need for individuals and corporations to give back as well as explaining first hand the benefits this philanthropy has for others as it did for him.

This year’s Leadership Award recipient was Marty Einhorn, CPA/ABV, CVA Shareholder of Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer, P.C.  Mr. Einhorn thanked the individuals that have supported him in his endeavors to give back and gave a touching thank you to his parents, both present, for their commitment to philanthropy and for raising him to be charitable.

A long list of charitable accomplishments for each business honored was recited at the breakfast.  Some highlights are as follows–The Good Corporate Neighbor: Small Business (2 to 299 employees) award was given to AAA Tidewater Virginia and LoanCare.  AAA Tidewater Virginia was given the honor for their commitment to the community as well as the inventive ways that they use to get their employees to participate.  AAA Tidewater Virginia has created a program call AAA Cares to encourage employees to seek volunteer activities that fit their own interests.  Loancare was able to give a whopping 667 hours of volunteer time and over $22,000 in cash donations this past year.

The Good Corporate Neighbor:  Large Business (300 or more employees) awards went to  BB&T, SunTrust Bank and Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc.  BB&T completed thirty-five projects this year through their annual Lighthouse Project, a project dedicated to giving back to the community.  Their employees volunteered nearly 1,400 hours of their time to the local community.  SunTrust Bank has donated 1,500 hours of service through their “Solid Gives Back” campaign.  SunTrust also created a volunteerism database for their employees to seek out volunteer opportunities which they also allow community groups to utilize as well.  Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc. has donated an incredible $403,624 in food donations this past year to the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia.  Among other volunteer events, Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc. has hosted a “Bring Your Child to Work Day” to promote financial literacy.

Sherri Gahagen of Vandeventer Black, LLP was given the honor of the 2011 Corporate Volunteer Program Coordinator.  Ms. Gahagen has recently taken on this role and has been able to successfully coordinate the employees of Vandeventer Black, LLP to participate in ten large scale events this year, including cooking lunch at the Special Olympics for 150 participants.

A program of VOLUNTEER Hampton Roads, the Corporate Volunteer Council is a coalition of area businesses that are using workplace volunteerism as a tool to develop the community and strengthen their work teams.  For more information on how your business can get involved, contact Kate Meechan of VOLUNTEER Hampton Roads at (757) 624-2400 or send an email to corporaterelations@volunteerhr.org.

VOLUNTEER Hampton Roads has been strengthening nonprofits and increasing civic engagement in Hampton Roads for 50 years.  Our mission is to increase the capacity of Hampton Roads’ nonprofit sector to address serious community issues by developing high quality training, supporting workplace volunteer programs, mobilizing citizens to volunteer and advocating for civic engagement and collaboration. We are a member of HandsOn Network, the Cooperating Collection of the Foundation Center and United Way of South Hampton Roads.

Continue reading »]]> Fall 2011

For each newsletter, the Hampton Roads Association for Commercial Real Estate (HRACRE) poses the same four questions to someone in the region who can provide answers and foresight in 50 words or less that’s highly worth considering. For this issue, Craig Quigley, Executive Director of the Hampton Roads Military & Federal Facilities Alliance (HRMFFA) responds:

HRACRE:  What is the greatest Hampton Roads regional achievement?
Craig:  I believe our greatest achievement is the tremendous progress made in thinking, planning and acting as a region, rather than individual municipalities. This enlightened view makes us more aware of strengths and weaknesses region-wide, and to then devise smart strategies for moving forward – together.

HRACRE:  What is today’s biggest challenge for Hampton Roads?
Craig:  Though it may sound odd coming from someone whose charter is to attract, retain and grow Federal facilities to Hampton Roads, I believe our biggest challenge is to diversify our economy so as to lessen our reliance on the Federal sector. But until that goal is achieved, I have no intention of slacking off my mission!

HRACRE:  What would you do to solve this problem?
Craig:  Take an honest appraisal of our regional strengths and weaknesses, play to the strengths and tackle the weaknesses head on. This is already well underway, but nothing this comprehensive happens overnight. I have every confidence we’ll get there, however.

HRACRE:  What will Hampton Roads look like in a decade?
Craig:  We will continue to have a strong Federal presence here, despite whatever Federal budget pressures may occur. The citizens of Hampton Roads love their country and sincerely value the service of the men and women who work directly to support our great Nation. Hampton Roads will be thriving ten years from now!

Others’ Four Questions. Photo credit: Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce

Continue reading »]]> From the blog of City of Hampton Mayor Molly Ward

Mark Warner came to Fort Monroe on Friday, November 18 to tour the fort, talk about the National Park Service and explore the possibility a Science, Technology, Engineering and Applied Mathematics (STEAM) academy at the fort.  The Senator was accompanied by an entourage of reporters, and he toured the fort on foot.

The proposed STEAM academy would be a public boarding school for grades 9 through 12 with a 24 hour day learning cycle.  Students would be drawn from all over the Commonwealth, and there would be no fee to apply or attend. The concept is to build future generations who will be prepared to lead and succeed in the 21st century marketplace. There is a similar school in North Carolina that has seen tremendous success both for its graduates, and the state — as the majority of students stay and contribute to the North Carolina economy by both creating jobs and attracting employers looking for the best and the brightest.

I met up with the Senator at one of the TRADOC buildings for a tour.  He greeted me and presented me with the green tie he described as “hideous” that he wore to the Senate hearing on the NPS effort on October 19.  He also gave me a picture of him wearing the tie at the hearing.

After the TRADOC building tour, we presented the Senator with a proclamation from the City of Hampton thanking him for his support of the Fort Monroe National Monument.

More on Mayor Ward’s posting…

Continue reading »]]> By Bill Barnes
Posted Friday, November 25, 2011, on Citiwire.net

Among the congenial regional sages at the October Citistates convening at Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s Pocantico Conference Center, I felt I could admit to a long-time failing — I’ve been a messy regionalist.

By messy, I mean “devoid of neatness and precision.” That sounds right — regional problem-solving is usually complicated, difficult, frustrating and full of surprises, and often not successful. In other words, it’s like most human collective action endeavors.

Addressing regional challenges is also urgent and important and worthy of special attention. But we would do well to acknowledge and accept the reality of what Dan Gilmartin, executive director of the Michigan Municipal League, calls the “on the ground stuff” in the regionalism picture — the mix of grit and public interest vision that constitutes regional efforts.

The door through which the Pocantico discussions entered the regionalism topic was the roles that states play in promoting and/or obstructing regional governance. Much of the conversation centered around the issue of purpose — which public goals can be better achieved at inter-local and regional scales, rather than within individual jurisdictions? Attention focused mainly on economic challenges, often framed in terms of global competition, but a range of other topics were also broached, including sprawl, education, transportation, infrastructure, and reducing inequalities.

Another major theme of the sessions was the nature of regional governance. It’s a boundary-crossing activity exercised at a broader scale than the more usual partnerships within a jurisdiction. Regional governance is thus neither weird nor wondrous, nor is it a technocratic silver bullet. It is politics, policy, and problem-solving at the scale where there’s no authoritative governmental unit but there are shared concerns.

Regional governance varies by purpose, place, and time. Each multi-jurisdictional problem or opportunity has its own scale and scope, i.e., its own “region.” There’s no single space that is appropriate for all regional challenges, and thus no definitive size for an encompassing governmental jurisdiction. Furthermore, there’s no one best way to address the range of problems from water to economic development.

The relevant options for regional action are too often framed as either doing nothing or engineering major structural change, including jurisdictional consolidation. This is a false choice and not a useful way to frame the topic.

The measure of regional governance success is marshaling the capacity to achieve a goal — solving a problem or seizing an opportunity. This may or, more likely, may not result in structural change or governmental consolidation.

Thus, the regional governance discourse could very profitably shift to a less dramatic but more practical focus on regional governance as capacity and purpose. This would align the talk with the walk that is characteristic of practicing regional actors, whether the topic is transportation financing in Atlanta or freight routes in Long Beach or international trade in Seattle. Kathryn Foster and I have done a paper along these lines, based on our work with the MacArthur Foundation’s Building Resilient Regions Research Network. The paper offers an analysis of regional governance capacity, including five dimensions and associated indicators that can provide a means of measuring and assessing a particular area’s capacity for regional action on a specific problem at a specific time. (The paper is forthcoming in Urban Affairs Review; a version geared for practitioner use will appear at www.nlc.org by early 2012.)

It is also time to get beyond the grandiose rhetoric, the should’s and ought’s, and the inflated expectations that have too often accumulated around the regional idea. Like governance at other spatial scales, regionalism is better at dealing with easier things and less good at the really wicked ones.

Moreover, we can do without the judgmental rhetoric that suggests, on the one side, that regional approaches are idealistic, unrealistic dreams or indefensible intrusions on home rule and, on the other, that opposition to regional approaches is always selfish or racist. Any or all of those accusations may be correctly applied in specific circumstances, but jousting at caricatures as the default position is a diversion from the hard work of bringing people to the table. It also poisons the well for future efforts.

Bill Barnes is Director for Emerging Issues at the National League of Cities and co-author of The New Regional Economies, with Larry C. Ledebur. Viewers expressed are not necessarily those of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, its staff or trustees.