HR Partnership | March 11, 2010

It is serious this time. Not just the Navy, but the Secretary of Defense have said they want to base a nuclear aircraft carrier in Jacksonville rather than Norfolk. Troubling to area economists and business and political leaders, the defense department’s stated desire to permanently base a flattop in Florida, rather than in Hampton Roads, could cost the region thousands of jobs and millions in lost income.

On Wednesday, March 17, from 7:45-9:00am at the Town Point Club, World Trade Center in downtown Norfolk, LEAD Hampton Roads will stage a provocative panel discussion on the subject, featuring civic leaders who are working to keep all east coast carriers in Norfolk. Moderated by former TV talk show host Joel Rubin, the event, entitled “Anchors Away?” will feature the following guests:

• The Honorable Joe S. Frank, Mayor, City of Newport News
• RADM Fred Metz (Ret.), Blogger
• Greg Grootendorst, Chief Economist, Hampton Roads Planning District Commission
• C. Grigsby Scifres, Partner, Williams Mullen; Board Member, Hampton Roads Military & Federal Facilities Alliance and Past Regional Board Chair, Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce
• Jeanne S. Evans, Hampton Roads Representative, Office of Senator Jim Webb

If interested in attending, contact Amanda Gant at agant@hrccva.com.

LEAD Hampton Roads, a program of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, is a 501-C3 leadership development program now entering its 22nd year of serving the region. The organization has over 1,200 graduates who actively provide bold leadership to more than 600 regional businesses, non-profit organizations and governmental agencies. LEAD Hampton Roads serves the 17 communities that comprise the greater Hampton Roads area.

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Tags: HRPDC, Military Bastion, Navy, Newport News

HR Partnership | March 5, 2010

There is one over-arching goal for the first five-year plan called Vision Hampton Roads:

“With proper foresight, continuous planning and dynamic economic development, Hampton Roads will be recognized internationally as a region fueled by Innovation, Intellectual and Human Capital, Infrastructure and a Sense of Place.”

What started as just another economic development planning tool, one intended to aid local governments in decision-making and with accompanying federally mandated guidelines in order to qualify for federal grants, has become so much more.

While the “Vision” document does analyze regional and local economic conditions within Hampton Roads and identify projects, programs and initiatives that address economic development, this process was very different from past such economic development strategies.

Public participation was a key element. “We need more opportunities like this to voice our opinion for the future of Hampton Roads,” said one public commenter.

It was clear that economic development of today is much more far-reaching than what property is developed to become the next shopping center or housing development.

It’s important to address who and what is Hampton Roads as a region, who lives here and why, what our business identity is, how we attract entrepreneurs, creativity and innovation and what is new and different in today’s planning, to name a few. These common themes, labeled “Sense of Place,” emerged to be almost as important as the original goal of the process: to achieve U.S. Dept. of Commerce Economic Development Administration’s Federal Economic Development District Designation.

After months and months of meetings involving a broad cross-section of our region’s communities and significant public input, the document is complete and now posted at http://VisionHamptonRoads.com.

But, this is just the beginning. The real work starts now.

Hampton Roads Partnership (“Vision” lead organization) President and CEO, Dana Dickens, is making the rounds of public meetings, governmental and organizational alike, delivering the message of alignment that is Hampton Road’s first comprehensive region-wide economic development strategy.

Click here for the Virginia Beach Council Meeting Video.

To make progress in each city or county of Hampton Roads, clear goals must be set and aligned regionally, public involvement must be considered and success must be measured, says Dickens.

At a recent City of Portsmouth planning retreat, Liz Povar, director of business development for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, said “Teams that win play as partners,” adding that she knows that’s not always easy on the local level. If any theme also emerged during the Portsmouth retreat, it was the value of regional cooperation.

All citizen comments may be found in the Public Responsiveness Summary, added as Addenda #1 due to its length as it is longer than the document itself. Participants can see how their comments were integrated into the final plan.

Some especially poignant comments include:

“As you move forward with this activity, make certain you are seeing these visions through the eyes of the different generations, i.e., k-12, college age, new career starters, mature family builders, and retiring people. Each group’s vision is affected by their current life needs,” cautioned one resident.

“Vision Hampton Roads is a comprehensive, objective and very credible document. If it does in fact increase momentum to think and act regionally, its value – and impact – to the area’s economic vitality and quality of life will be tremendous,” added one respondent.

Overall, the strategy-creation experience in Hampton Roads has been about setting into motion an ongoing process that is embraced by our region. “Vision” planning has placed Hampton Roads on a path to regional transformation by embedding a working process in all that we do as we… think, live and act regionally.

A separate Executive Summary has been posted as well and includes a table of contents for the complete document. Specific task forces to implement the plan are in the development stages and volunteers are welcomed. Citizens of the region are encouraged to review “Vision Hampton Roads” and stake a claim to the component (or components) where you can help make a difference.

Volunteer at Contact@VisionHamptonRoads.com.

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Tags: Civic Engagement, Economy, Hampton Roads, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Vision

HR Partnership | March 1, 2010

Emanuel Chestnut, left, talks with TCC school administration regarding graduation eligibility of Kasey Hamilton, right, a Navy veteran, at his office at the Virginia Beach campus. Chestnut is a Navy vet who works as an adviser to help veterans feel welcome and navigate through the maze of paperwork. (Hyunsoo Leo Kim | The Virginian-Pilot)

The new GI bill has helped spur an enrollment boom at Tidewater Community College, which has the nation’s second-highest number of students receiving benefits.

TCC is the only community college in the top five with 1,414 students enrolled last fall at its four campuses under the Post-9/11 GI bill according to a recent ranking by Inside Higher Education, an online source of college information.

Many of the top 25 schools are primarily online programs, such as Capella University, or schools in areas with a concentrated military population, such as San Diego Mesa College and Florida State College in Jacksonville.

Two other local schools ranked in the top 25: Old Dominion University, eighth, with 725 students, and ECPI College of Technology, which has two campuses in Hampton Roads, 18th, with 536 students. The chart and TCC used enrollment data as of Dec. 9.

The new GI Bill, championed by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., covers all tuition and fees for some recent veterans at public and some private schools. Often, benefits can be transferred to a spouse or child and can be used for books and housing. The program went into effect last year.

“A distinctive piece of Hampton Roads is the military presence, thus a distinctive piece of the community college for Hampton Roads should be military,” TCC President Debbie DiCroce said, “and we’ve embraced that for years.”

One appeal, she said, is that TCC offers programs that are familiar to those in the service. Compared with other TCC students, those on the GI Bill are taking more career and technical programs such as in information systems technology. A higher percentage are on the transfer track, meaning they will move on to a four-year college.

TCC’s lower costs are attractive to all students, DiCroce said.

DiCroce said the school has striven to create a reputation of being military-friendly. Through partnerships with ODU and Norfolk State University, it offers Army and Navy ROTC programs, and its campuses often have served as a training center for the Navy.

excerpts from Denise Watson Batts at The Virginian-Pilot

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Tags: Hampton Roads, Military Bastion, TCC

HR Partnership | February 27, 2010

The Small Business Administration and the Office of the Secretary of Defense sponsored a workshop on January 25^th and 26^th at the Renaissance Portsmouth Hotel for a recently announced Robotics Technology Cluster initiative. Hampton Roads is one of three regions participating in the pilot initiative. Southeastern Michigan and Hawaii are the other two. The Michigan cluster focuses on ground robotics, Hawaii’s on undersea robotics. The Hampton Roads cluster focuses on port and harbor security.

This cluster aligns with the strategic vision of the Hampton Roads Chapter of Autonomous and Unmanned Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI) professional group and the regional Robot Venture initiative sponsored by the Hampton Roads Military & Federal Facilities Alliance (HRMFFA).

Over 240 participants heard key note talks from Congressmen Glenn Nye and Randy Forbes. The workshop included several panel discussions on resources available to the small business and robotics communities both on a local and a national level. Presenters represented the Department of Defense (DoD), the Small Business Administration, NASA, the Department of Homeland Security and other regional stakeholders. After listening and questioning the presenters and panel members, attendees participated in group breakout sessions where ideas and strategies were gathered to identify port and harbor security focus requirements.

The six breakout topics covered: Comprehensive port and harbor security, emergency management, sensors fusion, alternative energy, manned and unmanned systems integration, and workforce development through a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics focused education approach. Discussions were facilitated by subject matter experts in each topic area, and the majority of participants attended up to four different topic sessions over the two day workshop. Feedback from the workshops will be used to create a framework of action for the robotics cluster going forward.

Presentations from the workshop are available on the Robot Venture website: www.robotventure.org/rvinformation.html. More information as the cluster activity progresses will be posted as well.

by Program Managers Bill Piersol, Robot Venture, and Andrew Sinclair, Hampton Roads Partnership; Photo credit: U.S. Navy

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Tags: Hampton Roads, HRMFFA, Military Bastion, Navy, Port

HR Partnership | February 26, 2010

The Mariners’ Museum, located in Newport News, Virginia, is the largest maritime museum in North America. Hampton Roads, with the largest naval base in the world, is a fitting location for such a gem.

Besides world class exhibits, the Mariners’ offers educational opportunities for all ages from school programs about the Age of Exploration to adult lectures on topics from the Revolutionary War to World War II.

The Museum invested in cutting-edge technology to provide exhibitions and information about maritime history, science, and culture via the internet. Approximately one million visitors now log onto the web site annually, and the number of people reached through educational programs has grown exponentially. A key aspect of this growth strategy involves interactive video conferencing (IVC) of the educational programs, which increased by 175% in 2008 alone. The IVC facilities have tripled the capacity to broadcast educational programs across the world.

The Mariner’s also offers educational programs designed to meet Virginia SOLs and the National Standards of Learning, online exhibitions, homeschool and scouting programs.

Dollar Tree, headquartered in Chesapeake in Virginia’s Hampton Roads, is an underwriter for these programs.

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Category: Education & Workforce, Military Bastion, Visit HR | No Comments »
Tags: Hampton Roads, Military Bastion, Newport News

HR Partnership | February 25, 2010

A truck pulls out of a parking lot at the corner of Union Camp Drive and Jamestown Lane in the shadow of International Paper Corp. on Friday, Oct. 23, 2009. The paper company announced the day before that it will close its Franklin paper mill next spring. (Photo credit: Ross Taylor | The Virginian-Pilot)

by Donna Morris, Executive Vice President of Hampton Roads Partnership

A recent meeting of the Paul D. Camp Regional Workforce Development Council held in the soon-to- be-closed International Paper Mill in Franklin was a slice of re-dedication to “regional cooperation” in Hampton Roads. The Workforce Development Council includes representatives from business, education, and local government. Most of those attending the meeting work or live in Franklin, Isle of Wight, Southampton and Suffolk.

I was asked to summarize the region-wide comprehensive economic development strategy, Vision Hampton Roads, as a representative of the Hampton Roads Partnership (HRP), as well as provide empathy, share encouragement and learn. I considered the challenges that closing the paper mill had given us. This part of our community had a shared history of calamity and recovery. In recent times they have endured the effects of a disastrous 500-year flood, damaging hurricane spawned tornadoes, and now the closing of one of the oldest and largest manufacturing businesses in Hampton Roads.

On the morning of the meeting, I left the Virginia Beach oceanfront at 5:30 am, not sure how long the commute would take with the tunnel, traffic congestion and 60-odd miles of highway to Franklin. I thought that talking about Vision Hampton Roads, which the Partnership and other regional organizations and individuals have been working on for nearly a year was easy, but how could I offer empathy and encouragement? Read more…

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Category: Economy, Education & Workforce, Military Bastion | 2 Comments »
Tags: Franklin, Hampton Roads, International Paper, Sense of Place

HR Partnership | February 24, 2010

About 22% of Hampton Roads homeowners with a mortgage owe more on their homes than they’re worth, according to a new report.

Nationally, 24% of residential properties with a mortgage were in “negative equity,” up from 23% at the end of the third quarter, according to the fourth-quarter report released…

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Category: Economy, Military Bastion | 1 Comment »
Tags: Economy, Hampton Roads, ODU

HR Partnership | February 18, 2010

High-res display wall prototype for showing medical images. Click on photo for larger image. Photo credit: Brian W. Tobin on Flickr

by Andrew Sinclair, Hampton Roads Partnership M & S Program Manger

Several hundred modeling and simulation professionals from around the country braved unusual-for-the-region snowy conditions to meet at the Virginia Beach Hilton on February 1st. The meeting was organized by the National Training & Simulation Association on behalf of the Congressional M&S Caucus which was founded and is co-chaired by Congressman Randy Forbes.

In its fifth year to be held in Hampton Roads, the M&S Leadership Summit was a great opportunity to showcase the region’s assets and capabilities to elected officials and businesses from outside of the area. In 2008, the Summit recommended that M&S be declared a national critical technology which was accomplished through the passage of House Resolution 487. This 2010 summit was focused on how to best use that designation to further grow the industry.

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Tags: Hampton Roads, Military Bastion, Modeling, Research, Simlation, Technology

HR Partnership | February 17, 2010

The pace of economic activity in Hampton Roads will rebound this year but is likely to be more subdued than the nationwide expansion, Old Dominion University forecasters predicted.

The region will continue losing jobs until employers step up their hiring during the second half, said Vinod Agarwal, an economics professor and member of the university’s Economic Forecasting Project. Hampton Roads, he said, is likely to lose about 1,500 jobs this year after losing an estimated 6,000 in 2009.

Click here for larger image

In percentage terms, Hampton Roads’ job losses last year were less severe than those in comparable metro areas, including Richmond (VA), Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte (NC), said Agarwal.

However, Hampton Roads’ unemployment rate, which stood at 6.6% in November, understates the extent of joblessness because it doesn’t include discouraged workers who have left the labor force.

One key ingredient for the region’s economy – defense spending – is likely to grow 4 to 4.5% in Hampton Roads this year, on par with the 4.2% increase in 2009, Agarwal said.

However, retail sales will…

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Category: Economy, Military Bastion | 1 Comment »
Tags: Hampton Roads, Military Bastion

HR Partnership | February 16, 2010

by Andrew Sinclair, Hampton Roads Partnership’s M & S Program Manger

On January 29^th, nearly 100 people gathered at the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) in Suffolk for the first of a series of quarterly breakfasts. This breakfast focused on the recently launched regional modeling and simulation strategy: Hampton Roads M&S Vision 2020. Under Thomas Reese, VMASC’s Director of Business Development and Technology Transfer, the center has renewed its efforts to engage the M&S industry, and these breakfasts will be a key element of that work. VMASC and its industry membership act as the de facto association for the M&S industry in Hampton Roads. In fact, it was from the efforts of the industry association that the regional M&S strategy first developed.

The breakfast was designed as an opportunity to continue to reach out to the broader community to create engagement on the implementation of the M&S strategy. Learn more…

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Category: Education & Workforce, Military Bastion, Research & Technology | No Comments »
Tags: Education, Hampton Roads, M&S, Modeling, Research, Simulation, Technology, VMASC