HR Partnership | February 14, 2010

Photo credit: VirginiaPlaces.org

from Carson Hudson, Tidewater History Examiner

Thousands of commuters and tourists use the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel every day to travel between the cities of Hampton and Norfolk… and sometimes, when the tunnel backs up and comes to a standstill, they sit in their cars and wait for the traffic to move. But few realize that, on the Norfolk side, they are sitting on a thin stretch of sand that came from beneath the sea. It’s called Willoughby Spit and in the late seventeenth century it was initially formed by a hurricane.

Photos credit: SirFin on Panoramio.com

The dictionary says that a “spit” is a long and narrow piece of beach that protrudes out into a body of water. Although the historical records disagree over whether it was 1667 or 1683, according to the generally accepted tale, Thomas Willoughby was living in the area when a “great storm” occurred. The next morning, his wife was apparently the first person to notice that a couple of hundred acres of sand had appeared out of nowhere, thrusting into the area known as Hampton Roads. The new slice of real estate became known as Willoughby Spit.

Over the years, other storms added to the spit and …

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HR Partnership | February 12, 2010

Excerpt from WTKR-TV3; Photo credit, IMDB

When it comes to Hollywood stars, there are not many brighter than Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly. In her new movie, she plays a woman named Virginia, who lives in Virginia – Virginia Beach.

The movie takes place in Virginia Beach. It involves a Virginia Beach woman who is in a relationship with the Virginia Beach sheriff. They even spend time on the Virginia Beach boardwalk. However, the film was shot in Michigan.

In Holland, Michigan hundreds of extras lined up to play the people of Hampton Roads.

The film is called “What’s Wrong With Virginia?“

Since the filmmakers snubbed the city, the title has become an indictment on Hampton Roads’ feature film failures.

Why did we miss out on that?

“We missed out because we didn’t have the financial package put together,” said Rita McClenny, state film commissioner [Virginia Film Office].

McClenny says unlike most states, Virginia offers no meaningful incentives. Certainly nothing like North Carolina where moviemakers get a 25 percent rebate on what they spend. That’s why much of “Nights in Rodanthe” was actually shot in Rodanthe. And it’s why television shows like One Tree Hill are based in North Carolina.

And Virginia gives nothing like the 42 percent rebate Michigan used to woo away Jennifer Connelly and company.

“It was a very, very Virginia Beach story that was filmed in Michigan. And it was pretty devastating, frankly,” McClenny said.

It could be even more devastating to Jeff Frizzell. Because Hollywood keeps passing us by, local cities are slashing funding to the four-year-old Hampton Roads Film Office. Frizzell, the commissioner, admits the venture is on the verge of collapse. On this day, Frizzell is trying to pry money out of politicians in Richmond.

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Mr. Mathers’ story on WTKR-TV3 is correct, funding for the Hampton Roads Film Office (HRFO) by some cities has been either cut or eliminated all together, but that is where the accuracy ends.

The HRFO received funding from 5 Hampton Roads localities (including Norfolk) and the state for the current fiscal year. This, in combination with in-kind contributions by the Hampton Roads Partnership, allowed the HRFO to have another very successful year.

The HRFO does not define success by sightings of George Clooney or Tom Hanks in Hampton Roads. Major motion picture production does bring in significant economic impact to a region, but so do independent films, television series, commercial work, corporate video, and other types of production. During calendar year 2009, production companies have come to Hampton Roads from networks including MTV, A&E, TLC, BBC, Discovery, The Food Network, The History Channel and others. They have produced shows including the TLC hit series “What Not to Wear”, A&E’s “Hoarders”, and The Food Network’s “Throw Down With Bobby Flay”. As far as big budget Hollywood productions “The Box” starring Cameron Diaz was partially filmed in Hampton at NASA Langley, where over 150 extras were hired along with a large contingent of local crew members. The HBO mini-series “John Adams” starring Paul Gamatti and Laura Linney, and produced by Tom Hanks filmed in Virginia and spent nearly $80 million dollars in the state, with a portion of that in Williamsburg.

The Hampton Roads region produced $120 million in economic impact, $9 million in state and local tax revenue, and created over 700 jobs annually since the inception of the HRFO in 2006. The reality series “Eish Safari” filmed in Hampton Roads this past summer produced over 900 man-hours of work for local crew and spent nearly $1 million dollars in the region, and while you may not see it in the theaters, 20 million viewers overseas will. They will see the beauty and the history of Hampton Roads, Virginia and maybe decide it’s where they want to take their next vacation or locate their next business venture.

The HRFO’s lobbying efforts over the last 4 years at the Virginia General Assembly has been for funding of the production industry as a whole in an effort to create jobs, not for money to fund the regional office. The HRFO is currently working with the Norfolk Economic Development Alliance to create an Advisory Board to help secure funding and commit to a long-term strategic plan so the Film Office can continue to bring in production dollars and create jobs in Hampton Roads.

Please feel free to contact the Film Office with any comments, questions or concerns.

W. Jeffrey Frizzell has been Commissioner of the Hampton Roads Film Office (HRFO) since it’s inception. The Film Office, a division of the Hampton Roads Partnership, opened in July of 2006 with it’s office located in downtown Norfolk. The HRFO mission is to generate economic impacts in the Hampton Roads region by attracting film, television and related media projects to our region. The Film Office assists local and out of area productions with location, crew and resource (building materials, rental cars, hotel, etc) assistance. The film office also markets the region as a superior location of choice.

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Tags: Economy, Film, Hampton Roads, HRFO, Virginia

HR Partnership | January 22, 2010

Its called Vision Hampton Roads. On this edition of What Matters, the weekly public affairs talk show on WHRO TV, we take a look at a roadmap that’s taking shape to diversify and strengthen the region’s economy.

Its goal: Hampton Roads will be recognized as a region for centers of excellence fueled by innovation, intellectual and human capital, infrastructure and a sense of place.

Right now (until February 5th), the plan is seeking public comment, and you are invited to take an online survey at http://VisionHamptonRoads.com.

Joining host Cathy Lewis for the discussion: Dana Dickens, President of the Hampton Roads Partnership; Doug Smith with Kaufman & Canoles, and Dwight Farmer, Executive Director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission.

Click on the graphic to see the video on YouTube, visit iTunes and download or watch at http://WhatMatters.tv.

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Tags: Hampton Roads, Military Bastion, Port, Tourism, Transportation, Virginia

HR Partnership | January 11, 2010

by Philip Newswanger, Inside Business

Here’s your chance to comment on the region’s first comprehensive economic development strategy.

Go to VisionHamptonRoads.com and fill in the questionnaire. The comment period lasts until Feb. 5.

The strategy will make the region eligible for grants from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, to which the plan will be submitted. And the strategy will serve as a blueprint for the future economic growth of the region.

Spearheaded by the Hampton Roads Partnership, the strategy took six months to compile and involved 150 community leaders in four committees.

“We all got real excited and said this is what Hampton Roads needs to align our organizations, our municipalities, our industries – to align the region under some common goals and objectives,” said Dana Dickens, President and CEO of the Partnership.

Two-thirds of the region’s economy is based on federal spending, the port and tourism, Dickens said.

“We are blessed in one sense,” Dickens said. “But it makes us more vulnerable in another sense.”

Dickens said that the loss of an aircraft carrier or the closure of NAS Oceana would take a tremendous toll on the region’s economy.

So the region needs to diversify its economic base, he said.

The concept was to formulate a strategy around maintaining and growing the three pillars of the economy while adding a fourth one, which Dickens called opportunities to grow the economy.

“We took those four categories and developed committees,” Dickens said. “We got 150 of the best and brightest [individuals] in the region” on the committees.

Larry Filer, associate professor of economics at Old Dominion University, completed a SWOT (strength, weaknesses opportunities, threats) analysis for the group, Dickens said.

“We put the SWOT analysis in front of the four committees and took notes,” Dickens said.

To give the plan a brand, it was named Vision Hampton Roads.

“The focus is to align the economic units, the organizations, the people who are engaged in the economy of Hampton Roads,” Dickens said.

The plan will be submitted to the federal government in February after the public comment period.

The committees began meeting during the summer. Each committee has met five times.

Dickens said the plan is transformational in two areas.

“For the Hampton Roads Partnership, this will be our work plan,” Dickens said. “I hope it’s going to be transformational for the region in the fact that we align around this common vision.

“I hope we develop these economies of scale that everyone knows are important for the region. We need to get in the mode of thinking, acting and living in one region. We’re all regional citizens, and we hope this will be a step toward that.

“We are competitive as a regional economy,” Dickens said. “We are less competitive when we compete as individual localities. If we are working for the same goals and objectives, it will help diversify our economy.

“There’s no effort here to change what cities and counties are doing,” Dickens said. “What’s good for one city or county is good for all of us.”

The committees were led by the following individuals: J. Robert Bray, Kaufman & Canoles Consulting LLC; Arthur L. Collins, former executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission; Rob Cross, Virginia Arts Festival; Russell Held, Virginia Port Authority; and Roy Whitney, Jefferson Lab.

Article originally posted on Inside Business, Januray 8, 2010: http://www.insidebiz.com/news/thinking-acting-living-one

Others, thus far, who are helping to spread the word to enlist Public Comment are:

• City of Chesapeake http://www.cityofchesapeake.net/
• City of Newport News http://nngov.com/
• City of Williamsburg http://www.ci.williamsburg.va.us/
• College of William & Mary http://swem.wm.edu/
• County of James City http://www.jccegov.com/
• Hampton Roads Center for Civic Engagement http://hrcce.org
• Hampton Roads Performs http://hamptonroadsperforms.org/
• Hampton Roads Planning District Commission http://www.hrpdc.org/Public_Notices.asp
• Hampton Roads Research Partnership http://hamptonroadsrp.org/
• Hampton Roads Technology Council http://hrtc.org
• My Hampton Roads Blog http://myhamptonroads.blogspot.com/
• Patchwork Nation http://www.pbs.org/newshour/patchworknation/
• Williamsburg-Yorktown Daily http://www.wydaily.com/local-news/3671-regional-group-has-plan-now-wants-public-feedback.html

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Tags: Economy, Hampton Roads, Military Bastion, Sense of Place

HR Partnership | January 5, 2010

PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD
January 5 – February 5, 2010

The Vision Hampton Roads document (draft) was released on January 5, 2010.

This will begin the 30-day public comment period required by the Economic Development Administration (EDA). You can view/download the document, i.e., our regional roadmap, at http://VisionHamptonRoads.com. We encourage you to take the Public Comment Survey and pass this link along to your friends, neighbors and colleagues.

During the next 30 days, the plan’s link will appear on the websites of many regional organizations. We are encouraging the 17 local governments, 3 planning partner organizations (i.e., Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance, and Hampton Roads Research Partnership) and others to post and pass along the link as well. We’re depending on your word-of-mouth (and email) to help create meaningful public participation in order to promote democracy and civic engagement, build public trust in government and enhance credibility within the community.

The Vision document is the product of over eight months of work, involving over 150 community volunteers who served on one or more of the 5 committees/sub-committees established to develop or oversee the plan. Presentations have been and will continue to be made during this period to organizations and local government leaders. News media outlets have already and will continue to post editorials and articles or air interviews focused on Vision Hampton Roads.

A Public Responsiveness Summary will follow the 30-day comment period, showing respondents how their feedback impacts the plan. In early February, the final document will be developed for final review, approval and submission to the EDA.

Vision planning has placed Hampton Roads on a path to regional transformation by embedding a working process in all that we do…
to think, live and act regionally.

Thank you,

E. Dana Dickens, III
President & CEO, Hampton Roads Partnership (HRP)

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Tags: Economy, Government, Hampton Roads, Military Bastion, Port, Tourism

HR Partnership | December 25, 2009

by Carson Hudson

It’s well known that the first permanent English settlement in America was established at Jamestown in 1607. Those first settlers who arrived here aboard those three small ships brought their English beliefs with them, among which was the tradition of keeping Christmas.

Because of several factors, however, such as the summer heat, bad water, lack of food, and not-so-good relations with the local Algonquian Indians, there was not much to celebrate during that first Christmas of 1607. Indeed, there were not many left around to even think about Christmas. Out of the original 104 men and boys, only 39 were still alive by December.

But new settlers arrived, and the colony slowly took root. By the next year, things were nowhere near certain, but a group of Englishmen under the command of Captain John Smith did manage to enjoy a Christmas party of sorts…

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HR Partnership | December 18, 2009

The Battle of Great Bridge, one of the earliest and most important battles of the Revolutionary War, is re-enacted every first weekend in December.

By the time you read this, dozens of Redcoat reenactors will have fallen to the cold, soggy ground beside the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River as Patriot sharpshooters catch them in a murderous crossfire. That’s not all that takes place in this event. There are encampments, character portrayals, lectures and skilled crafts demonstrators. But the battle recreation, depicting a furious half hour in the history of Hampton Roads (Tidewater), is the centerpiece.

In a prelude to the 2009 weekend events, the City of Chesapeake held a dedication ceremony for a new street, Billy Flora Way, just north of the bridge. It is named for a freed slave from Portsmouth who fought on the Patriot side during the Revolutionary War. During the battle on Dec. 9, 1775, he was one of the last sentinels to leave his post as the enemy advanced.

Flora withdrew “amidst a shower of musket balls, returning fire eight times.” Flora is also credited with removing a causeway plank in order to slow the British advance.

The real battle lasted only a half hour, but its outcome was breathtakingly pivotal for the fortunes of Hampton Roads and, for that matter, Virginia.

Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, had fled from Williamsburg as Patriots rose up in rebellion. He took refuge on his ships in Norfolk Harbor and at Gosport Navy Yard, vowing to retake control of the colony by putting down the uprising. He’d recently defeated Patriot defenders at Kemps Landing and turned his attention to Great Bridge, a critical way station for goods moving to Norfolk from North Carolina.

“Having heard that a thousand chosen men belonging to the rebels, great part of whom are riflemen, were on their march to attack us,” he wrote to Gen. William Howe, in command in Boston, “I determined to take possession of the pass at the Great Bridge.”

He ordered a stockade built on the north side of a narrow causeway, and “I make no doubt that we shall be able to maintain our ground there.”
And they were able to hold their ground, but they made the mistake of assuming that the Patriots would turn and run if they attacked. Smartly attired in red coats, they advanced six abreast across the narrow bridge and into a storm of rifled bullets. Before they fell back, Dunmore’s forces had lost between 60 and 100 men, while but one of the defenders suffered a slight wound.

An enraged and desperate Dunmore ordered his ships to open fire on Norfolk, and the resulting conflagration virtually wiped out the city. But the battle also triggered the end of colonial rule as Dunmore and his supporters sailed out of Hampton Roads, stopping at Gwynn’s Island in the Chesapeake Bay before returning to England.

The battle recreation has taken place for several years, but this time it’s in the midst of a critical phase for the Great Bridge Battlefield and Waterways History Foundation (www.gbbattlefield.org). The park phase of the group’s Battlefield Historic Park and Visitor Center, at the northeast side of the bridge, is expected to be completed next fall and construction of the visitor center begun. A capital campaign has raised over $4 million of the $6 million project, Lin Olsen, the foundation’s executive director said.

includes excerpts from “Our Stories by Paul Clancy“

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HR Partnership | December 17, 2009

On December 17, 1903, 106 years ago today, Orville & Wilbur Wright made the first powered (“controlled,” per commenter) flight. Their aircraft flew for 12 seconds above the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, making them the first men to pilot a heavier-than-air machine that took off on its own power, remained under control, and sustained flight.

In 1917, what is today’s NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) was begun when the War Department purchased land in Elizabeth City County, now Hampton, Virginia. This land was procured for the joint use of the Army and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the forerunner for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It was then designated Langley Field after Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley, an early pioneer in flight. Professor Langley had flown stable, steam-powered model airplanes as early as 1896, and until 1907 he had served as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

Langley Field and NACA began parallel growth as air power proved its importance during World War I. NACA was created “to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight, with a view of their practical solution;” and Langley Field, authorized in June 1917, was built as a joint experimental air field and proving ground for aircraft.

However, it wasn’t until June 11, 1920, 14 years after the Wright brothers first powered flight, when Orville helped establish the nation’s first aeronautical research center, its real beginning, at a permanent site staffed by its own employees, in its own facilities, and with its own program of aeronautical research. The facility was then officially designated “Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.” The research efforts were overseen by an advisory committee of noted scientists and aviation pioneers, including Orville Wright as well as the legendary Charles Lindbergh.

Learn more about LaRC at: http://gis.larc.nasa.gov/historic/resources/

Photo credit: NASA

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HR Partnership | November 29, 2009

James River, VA. Close-up view of officers on the Deck of the U.S.S. Monitor near the turret. Taken July 9, 1862 (photo: James F. Gibson, b.1828)
(source: United States Library of Congress)

It was the most celebrated ship in the U.S. Navy at the time, the ironclad USS Monitor.

It had fought the Confederate ironclad, CSS Virginia, to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862, and it was said that it had “saved the Union.” The Monitor was honored throughout the North and had made its place in history. Sadly, the brave little ship would only have another nine months of service before it sank in a storm off the coast of North Carolina.

What is amazing is that with all those Civil War photographers lurking around Virginia at the time, the USS Monitor was only photographed once.

The day was July 9, 1862. The place was the James River, near Harrison’s landing. According to records, the temperature reached 94 degrees by the afternoon. The Monitor was at anchor, with Lieutenant William Jeffers commanding.

That afternoon, a tug brought aboard a photographer, James F. Gibson, and his equipment. Gibson had learned his craft from no less than Matthew Brady and had managed Brady’s studio in Washington before the war. Now he was in the field, taking pictures at Yorktown, on the battlefields near Richmond, and around the headquarters of Union General George B. McClellan on the James River.

Gibson stayed on board the Monitor long enough to take a small series of pictures of the officers and crew, along with some shots of the deck and the famous revolving turret. The pictures taken that hot July day are the only known photographs of the famous little ship and its crew.

Unfortunately, Gibson missed the opportunity for an even greater picture. It seems that President Abraham Lincoln had been on board the ship just a bit earlier. On May 7, the President had come aboard to see the famous ship first-hand. According to the Monitor’s paymaster, William Keeler, the President had the crew mustered on deck and passed before them “hat in hand.”

You can see a reconstruction of the USS Monitor and the actual turret at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia.

Excerpts reprinted by permission from the Tidewater History Examiner.

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HR Partnership | November 25, 2009

Real Pirates tells the true story of the Whydah–the first fully authenticated pirate ship that sank off the coast of Cape Cod nearly 300 years ago. Organized by National Geographic and Arts and Exhibitions International, the exhibit showcases treasure chests of jewelry, coins, and gold; weaponry; and a replica of the actual ship that visitors can board. This blockbuster exhibit is a must-see for swashbucklers of all ages! Arrgghhh!

As a tribute to our region’s sea-faring history,”Real Pirates” is on exhibit November through April at the Nauticus Museum in downtown Norfolk, on the waterfront.

Learn more about Real Pirates of yesterday and today.

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Tags: Hampton Roads, History