Roanoke Business- Nov. 2014

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NOVEMBER 2014

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High impact Virginia Tech Transportation Institute is helping to change laws and driving habits

The institute’s Smart Road simulates a variety of driving conditions

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CONTENTS SERVING THE ROANOKE/BLACKSBURG/ NEW RIVER VALLEY REGION

November 2014 F E AT U R E S COVER STORY

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High impact

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Virginia Tech Transportation Institute is helping to change laws and driving habits.

by Donna Alvis Banks

BANKING AND FINANCE

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Branches for sale

As larger banks trim offices in favor of more online options, community banks scoop them up. by Joan Tupponce

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COMMERCIAL INSURANCE

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Uncertain future

The Affordable Care Act is having effects, but it’s too early to judge the final outcome. by Mason Adams

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE/RETAIL

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Endorse them and they will come?

Roanoke Valley attracts new

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national retailers.

by Jenny Kincaid Boone

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COMMUNITY PROFILE: BOTETOURT COUNTY

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INTERVIEW: EDWIN WHITELAW

No wires required

The search for a good Internet connection leads to a new career. by Michael Abraham 2

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NEWS FROM THE CHAMBER

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CHAMBER SELECTS ROANOKE VALLEY LEADERSHIP CLASS OF 2014-15

Building a balanced economy

Botetourt County wants agriculture in the mix but looks to grow by helping other industries, too. by Beth Jones

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FROM THE EDITOR

Good jobs

I

n the last full week of summer, when the Dow hit a record high three days in a row, the U.S. Census Bureau was saying that median household income in 2013 was 8 percent lower than it had been in 2007, the year before the Great Recession, and 8.7 percent lower than it had been in 1999.

But if measured from 2009 — the Great Recession statistically ended in June of that year — average family income has grown.

Sort of. A study by University of California at Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez shows average income per family grew by 6 percent from 2009 to 2012. Yet virtually all of that increase went to the top 1 percent of incomes. They rose by 31.4 percent while the bottom 99 percent grew by 0.4 percent.

As columnist and commentator Mark Shields has said, “This rising tide is lifting all yachts.”

All this reminded me of a frustrated man who lamented from the audience at the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce’s economic summit back in May that his business had jobs going begging because he couldn’t find workers.

The few people he’d been able to hire, he said, weren’t as dependable and productive as his business needed them to be.

A popular myth holds that a yawning skills gap is crippling the economy and hobbling the economic recovery.

Many studies (by Peter Cappelli at the Wharton School of Business, Robert Bruno at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign and Marc Levine at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee, to name three) have shown the skills gap is much more myth than reality. The reasons for unfilled jobs can be myriad and complicated, and they can’t all fit into a column this small, but they can be pretty simple and basic, too. Low pay, for instance.

Alice Kassens, Roanoke College’s John S. Shannon Professor of Economics, told the economic summit that Virginia and Roanoke have more jobs than workers. That should lead to increased wages as employers compete for the relatively limited supply of potential employees. According to Kassen’s figures, real wages – measured against the Consumer Price Index for the Southeast – rose an average of $3.44 per year across the commonwealth between 2000 and 2013. In Roanoke, they fell an average of $0.67 per year.

After more than a decade of research, Zeynep Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, wrote a book called “The Good Jobs Strategy,” explaining how some companies have outperformed their competitors.

“These companies think about employees not as costs to minimize but as capable human beings with the potential to generate sales and profits,” Ton says. “Therefore, they invest in them. Not only do they pay higher wages than their competitors do, they also provide more training, more stable schedules and adequate resources for getting work done. They also set high expectations and enforce them.”

Good jobs. Good pay. Good workers. There may be a connection.

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NOVEMBER 2014

SERVING THE ROANOKE/BLACKSBURG/ NEW RIVER VALLEY REGION Vol. 3

NOVEMBER 2014

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No. 11

Bernard A. Niemeier Tim Thornton Paula C. Squires Michael Abraham Mason Adams Donna Alvis Banks Jenny Kincaid Boone Beth Jones Joan Tupponce Adrienne R. Watson Pam McCallister Alisa Moody Logan Wallace Natalee Waters Kevin L. Dick Karen Chenault Sunny Ogburn Lynn Williams Hunter Bendall

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on the cover The Smart Road simulating adverse weather conditions.

Blacksburg Photo by Rick Griffiths Courtesy Virginia Tech

LET’S GO ON AN ADVENTURE TOGETHER.

FLYROA.COM

COVER STORY

High impact

Virginia Tech Transportation Institute is helping to change laws and driving habits

by Donna Alvis-Banks

The institute’s Smart Road, seen here simulating winter conditions, has attracted $250 million in research grants since its opening.

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Photo by Logan Wallace / Courtesy VTTI

T

he Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) started its engine in 1988 with 15 employees interested in the technology behind the emerging “smart car.” VTTI has since zoomed toward the front of the transportation research pack to ride the bumper of Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Established in 1950, it has long been known as the country’s largest institute.

“Texas A&M is the largest,” at least based on total employees plus total expenditures, the typical measure used to determine size and status, concedes VTTI director Tom Dingus. “But,” he adds, “they don’t get the grants we get.”

Nowhere in the United States does

a transportation research center get more money, according to VTTI communications officer Ceci Elpi. “We’re No. 1 in private-sector funding and federal grants,” she says.

Despite a controversial start, VTTI has grown steadily over the years, accumulating a wide array of partners and grants. It has played a leading role in research that already has changed laws and will impact future driving habits and transportation as a whole.

Every major auto manufacturer has visited the institute. VTTI’s impressive list of 70-plus partners includes BMW, Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, HyundaiKia, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota and Volvo.

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cover story explanation he gives. Seven longterm colleagues are his former students. But the road to success, he’s quick to note, has had a few bumps.

A group of guests, that included then-Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, (third on the left) admired one of VTTI’s instrumented motorcycles.

Among its government partners are the Department of Defense and four arms of the Department of Transportation: the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Research and Innovative Technology Administration.

Since Dingus became director in 1996, VTTI has generated more than $250 million in research expenditures. For fiscal 2013-2014, the institute and VTT LLC — an affiliated company of the institute’s Virginia Tech National Tire Research Center — got $36 million in sponsor grants and contracts.

That staff of 15 Dingus found upon arriving in Blacksburg has grown to more than 400, and the state’s “Smart Road” — a futuristic dream then — has seen more than 20,000 hours of testing for everything from distracted driving to driverless cars. Dingus has testified three times before Congress on driver distraction issues.

“They’ve passed a lot of laws,” he says, obviously pleased with 8

NOVEMBER 2014

VTTI’s impact on lawmakers’ judgment. Since VTTI reported in 2009 that texting while driving increases crash odds by 23 percent, 44 states (including Virginia) and the District of Columbia have banned texting while driving. In 2003, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, spurred by VTTI data, made its first substantial change since 1939 in the number of weekly hours long-distance truck drivers can work, reducing the maximum from 82 to 70.

Last year, the White House honored Dingus as a “Champion of Change,” one of a group of Americans lauded for making positive change at the national level. “That was a great honor. It’s something they do every year, but last year the focus was on transportation,” he says, explaining that he met former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and received a letter from President Obama.

Still, there’s not a hint of boastfulness when Dingus talks about his role in making VTTI one of the country’s top research centers.

“Hiring good people,” is the simple

Looking back It was July 8, 1997, on a hot day in Montgomery County’s Ellett Valley. The sun glared, birds twittered and the purplish petals of the smooth coneflower — an endangered herb — bowed beneath scorching rays. Gov. George Allen scooped a shovel of dirt and declared the state’s “Smart Road” officially under construction to the applause of 300 supporters. “Virginia is once again leading the nation.

We’re building the nation’s first smart road from the ground up,” Allen told the Richmond TimesDispatch.

Nearby, 30 opponents formed a protest circle, some toting black umbrellas in a symbolic funeral for the Ellett Valley, a bucolic Blacksburg bedroom community. Since the 5.7-mile road was first proposed in 1988 to connect Blacksburg to Interstate 81, its development had hit speed bumps.

Supporters praised the idea of building a highway equipped with fiber-optic sensors that would use navigational computers to improve driving safety and eventually link Blacksburg and Roanoke.

Moreover, they said, the road would bring millions of investment dollars. Detractors said the projected $100 million road was too expensive for taxpayers and too destructive to the landscape. Environmental groups filed two federal lawsuits to stop construction.

Then there was VDOT, the Virginia Department of Transportation, charged with planning construction, navigating regulations associated with the use of federal funds, crossing all the t’s, dotting all the i’s. The Federal Highway Administration approved VDOT’s final environmental impact statement in 1993. A year later, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inPhoto by Logan Wallace / Courtesy VTTI

formed the feds that the endangered smooth coneflower had been found in the building area. VDOT went back to the drawing table and proposed a 750-foot shift in the final leg of two miles of the Smart Road. That won favor with the Fish and Wildlife Service, but environmentalists used the coneflower issue as grounds for one lawsuit. The second claimed that impacts of snow-making machines and other equipment Virginia Tech planned to install on the Smart Road were untested.

The lawsuits were dismissed, but protests persisted. Three people were arrested at the groundbreaking after refusing to leave property owned by Federal-Mogul in the present-day Blacksburg Industrial Park. “It was a little freaky, I have to admit,� says Dingus now. “It was a struggle, but I knew we could make [the Smart Road] successful.�

The 56-year-old Dingus was 37 at the time. After earning advanced degrees from Virginia Tech in 1985 and 1987, he left a teaching position at the University of Iowa to return and oversee the research center and birth of the Smart Road.

The road’s 1.7-mile first phase opened in 1999. The second phase — the 175-foot-high bridge over Wilson Creek — was finished nearly three years later. The cost of the 2.2-mile stretch exceeded $70 million, but backers predicted the road would attract “$100 million in research money for product testing in the next 20 years,� according to Fredericksburg’s Free Lance-Star.

With more than $250 million to date, Dingus points out that the Smart Road has far exceeded expectations. Moreover, he says, it has served as the test bed for more than 1,000 projects. “We have almost 300 at any given time.�

The highway critics called “the road to nowhere� is still just that.

Although owned and maintained

by VDOT, the intense research conducted on the Smart Road

limits usage to VTTI. To relieve overcrowding on U.S. 460 between Blacksburg and Christiansburg, VDOT opened the Alternate 3A bypass in 2003. The Smart Road connection — known as Alternate 6 — remains a future possibility, but there are no immediate plans to extend it to the interstate. “It will happen eventually when traffic gets to the level where it’s needed,� Dingus says. “There’s no question it will be a regular road sooner or later.�

Meanwhile, researchers are using the Smart Road to find solutions for all kinds of problems. “The road is booked pretty much 24-7, � says truck researcher Kevin Grove. “It’s booked solid.�

Because of the road’s all-weather testing capabilities, VTTI may soon find ways to avoid fog-related disasters like the pileup last year on Interstate 77 in Carroll County’s Fancy Gap area. Three people died, and 25 were injured in 18 crashes

resulting from foggy conditions on the mountainous stretch. VTTI initiated an ongoing study to look at pavement-marking materials, light sources and technologies to keep such an event from occurring again.

For Dingus, saving lives is the real measure of success. That’s what propelled him into his life’s work, and that’s what continues to inspire his passion. “If you’re really going to save lives, you’ve got to be involved in transportation,� he says, explaining that traffic fatalities are close behind cancer and heart disease in claiming lives. “It’s the biggest killer for those between 4 and 34. If you’re a teenager, you’re more likely to die from a car crash than all other diseases and injuries combined. By far,� he adds, “most injuries are transportation related.�

National statistics support those claims. In 2012, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said transportation incidents accounted for more

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ROANOKE BUSINESS

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cover story VTTI testing facilities include the Virginia International Raceway, home to the National Tire Research Center.

than two out of five fatal work injuries. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found an estimated 2.3 million people were injured and 33,561 people killed in auto crashes in 2012. For the first quarter of 2014, however, the NHTSA reported a 4.9 percent fatality decrease compared with the first quarter of 2013.

Dingus believes VTTI’s work is making a difference. When he looks back on his years building the institute, he forgets the struggles and focuses on the achievements. “There’s no doubt,” he says, “that we have a big impact around the globe these days.”

The environmental impact that Smart Road protesters foresaw in 1997 is now moot. Occasionally, a deer will wander onto the Smart Road from the adjacent woods, but no fatalities have been reported. In fact, VTTI pays volunteers to act the part of wild animals during collision avoidance testing by running toward the highway. Researchers hope future cars will detect and avoid deer collisions, which cause about 200 deaths and cost $4 billion annually, according to Insurance Journal.

“I think we should always take 10

NOVEMBER 2014

environmental impact really seriously,” Dingus says of those early protests, “but we’ve had no complaints or environmental problems.”

Here and now Dingus obtained degrees in engineering and operations research, not business. Still, business sense is what drives VTTI. Dingus says his comes from “on-the-job training.”

“I learned long ago that you don’t want to have just a few sponsors,” he explains. “We had to survive, just like any business really …

We’re very diverse now. We do a lot of private- sector work. We’ve had a 17 percent average growth per year. We’re still growing.”

Dingus says VTTI is more selfsufficient than any other university entity. The institute rents six buildings at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center in Blacksburg and the Virginia International Raceway in Halifax County, using proceeds from its externally generated projects. For fiscal 2013-2014, the institute and VTT LLC — an affiliated company of the institute’s Virginia Tech National Tire Research Center had expenditures of $47.5 million, according to Elpi. “The

overhead earned on our sponsored funds pays for our rent and administrative costs, plus the cost of funding 30 to 40 graduate students,” she says.

Additionally, VTTI helps fund the local economy. “You can’t ignore the impact [VTTI] has on our economy,” says Brian Hamilton of the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development. “Bringing the research dollars for the companies here has a big impact … What we’ve seen is definitely an impact on jobs. The spinoff helps to raise our medium wage level. That spins off into the retail and housing, assisting our economy. The [institute] has constantly grown. They’re looking at increased research in the future.”

VTTI’s impact reaches beyond Montgomery County. In 2013, it spearheaded the Virginia Connected Test Bed near Fairfax, 43 wirelessly connected intersections along Interstate 66 and two highways, U.S. 29 and U.S. 50. The reallife test facility allows research on faster, more congested roads by equipping test cars with wireless communication devices that “talk” to sensors along the highway infrastructure. The $14 million project is funded by federal grants, VTTI and VDOT. Last year, The National Tire Research Center in Halifax County began tire testing on LTRe, an $11.5 million machine created by VTTI. Housed at Virginia International Raceway near Alton, the machine tests passenger-car and light-truck tires, as well as NASCAR samples, and has twice the capability of current tire machines.

VTT LLC, a nonprofit Tech corporation, was formed to commercialize the testing service.

“We created 35 jobs there,” Dingus says. “We’re very happy about that because that area needed jobs very badly.”

Connie Nyholm, majority owner of Virginia International Raceway, welcomed the tire research center. “They opened the tire cenPhoto by Logan Wallace / Courtesy VTTI

ter in January 2013, and already they have 2½ shifts,” she notes. Auto and tire manufacturers, as well as race teams, visit the raceway to test products on LTRe, which examines performance up to 200 mph.

“Virginia Tech wanted to do something in an outreach capacity.

They’ve been able to bring customers who certainly wouldn’t come to Southern Virginia otherwise,” Nyholm says. “It has brought diversity to the area and the workplace.

I consider our major benefit is to work together to grow economic development in our area.”

VTTI’s concentration on technology and driver research led to the creation of 12 different research centers in addition to the one at VIR. All of them, Dingus says, grew from needs.

“It’s really more tactical than strategic,” he says of the institute’s growth. “We learned to be nimble and respond to opportunities and, most importantly, be aware of needs.”

Data are on the director’s radar at the moment. “We have data — 90 percent of what exists in the world,” he says of naturalistic driving studies collected from more than 4,000 vehicles equipped with instruments that measure realworld driving behaviors. The institute’s Center for Data Reduction and Analysis Support, created last year, makes the data accessible to VTTI researchers and others.

“That’s a real opportunity,” Dingus says. “Our next big project is to create an international data center.”

Dingus sees no end to opportunities as he looks to his 20th year as VTTI’s director. “January will be the beginning of my 20th year.

We usually sign up for five-year increments. If they want me for another five years, I’ll stay.”

Besides, he can’t see himself going anywhere else. “Transportation, in one form or the other, is about 25 percent of the gross domestic product,” he says. “It’s a big area.”

Back to the future Speaking of the future, will cars actually drive themselves like the Google car that steered itself around the Smart Road last September?

“There’s no question there will be driverless cars,” says Dingus.

“The question is when. Every major car manufacturer is working on it. Very hard. Right now.”

The science of automated vehicles isn’t complicated, he adds, explaining that radios in the cars work like Wi-Fi. “A car is really a rolling computer with sensors that know position, as well as speed and Dingus heading. If you have two cars close together and they’re talking to the same GPS satellites, they each know the position of the other very accurately.”

He predicts the next big thing will be using connected-vehicle technology to aid in the development of automated vehicles. “It’s ultimately going to have a huge impact and save many lives. We were working on automated highway systems, ironically, in the late ’90s. Although the development of sensors and control systems has always been going on in an evolutionary fashion as technology advances, automation has come back in full force with many engineers working on it, the public getting excited about it and policymakers trying to figure out how to implement it while protecting the public.”

VTTI then, Dingus believes, is inventing the future — and the future is close. He expects motorists will start buying systems and applications for connected and automated vehicles in the next five to 10 years.

“Look what happened with smart phones,” he says. “I keep thinking the next big thing is the last one. But there’s always a next one.”

ROANOKE BUSINESS

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BANKING AND FINANCE

Branches for sale

Bank of America spokesperson Nicole Nastacie explains, “As more and more customers increasingly rely on other channels ... we’re adjusting our overall banking center network.”

As larger banks trim offices in favor of more online options, community banks scoop them up

by Joan Tupponce

B

ank of America’s cutback on Roanoke branches is HomeTrust Bank’s gain, and no one could be more pleased than Dana Stonestreet, the chairman, president and CEO of the North Carolina-based community bank. “Roanoke fits into our geographic footprint,” he says. “It was on our radar screen.”

In June, HomeTrust agreed to purchase 10 Bank of America locations in Virginia and North Carolina. Six of the branches are in the greater Roanoke Valley. Bank of America’s decision to sell the branches was a boon to HomeTrust, which had just opened a commercial loan office

Photo by Natalee Waters

in downtown Roanoke. The newly acquired branches will “accelerate our ability to serve more customers,” Stonestreet says. “It was perfect timing for us.”

Bank of America’s sale also boosted First Community Bank, a subsidiary of First Community Bancshares in Bluefield. The

purchase of six branches, including one in Blacksburg, helps First Community increase its presence in Southwest Virginia and complement its existing operations.

The branches bought by HomeTrust and First Community represent just a small percentage of the branches that Bank of ROANOKE BUSINESS

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banking and finance

George Morgan, SunTrust Professor of Finance at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business, says, “As long as it doesn’t damage their ability to serve customers, having fewer branches is attractive to banks.”

America has sold in the past few years. Since 2007, its branch network has decreased from 6,000 to 5,000 offices, according to SNL Financial, a financial information firm based in Charlottesville.

Since 2012, the bank has sold 271 branches.

“As more and more customers 14

NOVEMBER 2014

increasingly rely on other channels, including mobile and online banking, we’re adjusting our overall banking center network,” explains Bank of America spokesperson Nicole Nastacie. “As we’ve acknowledged on numerous occasions, the number of banking centers in our nationwide network will trend

down over the next few years.”

The sale of branches in the Roanoke area is part of the bank’s effort to adapt its network to customers’ changing needs and habits, she says.

Bank of America chose to sell the offices so that they could continue operation. “This decision maintains job opportunities for our banking center associates, keeps more banking centers open in the community and allows local customers to continue banking at the location that is most convenient for them,” Nastacie says.

Bank of America’s move reflects a banking trend toward fewer branches. “That has been a trend for a number of years,” says George Morgan, SunTrust Professor of Finance at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business. “Plus, with recent regulatory pressures, an advantage to reducing the number of branches is that it helps their capital ratios. As long as it doesn’t damage their ability to serve customers, having fewer branches is attractive to banks.”

Technology also factors in. A November 2013 study published by the management consulting firm Accenture found bank branches are giving way to digital banking.

The top 25 banks in the United States, the report says, spend more than $50 billion per year to maintain branch networks. “With the advent of technology you can get rid of branches and lower the assets you have,” Morgan says.

Nonetheless, Bank of America said in a 2014 Trends in Consumer Mobility Report that, while 47 percent of respondents prefer mobile or online banking, visits to bank branches also remain high. Eightyfour percent had visited a bank branch in the past six months. That coincides with what Morgan sees in his classroom. When he asked students how many had visited a branch in the last two months, he was surprised to learn that twothirds said they had. “But they were there because something had Photo Courtesy of Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business

gone wrong. They had a problem,” he says.

Susan Still, CEO of HomeTown Bank in Roanoke, believes the advent of online and mobile banking negates the need for multiple branches. “I do think branches are very important, but you won’t see branches on every corner like you used to,” she says.

“I think branches will continue to be a key delivery system for banks along with online and mobile banking.”

Community banks such as HomeTrust and HomeTown like to focus on customer service and one-to-one banking. “People that bank want someone they consider to be an important part of their financial mix,” Still says.

Banking customers always will bank when, where and how its convenient for them. When they have problems or need Bentley help, “they want to talk to a banker,” says Elizabeth Bentley, executive vice president and chief retail officer of Union First Market, which has eight branches in Roanoke and nine in the New River Valley. “We relish the opportunity to meet face-to-face with them and get to know them. That’s how you understand what their needs are and provide solutions for them.”

While customers use mobile and online banking to pay bills and make deposits, they often come into a branch to “open an IRA or get a mortgage or make an investment decision,” observes Bentley.

Financial institutions are reconsidering their branch footprints as they plan for the future.

“You have institutions that are selling branches and institutions that are buying branches,” Stonestreet says. “It’s a very dynamic time in banking. Over the next five years the level of change will continue to increase.”

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has an exciting lineup to kick off the new year!

The January issue includes:

Feature: General Assembly Business Trends: Health Care Technology Community Profile: Montgomery County Special Report: Roanoke College For information on how your marketing message can be a part of this exciting issue, please contact: Lynn Williams - 540-597-2499 lwilliams@roanoke-business.com ADVERTISING DEADLINES: Ad space - 11/14 Ad material - 11/21

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banking and finance HomeTown Bank CEO Susan Still says brick and mortar branches are important, “but you won’t see branches on every corner like you used to.”

Banks will continue to accelerate their online and mobile banking channels but also will continue to rely on branches, he says. “I think

and foremost. We are continuing to grow to add more value to our customer relationships and services. You have to have a place for them to come to Stonestreet and build that personal relationship.”

Even though younger customers favor online and mobile banking, Morgan believes there are still people who want that personal touch. “Community banks can do that,” he says. “But it’s a dwindling part of the market because it’s expensive to have bricks-andmortar as opposed to online services.”

Will there be a day when branches will cease to exist?

“There is not a trend down to zero,” Morgan says. “But there is a it’s going to be bricks and clicks,” trend toward something more reaStonestreet says. “As a community sonable. The banking system may bank, we are relationship focused. become much less visible to the We are in the people business first consumer.”

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COMMERCIAL INSURANCE

Dr. Sid Barritt talks with Michael Jordan during a visit at the Bradley Free Clinic in Roanoke.

Uncertain future The Affordable Care Act is having effects, but it’s too early to judge the final outcome

by Mason Adams

A

fter 33 years of serving uninsured patients in Christiansburg, the Free Clinic of the New River Valley changed its name and business model in January.

The facility is now known as the Community Health Center

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of the New River Valley. It’s one of about 1,200 community health centers across the U.S., including New Horizons Healthcare in Roanoke and the Tri-Area Community Health Center in Ferrum.

CEO Michelle Brauns says the change came about as a di-

rect result of the Affordable Care Act — the health-care reform law passed by Congress in 2010. The law, intended to provide better, more affordable health coverage, mandates that, with a few exceptions, every American be covered by health insurance or pay a penPhoto by Natalee Waters

alty that will increase each year.

Over time, it should dramatically decrease the number of uninsured Americans — affecting a clinic whose mission was to serve the uninsured.

Faced with an uncertain future, the free clinic chose a different route. “As a free clinic only serving the uninsured, the model was not sustainable, nor appropriate for meeting the health-care needs of the population post-national health-care reform,” Brauns wrote about the decision. The clinic’s board decided that becoming a community health center “was the optimal pathway into the future and the most secure way to meet the evolving needs of our target population during and after health-care reform.”

In December 2013, the clinic closed its doors, only to reopen two weeks later with the new name and business model. The U.S. Health Resources Brauns and Services Administration (HRSA) designated it a community health center, along with a $733,000 grant. The grant amount will decrease to $650,000 next year, where it will remain so long as the clinic remains a community health center, Those funds account for about a third of the center’s budget.

The shift “allows us to stay true to the uninsured,” says Brauns.

“Community health centers do not deny anyone primary health care.

Unlike a private family practice, [which] can make determinations about what type of patients it will see — often you’ll hear a doctor not taking any more Medicaid patients — we don’t deny care to anyone at any time.”

The center uses a sliding fee scale for patients, with charges as low as $25. It also works with patients to establish payment plans if they can’t pay out of pocket. Since this is the first year of the healthPhoto by Alisa Moody

The number of patients visiting the Community Health Center of the New River Valley increased 116 percent in the first half of 2014.

care mandate, with a relatively minor penalty, it’s too soon to tell how it will ultimately affect the mix of patients at the new community health center.

Since January, the number of individual patients seen at the center rose 116 percent through the first half of the year, with a similar increase in the number of patient visits. “I wouldn’t say we’ve seen

dramatic changes,” Brauns says.

“We’ve seen a steady change in the addition of patients who have insurance. That was one of our goals.”

The clinic also saw a similar increase in the number insured through the federal marketplace.

Additionally, the clinic has four employees who are certified as application counselors to help people seeking insurance.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

19

commercial insurance In Roanoke, the Bradley Free Clinic operates much as the NRV clinic used to. Bradley Free Clinic Medical Director Kevin Kelleher says —and Brauns agrees — that even with changes coming from the ACA, there’s still a population of patients who just can’t afford health care. “[For] some people at the clinic, $5 will prohibit them from getting a prescription,” Kelleher says. “Even with co-pays, they can’t afford it. That’s why we’ll still be in business at the free clinic.”

One of the biggest problems for clinic patients, says Kelleher, is that prescriptions often cost more than $5. He admits he has some “strong opinions” about the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003.

He says the law added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare but “made generic drug costs go through the ceiling.”

He blames a section of the law that limited profits on generic drugs while adding a host of regu-

20

NOVEMBER 2014

lations. The result was that many companies stopped making certain drugs, resulting in shortages that drove costs upward.

That’s a huge problem for patients on low, fixed incomes. It’s also an issue the Bradley Free Clinic sees on a regular basis. “The majority of patients I see don’t need knee transplants, but they need hypertension medication,” Kelleher says.

Brauns said the mix of illnesses and conditions treated at the NRV center is similarly complex. “People have complex medical issues,” she says. “We’re serving oncology patients, coming not for their cancer treatments but undergoing cancer treatment and coming to us for their family medicine … Diabetes is very common.

We also get patients with mental health issues, so anti-depression medicine is common. Four or five medications, that’s not untypical of our patients.”

Another major cost driver is patients’ use of hospital emergency rooms for primary-care treatment. “Under the federal law, if someone walks into an ER, it’s a requirement for the ER to assess and stabilize them,” says state Sen. Bill Stanley of Franklin County, who spent the summer visiting medical facilities in his district.

“Rural people are using emergency rooms as doctor’s offices. If they have a flu, they walk into the emergency room. It costs the hospitals a lot of money, either from reduced pay or a Medicaid/Medicare reimbursement. It’s a loss leader and causes costs to rise.”

Stanley says he will sponsor a series of bills in upcoming General Assembly sessions to address the issue. They would include creating regional care associations and making adjustments in the use of health-care savings accounts.

Stanley opposed the expansion of Medicaid in this spring’s legislative fight, partly because he says fewer doctors are accepting Medicaid patients. Those who do often aren’t taking new patients.

Stanley poses the issue this way: “Knowing that Medicaid expansion will not occur, what are the alternatives to bring down health-care costs, deliver more quality care to those who need it and to close the hospital gap of funds that they’ve lost from reduction of Medicare payments under the ACA?” Stanley says the key to lowering costs is to get patients engaged in their treatment, including its cost. Part of that shift includes making more options available in rural areas. This could include the use of telemedicine or nurse practitioners for routine medical care.

Once patients are invested in their care — even if that simply involves paying a flat fee at a low-cost clinic — people will work to quit smoking, eat healthier food and proactively treat illness, helping to lower costs to themselves and the American health-care system.

What happens now?

O

bamacare’s long-term effects on health-care costs are uncertain. The ACA attempts to drive down costs through changes that range from restricting the percentage of payments that insurance companies can devote to administrative costs to mandating people buy health insurance to broaden the risk pool.

Critics argue that it’s a flawed piece of legislation that won’t have the intended effect but instead will increase costs.

So what effects will the Affordable Care Act actually have?

No one knows for sure. There are plenty of stories about individual costs going up or down, but most experts admit that trying to gauge systemic trends is merely speculation until the law is fully implemented. A steady stream of federal court decisions, some of which contradict one another, cloud the crystal ball even further.

The 2014 annual report of the Boards of Trustees for Medicare — a major driver of health-care costs and reimbursement rates — included this on the uncertainty of cost projections: “Projections of Medicare costs are highly uncertain, especially when looking out more than several decades. One reason for uncertainty is that scientific advances will make possible new interventions, procedures and therapies.

Some conditions that are untreatable today will be handled routinely in the future. Spurred by economic incentives, the institutions through which care is delivered will evolve, possibly becoming more efficient. While most healthcare technological advances to date have tended to increase expenditures, the health-care landscape is shifting. No one knows whether these future developments will, on balance, increase or decrease costs.”

Health-care costs have grown,

but much more slowly in recent years. According to the Office of the Actuary (OACT) in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, health-care spending grew by 3.9 percent each year from 2009 through 2011 — the lowest rate of growth since the government started tracking the statistic in 1960. In 2012 that figure

dropped even lower, down to 3.7 percent, or $8,915 per person.

That slowdown started before the ACA was passed. Yet the slower rate of growth has remained even as the economy has recovered. Since the law hasn’t yet been fully implemented, the question of what will happen in future years remains open to speculation.

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Endorse them and they will come?

Roanoke Valley attracts new national retailers

by Jenny Kincaid Boone

rom Chico’s to Kohl’s and Chipotle to H&M, the Roanoke Valley seems to have caught the eye of some major retail brands.

Commercial real estate experts say an improved economic climate and the valley’s demographics are helping to draw new national retailers. An endorsement by residents via a website probably didn’t hurt, either.

Still, some national retailers

F

may never land in Southwest Virginia. And not all local commercial retail developments are progressing.

As early as 2011, the Roanoke Valley began scoring several national retailers that once appeared on a list of the region’s most coveted stores and restaurants. The list, which took shape as a website, MyRetailRoanoke.com, was created by the city of Roanoke’s economic development department

in 2007 to capture the attention of national chains that consumers hoped would locate to the Roanoke Valley. Consumers voted for the retailers that they wanted to come to the region.

National clothing and accessories retailer Kohl’s topped the list, followed by other well-known stores and restaurants, including Chico’s, Chipotle, Trader Joe’s, Chili’s and The Cheesecake Factory.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

23

commercial real estate/retail Chipotle is one of a number of national chains that opened in the New River Valley before coming to the Roanoke Valley.

About seven years later, the website no longer exists, but several of its top retailers now have Roanoke-area homes.

The former retail website likely is not the reason for the success

24

NOVEMBER 2014

of the past several years, says Lisa Soltis, an economic development specialist for Roanoke who helped launch MyRetailRoanoke.com. Still, “it may have stirred the pot a little bit,” she says. “It just kind of brought

attention and planted seeds.”

Those seeds include Kohl’s, which opened its first area store at Roanoke County’s Hunting Hills Plaza in 2011. Others are Chico’s, a high-end women’s apparel retailer that landed at the Forum Shopping Center in Roanoke County in 2011, and Chipotle, a Mexican fast-food restaurant that opened at Towers Shopping Center in Roanoke, also in 2011.

More recently, the trendy H&M apparel retailer opened its doors at Valley View Mall in Roanoke, while Five Below, a discount store aimed at teens and pre-teens, recently landed at Towne Square Shopping Center in Roanoke.

Also, plans are in the works for Wal-Mart to open its new Neighborhood Market stores in three Roanoke-area locations in the next year. These stores carry grocery items and are smaller than typical Super Wal-Marts.

The region has the right mix of a small population increase and a stronger economic outlook, compared with several years ago, says John Nielsen, a vice president with Cushman & Wakefield|Thalhimer, a Richmond-based real estate firm with a Roanoke office.

The total population for the Roanoke metropolitan statistical area rose to 311,000 in 2013, up 7.4 percent from 289,500 in 2005, according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. The population is predicted to increase to 318,200 in 2018.

Also, the Roanoke MSA’s unemployment rate was 6.5 percent in June, down from 7.3 percent in June 2013, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Retailers consider closely these kinds of demographics when making location decisions. Timing is another factor, Nielsen says.

For example, retailers may first go to Richmond and then gradually make their way across the state, a move dictated by the market conditions in each place. “If you want to know what retail’s coming to RoaPhoto by Natalee Waters

Kohl’s opened its first store in the area at Roanoke County’s Hunting Hills Plaza in 2011.

noke, go up I-81,” says Matt Huff, a broker with Poe & Cronk Real Estate Group in Roanoke.

Others may test the waters in the New River Valley first, particularly if they are seeking a collegeage audience. Take Chipotle. The popular chain opened a restaurant in Blacksburg before coming to Roanoke, where its opening drew large crowds and fans who camped overnight in the eatery’s parking lot.

But not all retailers find a fit in the region. Keagy Village, a 15acre retail center in Southwest Roanoke County, hasn’t landed an anchor retailer since its opening in 2008.

Also, demographics may attract or deter certain retailers. The Roanoke region is known for having a significant population of retirees, Huff says. For some retailers, that is an attractive demographic.

For others, it is not. “Every retailer has a different demographic target for their store and their product,” Huff says.

Trader Joe’s, a specialty grocer, is one retailer many Roanoke-area Photo by Natalee Waters

residents would like to see land in the region, Soltis says. However, the grocer does not plan to open a new store in Virginia for at least the next two years, says Alison Mochizuki, a spokeswoman for Trader Joe’s, based in California. Also, Trader Joe’s does not disclose its criteria for choosing store sites, she says.

Even so, one Trader Joe’s fan who lives in Roanoke created a Facebook page with the hopes of persuading the grocer to come.

Several years ago, after moving back to his native Roanoke Valley from Richmond, Matt Wirt launched the “Bring Trader Joe’s to Roanoke” Facebook page.

Here he posts news about Trader Joe’s and interacts with other fans of the grocer, often encouraging them to contact the retailer to request a Roanoke store. Wirt says he created the page to “make some noise” and to get the attention of Trader Joe’s corporate office. He realizes that his efforts may not bring Trader Joe’s to the Roanoke Valley. “I would say consideration is better than nothing,” says Wirt, a

full- time Web developer.

He first shopped at a Trader Joe’s store in Richmond, where he lived for 10 years. The grocer became a regular stop for Wirt, a vegetarian whose favorite Trader Joe’s products include peanut butter jelly knots and cheese-less frozen pizza. “I like the way they conduct business, and I like the way they treat their employees,” says Wirt.

Trader Joe’s claims that many of its store-branded products are made with ingredients that do not contain genetically modified organisms. “I’m pretty picky when it comes to retailers,” he adds. Wirt shops for groceries at the Natural Foods Co-op in Roanoke and at Kroger and Fresh Market. “I stand by the notion that [Trader Joe’s] would be a good fit for the Roanoke area,” he says.

Meanwhile, Wirt would like to start a Trader Joe’s shopping trip program. When people visit a Trader Joe’s store, they could take a list of Roanoke-area residents’ desired goods and arrange to bring them back.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

25

COMMUNITY PROFILE | BOTETOURT COUNTY

Building a

balanced economy 26

NOVEMBER 2014

Botetourt County wants agriculture in the mix but looks to grow by helping other industries, too Photo by Natalee Waters

Ned Jeter II, 14-month-old Sedley Jeter, Rose Jeter and Ned Jeter stand in a corn maze on the Jeter farm in Botetourt County.

Botetourt, with 260,137 acres of farmland, ranks 53rd out of 95 Virginia counties for the value of agriculture sold.

by Beth Jones

N

ed Jeter II still sounds proud when he talks about the long-ago day his preschool class took a field trip to his family’s farm.

“It was super cool,” Jeter says. “Especially when your dad is the driver of the hayride.”

Today Jeter, 33, works full time on the family farm. Even as a kid, he knew he wanted to be a farmer when he grew up. “In one way, shape or form.”

Once almost completely rural, Botetourt County’s landscape has experienced a radical transformation in recent years. In the Daleville section of U.S. 220, fast-food restaurants, upscale shops and doctors’ offices multiplied like dandelions where lush farms and orchards once stood. Nevertheless, Jeter has plenty of brethren in Botetourt singing the praises of agriculture.

“Where there used to be 20 to 30 dairies in Botetourt, now there are five to 10, but those farmers are getting it done and looking forward to the future,” says Jeter.

“Agriculture in Botetourt is extremely important,” says Jay Brenchick, who recently celebrated his first anniversary as the county’s economic development manager.

Botetourt, with 260,137 acres of farmland, ranks 53rd out of 95 Virginia counties for the value of agriculture sold, according to the 2012 Census of Agriculture. According to that report, the average Botetourt farm is 152 acres. Yet Jeter says the county also boasts many smaller properties. In these cases, homeowners work day jobs and tend to gardens of, say, three acres in the evenings, selling the produce at weekend farmers markets. “That kind of thing is contributing to agriculture in the county, as well,” he says.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

27

community profile

Cody Thompson, 16, (left) and Wyatt Crawford, 17, during a combined Welding II and Welding III class at Botetourt Technical Education Center.

With so many county residents interested in farming, whether full time or as a hobby, Brenchick wants to make sure Botetourt isn’t missing ways to make money through agriculture. He is applying for a grant to fund a study examining whether there are economic development tools that could support and develop agriculture in Botetourt. The money to hire the consultants would come through the Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund.

“I really need to have a good study done by people who are experts in the area,” Brenchick says, “and have the study involve the community, especially the agriculture community, so that I know logical steps to take to go in that 28

NOVEMBER 2014

direction.”

Jeter heard about Brenchick’s plan, and he’s receptive to hearing what the researchers find. It makes sense for the county to want to support Botetourt’s farmers, he says, because agriculture requires fewer services from the county than other industries or big subdivisions.

“You don’t need an ambulance for a cow.”

Nevertheless, Botetourt County doesn’t want to put all its economic eggs into one farming basket.

There’s potential for retail growth in Troutville, and industrial expansion is on the way in Daleville.

Altec Industries in Daleville wants to purchase an additional 30 acres at the Botetourt Center at Greenfield where the company has operated since 2001. The company

makes truck-mounted equipment for the electric utility, telecommunications, contractor and tree-care industries.

Altec plans to invest $1 million for building and expansions by the end of 2014 and $2 million in machinery and tools during the next two years, creating at least 100 full-time jobs by the end of 2016.

“What we did is we asked for some additional acreage to accommodate our current size and shape and our ability to do anything we need to do in the future,” explains Jeff Emry, Altec’s regional vice president of operations.

Including the recent land option agreement, the Altec facility will occupy about 80 acres. Emry declined to say how many people the location employs now. “We’ve Photo by Natalee Waters

Botetourt County at a glance Area

548 square miles

Population

33,002 (2013 estimate)

Percent of population with high school diploma or higher

90.1%

Percent of population with bachelor degree or higher

22.7%

Median household income

$66,053

Unemployment

5.1% (July 2014)

On-time high school graduation rate

94.6% (2013)

Annual budget

$90.6 million (2014-2015)

Sources: Botetourt.org; United States Census Bureau; Virginia Department of Education; Virginia Employment Commission

been very fortunate to have steady growth over the years … We may talk about growth spurts and that type of thing, [but] it’s just not our practice to share specifics on production levels or employment levels,” says Emry.

The operation has enough employees, however, to make Altec the third-largest employer in Botetourt, according to the Virginia Employment Commission. “Altec has been one of our strongest businesses,” notes County Administrator Kathleen Guzi. “We want to do what we can to support their growth.”

One way the county supports Altec and other local industries is through the Botetourt Technical Education Center. “We have a vibrant welding program,” says Botetourt County Schools Superintendent Tony Brads. The program is popular with students and local employers.

The school system has been working closely with Altec’s leadership on what type of equipment would be useful for an advanced welding lab that Brads would like to see at the school. The lab would double the student capacity for the welding program and require about $450,000 worth of equipment. Brads says the money would

be raised by the school’s education foundation, which likely will ask for donations from area industries that need welders.

“It will allow us to be a better partner with business and indus-

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try because it will be the welding equipment that industries are using right now,” Brads says.

Altec plans to support the project. “It should educate folks who go there to be competent in the skills

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ROANOKE BUSINESS

29

community profile

Interstate 81’s Exit 150 in Troutville in Botetourt County is on the cusp of a makeover.

we will require,” Emry says.

Just down the road from Altec, Interstate 81’s Exit 150 in Troutville is another Botetourt County area that’s on the cusp of a makeover.

A drive around the interchange shows signs of some of the many changes due to come with the $46.7 million project to reconfigure the interchange — work scheduled to The courthouse in Fincastle, the county seat, has been rebuilt three times. Botetourt County once stretched into what’s now Wisconsin.

30

NOVEMBER 2014

begin next spring.

Gene’s Trading Post, an antiques store housed in what shop assistant Lori Taube believes to be a 100-year-old barn in Cloverdale, was forced to move because of the road project. The store will leave Botetourt, moving to what was formerly the location of the Harvest House near Hollins University in Roanoke County.

That’s not the only loss the county will bear from the road project. Botetourt’s current budget makes allowances for a $200,000 “revenue reduction” because of the Exit 150 work from estimated decreases in taxes, particularly those from the loss of truck stop TravelCenters of America, which also was forced to close to make way for the project.

On the other hand, the new Exit 150 will open up additional acreage for development. “We know eventually that loss of revenue could be more than offset by increased development opportunity,” Guzi says.

County administrators plan to select a consulting firm this month to undertake a “market-based feaPhotos by Natalee Waters

sibility study and economic analysis of the Exit 150 area,” according to Brenchick. “Rather than try to fit a square peg in a round hole,” he explains, “we’re doing a feasibility study … What [consultants will] do is a whole complete analysis for us and tell us not specifically a business, but the types of businesses and the sizes of businesses that will work.”

County administrators plan to select a consulting firm this month to undertake a “market-based feasibility study and economic analysis of the Exit 150 area.”

Botetourt County likely to sit out recent regional effort As this article went to press, it appeared unlikely Botetourt County would participate in an $8.2 million project proposed by the Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority to lay more than 60 miles of fiber — meaning increased access to high-speed Internet — a move some Roanoke Valley officials consider key in recruiting high-tech businesses. Officials seem to think the county’s $2 million share could be put to better use.

“I don’t think it brings anything to Botetourt,” says John Williamson, who represents Buchanan on the county’s Board of Supervisors.

“We’re in a little bit different situation out here in Botetourt,” explains Guzi.

Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative, a not-for-profit created to bring high-speed broadband to rural locations in Southern Virginia, installed fiber in Botetourt

County in 2013, according to Tad Deriso, president and chief executive of the cooperative.

That cable reaches both Botetourt’s EastPark Commerce Center and Greenfield, says Guzi.

County staff are in talks with Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative now, she adds, about “what opportunities will that [fiber-optic line] bring to other service providers in the area and if we were to do

something with the [Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority] would that not be redundant.”

From an economic development standpoint, Brenchick feels Roanoke City and Salem have more to gain from the current broadband proposal than Botetourt County does. “We just need to make sure if we’re spending our taxpayers dollars, it’s benefiting our taxpayers,” he says.

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INTERVIEW: Edwin Whitelaw, co-owner, New River Valley Unwired

Edwin Whitelaw’s desire for better Internet service grew into a business with nearly 1,400 customers.

No wires required The search for a good Internet connection leads to a new career

by Michael Abraham

I

t may not be fair to call Edwin Whitelaw a reluctant entrepreneur, but he’s clearly an accidental one.

Whitelaw became an entrepreneur in his mid-50s after coming back to the New River Valley from Greensboro to be closer to his mother and his ailing father.

He left a good job with General Dynamics, but with two engineering degrees and 30 years’ experience, he was sure he’d find a job. What he and his wife found was a home near a 2,200-foot-high ridge with a view of more than 30 miles in nearly every direction. It was a beautiful place, but it didn’t have high-speed Internet access. “We were on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks,” Whitelaw says,

32

NOVEMBER 2014

“actually, the wrong side of the interstate.”

So, he talked with some co-workers and started tinkering. “I was merely looking to get myself connected,” Whitelaw says. “Then, I looked at my neighboring houses and realized they didn’t have service either. Knowing that I could visually see the Riner Valley, Union Valley and most of the surrounding area, and knowing that if I could visually see it a radio beam could see it, I thought it might work to connect myself and then connect other houses as well. I realized I might have an opportunity.”

Whitelaw signed a contract with Charter Communications allowing him to resell Internet access. He and his wife started New River Valley Unwired and

signed up some neighbors. NRV Unwired paid $250 each month for a hardwired connection, then beamed access from the Whitelaws’ ridge.

“If we could get 50 customers, we’d have a neighborhood co-op. If we could get 500 customers, we’d generate a quarter of a million dollars in income, and we ought to be able to make that work,” Whitelaw says. “As we speak, we have almost 1,400 customers.”

Those customers stretch from the north end of Wythe County through Pulaski, Montgomery and Giles counties and into the Roanoke Valley. “I always felt comfortable that if it didn’t work out, I could always fold it up and get a real job,” Whitelaw says.

Photo by Alisa Moody

Roanoke Business: What type of company is NRV Unwired and who is your competition?

Edwin Whitelaw: We are a full-service Internet service provider. All ISPs have an upstream provider that connects with the greater Internet. There are big pipes that crisscross the country, and the ISPs tap into them.They don’t have individual customers.

There are large but regional ISPs like Shentel and Lumos and, of course, the telcos like Verizon. The Internet by definition is a network of networks.

We buy bandwidth from a wholesaler and then distribute it to individual homes and businesses. We talk about partnering, merging and backing up each other. It’s all about connections. That’s a pun. All businesses are about personal connections, but ours is about Internet connections as well.

Some of our competitors like Verizon and Comcast are enormous. NRV Unwired has to be technically good enough to work as advertised. We have to provide the level of service people pay for. We want [customers] who want great service at a good price and care about supporting a local company. When customers call us, they don’t get a machine; they get a person. Alison. Or Michael.

RB: What is your business structure?

Whitelaw: We are privately held by my wife and me. We have nine employees.

They are installers, in-house technicians and an office manager.

RB: What were your first technical challenges?

Whitelaw: We are standing in a shed that I built in four wall sections in my garage, carted them up the hill and bolted them together, and began filling with equipment.

It is only eight-by-eight, but now it is insulated, heated and air-conditioned. We laughingly call it our world headquarters. Now we have a half-dozen nodes scattered about the region.

Surprisingly, the biggest technical challenge is keeping power on at our many remote sites. We have evolved our power systems and now can stay online for several days even if line power is out due to a storm.

RB: How do you know how to do this?

Whitelaw: I didn’t know I didn’t know

how to do it! One word: books. The mechanical engineering education and profession teaches us how to learn. It provides a base for me to learn any of the other disciplines.The smartest people I’ve ever known never think they’re that smart. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.

I’ve always been a learner. When I was with AT&T back in 1984, my boss asked me to buy some of the new personal computers on the market and see what we could do with them. We put a CAD [computer assisted design] program on them. A year later, he asked me to buy five more. I was a mechanical engineer, but I by default became the IT guy. It was only some years later that they hired a dedicated IT guy. I had no formal training, but I was good at computers and programming. I learned a piece at a time.

RB: What were the steps in the business’ progress?

Whitelaw: Things happened subtly, but looking back I see them as milestones.

When we had 30 or 40 customers, when it was time to mail invoices, my wife and I would watch Jeopardy together while stuffing and sealing envelopes. We’d be done before the show was over. Within a few months, it took two shows before we were done. We went to self-seal envelopes.Then we ditched the labels and got preprinted envelopes.

We try hard not to incur debt but when some exciting hardware became available last year that we really needed, we went into debt for $6,000 to buy it. But in terms of overall operations, we don’t have debt. We’re just under $700,000 in gross sales.

Another was when we moved from the basement of my house to get an office in town [Christiansburg].Then we hired an employee. I resist the steps until I know we can afford it. We were 10 years old this January.

Regarding challenges on the technical side, we were using equipment that was designed to take a signal across a living room, not a mile across an interstate.

We got to 150 to 200 customers that way.

We could go about five miles. Lots of companies around the country and the world began doing much the same thing, so the equipment manufacturers began building devices specifically for outdoor and longer-distance use. That continues apace. We

are capable of providing greater connection speeds and distances now than we dreamed of 10 years ago … We have a customer in Giles County that is 15.6 miles from the tower. It’s pretty amazing. If we can see a house from any of our towers, we can service them.

In the early days, two to three megabits [per second] was outstanding. We have four speed tiers now, up to 10 megabits.The device we bought recently has 700-megabit, point-to-point connection. Customer demand is always increasing. We are driving a locomotive into the fog, and we hope somebody is laying track out there.

The other hard part is running a business. There is paperwork. Taxes. Compliance.

Workers’ comp. Insurance. Sometimes it is overwhelming. None of it sounds that difficult individually, but in the aggregate, it is always more demanding … than I ever envisioned.

RB: What’s the future look like?

Whitelaw: Cloudy. There are some FCC issues regarding the use of the airwaves that may impact us. But we’re diversifying. We have developed some monitoring hardware that has been useful for us, and we envision it being useful for other WISPs [Wireless Internet Service Providers]. We may be selling more hardware. I’m confident now. We have a good base.

RB: How long are you going to do this?

Whitelaw: As long as it’s fun. We may merge or be purchased. I am building better systems, technically and personnelwise, so that the company isn’t always dependent upon me. I’m in good health. My wife and I would like … to take a couple months off. I have a new general manager who can let me go out of town without bad things happening.

One of the fun things about my work is that I’ve been on the top of lots of 60and 70-foot towers on the tops of 3,000foot mountains: Price, Poor, Draper and Brush. I don’t do it as much any more, but it’s exciting.

I don’t think I ever don’t want to work.

I think of this as being able to play with the biggest puzzle in the world. Picture yourself as being a big crossword puzzle fan and somebody is paying you to solve them. The network is ever changing. For me, it’s still fun.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

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SPONSORED CONTENT | Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce EVENT SPONSORSHIP

2014 CHAMBER CHAMPIONS BB&T Brown Edwards Cox Business Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore LeClairRyan LifeWorks REHAB (Medical Facilities of America) MB Contractors

Pepsi Bottling Group rev.net Richfield Retirement Community Spilman Thomas & Battle PLLC Trane Valley Bank Woods Rogers Attorneys at Law

Note: Chamber champions are members who support the Roanoke Regional Chamber through year-round sponsorships in exchange for year-round recognition.

Business Before Hours – Aug. 29 YMCA of Roanoke Valley Doctors Express Business After Hours – Sept. 9 Soaring Ridge Craft Brewers Spilman Thomas & Battle PLLC

NEW MEMBERS The following businesses joined the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce from Aug. 9 through Sept. 9.

Hill Studio P.C. Innovative Maintenance Services LLC Inxpress Permatile Concrete Products Co.

Soaring Ridge Craft Brewers T.J. Carter Consulting Turner Fundraising and Associates LLC Ulliman Schutte Construction LLC

Member news & recognitions Advance Auto Parts, the largest automotive aftermarket parts provider in North America, has elected John F. Ferraro to its board of directors. His appointment will be effective in February Ferraro 2015, subsequent to his retirement as global chief operating officer of Ernst & Young.

G. Lyn Hayth III, president and CEO of Bank of Botetourt, has been elected chairman of the board for Community Bankers Bank Financial Corp. for the 2014-2015 year. Hayth succeeds Ellie L. Gutshall of Valley Bank, who served as chairman for 2013-2014.

Brown Edwards has announced the acquisition of the accounting and tax practice of MDR Tax & Financial Services. Brown Edwards is a fullservice accounting firm with seven locations in West Virginia and Virginia.

Carilion Roanoke Memorial and Community Hospitals have been named a 2014 award winner from Professional Research Consultants (PRC), a national health-care marketing research company. PRC conducts a confidential annual survey of patients’ perceptions of their care. Carilion Roanoke Memorial and Community Hospitals were awarded 5-Star Awards, scoring in the top 10 percent or above the 90th percentile of PRC’s national client database for 2013. Roanoke Memorial’s NICU was recognized for overall quality of care. Community Hospital’s endoscopy services were recognized for overall quality of care.

Clark Nexsen has been ranked number seven among the Building Design+Construction magazine’s University Sector Architecture Firms list of top architecture firms. Clark Nexsen has helped shape learning and living environments on more than 100 college campuses.

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NOVEMBER 2014

HSH Insurance and Safety Services has announced that Steve McBride has joined the firm as manager of the workforce wellness isokinetic testing McBride program.

The Salem-based insurance firm has also announced that Tim Walker Walker has joined the staff as director of safety services.

The law firm of CowanPerry has announced that Douglas W. Densmore was recently appointed to the Commonwealth of Virginia Densmore Treasury Board by Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Tara A. Branscom has been Branscom named to the Virginia State Bar’s Intellectual Property Board of Governors.

Jefferson College of Health Sciences has been named one of the top health and medicine colleges in the state by Virginia Living Magazine.

Jefferson is one of only four colleges chosen for this honor in the four-year college category.

Virginia Living’s Top High Schools & Colleges 2014 is part of the publication’s annual “State of Education” supplement.

Roanoke County received a Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award at the Esri International User Conference in San Diego. This award acknowledges vision, leadership, hard work and innovative use of Esri’s geographic information system (GIS) technology. Roanoke County uses the technology to create single-focused GIS applications for casual and citizen users.

Ayers

Creasy

Ries

Eure

Wallace

Johnson, Ayers & Matthews has announced that five of its attorneys were selected by their peers for inclusion in the 2015 edition of The Best Lawyers in America. Those honored are: Ronald M. Ayers, eminent domain and condemnation law and personal injury litigation – defendants; William P. Wallace, Jr., personal injury litigation – defendants; John D. Eure, appellate practice and insurance law; Kenneth J. Ries, insurance law and personal injury litigation – defendants; and Bryan Grimes Creasy, commercial litigation, litigation – real estate, and railroad law. Best Lawyers, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession, has also named Ayers as “Roanoke Lawyer of the Year for Personal Injury Litigation – Defendants,” and Eure as “Roanoke Lawyer of the Year for Appellate Practice” for 2015.

Roanoke County Sheriff Mike Winston has announced his retirement, effective Oct. 31. Winston submitted his resignation to Joe McNamara, chairman of the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors. At his retirement, Winston will

Chamber selects Roanoke Valley Leadership Class of 2014-15 The Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce has selected the Leadership Roanoke Valley Class of 2014-2015.

The 33 members began the 10-month program with an opening breakfast Aug. 27. Graduation will be held in June 2015.

The class includes: Heather Anderson, Member One Federal Credit Union; Erin Burcham, Virginia Tech Roanoke Center; Cora Carpenter, Norfolk Southern; Emily Connelly, CMR Institute; Mary Ann Conroy, Draper Aden Associates; Erin Cooper, HopeTree Family Services; Brooke Ferguson, Virginia Western Community College; Stephanie Frost, Wheeler Broadcasting; Fernando Gracia, FRIENDS of the Blue Ridge Parkway; Karen Hankins, HomeTown Mortgage; Annie Harvey, DePaul Community Resources; James Huffman, Wells Fargo; Sara Jamison, Ferrum College; Debra Johnson, Jefferson College of Health Sciences; Heidi

have been employed by Roanoke County for more than 44 years, with the last four and a half years as sheriff. Winston began his career as a deputy sheriff assigned to the Roanoke County Jail.

Winston

Callahan

Leitch

Jessee

Morse

Kuhnel

Oddo

LeClairRyan has announced that 87 attorneys in 55 practice areas were selected by their peers for inclusion in the 2015 edition of The Best Thompson Lawyers in America. Of those lawyers, seven are resident in the firm’s Roanoke office. The selected attorneys include: William E. Callahan, Jr., bankruptcy and creditor-debtor rights/insolvency and reorganization law, litigation-bankruptcy; John T. Jessee, medical malpractice law – defendants, personal injury litigation - defendants; Paul C. Kuhnel, medical malpractice law – defendants; Powell M. “Nick” Leitch III, medical malpractice law – defendants; Clinton S. Morse, employment law – management, labor law – management; Kevin P. Oddo, commercial litigation, litigation – banking and finance, litigation – bankruptcy; and Lori D. Thompson, bankruptcy and creditordebtor rights/insolvency and reorganization law, litigation – bankruptcy.

Ketler, NEWSource & Associates; Jeffrey (Todd) Marlowe, AEP Appalachian Power Company; Amy McArthur, Sundara; Brandon Montgomery, Cox Business; Annemarie Mulvilhill, Turner Long Construction; Marc Nelson, City of Roanoke Department of Economic Development; Tara Nepper, Virginia Western Community College; Anne Newman, Blue Ridge Dental Group – Valley View; Michael Orr, Wells Fargo; Stedman Payne, Member One Federal Credit Union; Stephen Pendergrass, Poe & Cronk Real Estate Group; Shamaill Ross, Allstate Insurance Company; Elizabeth Russell, DaProSystems; Tom Smigielski, Neathawk Dubuque & Packett; John (Marc) Sterne, KPMG LLP; Brian Webb, Union First Market Bank; Patrick Williams, SFCS Inc.; Maureen Wilson, Roanoke County Parks, Recreation & Tourism; and William Wilson, Bohemian Robot LLC.

The Roanoke County School Board has named Jeff Terry as the district’s first chief information officer to lead the technology department.

Terry joined Roanoke County Public Schools in 1994 and most recently served as the manager of informa- Terry tion systems.

Ammar

Pearl

Day

Melchionna

Stark Tower The law firm Spilman Thomas & Battle (Spilman) announced that several attorneys were selected by their peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2015 directory of leading attorneys.

Wellons This number represents 54 percent of the firm’s Roanoke attorneys. The following Spilman attorneys were selected in their respective areas of practice: N.A. “Nick” Ammar Jr., employee benefits law, trusts and estates; F.B. Webster Day, corporate law, public finance law; Olin R. Melchionna Jr., trusts and estates; Peter M. Pearl, bankruptcy and creditor debtor rights/insolvency and reorganization law; Douglas T. Stark, commercial litigation; King F. Tower, employment law – management, labor law – management; and Hugh B. Wellons, banking and finance law, biotechnology law, financial services regulation law, and securities/capital markets law. Ammar was also named a 2015 Roanoke “Lawyer of the Year” in benefits law. Day was named the Roanoke Public Finance Law “Lawyer of the Year.”

Having completed the curriculum for the inaugural class of the Virginia Agricultural Leaders Obtaining Results program, VALOR fellows are now on their way to becoming ambassadors to the many sectors of the agriculture industry in Virginia and beyond. The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ VALOR Program is designed to develop leaders who can effectively engage all segments of the Virginia agricultural community to create collaborative solutions and promote agriculture inside and outside the industry. Over the last two years, the 10 VALOR fellows participated in 12 seminars that took them across Virginia, the region, and even overseas when they visited Argentina.

Daniel J. Beal has been appointed an associate professor in the Department of Management at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business.

Beal Dr. Chris Byron has joined the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech as an associate professor of large animal surgery in the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences.

Byron Douglas F. Cannon, assistant professor of communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech, has been accepted into the College of Fellows of the Public RelaCannon tions Society of America. One of 15 inductees for 2014, Cannon is the first full-time Virginia Tech communications faculty member elected to the College of Fellows.

Dr. Rachael Carpenter has joined the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech as a clinical instructor of anesthesiology in the Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences.

Carpenter

SPONSORED CONTENT | Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce Member news & recognitions, continued.

Huang

Jingjing Huang has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of Accounting and Information Systems at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of

Monica Kimbrell has been named director of student recruitment and career development for the College of Liberal Arts and Human Services Kimbrell at Virginia Tech.

Business.

Richard A. Hunt has been appointed an assistant professor in the Department of Management at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business.

Hunt

Greg Jenkins, professor of accounting and information systems in the Pamplin College of Business, is one of three researchers who Jenkins recently received the 2014 AAA/Deloitte Foundation Wildman Medal Award for their study on how brainstorming meetings can help auditors detect fraud.

Juncai Jiang has been appointed an assistant professor in the Department of Marketing at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business.

Jiang

Joffe

The Consumer Federation of America recently honored Virginia Tech’s Irene Leech for a “distinguished lifetime of service to consumers.”

Leech, associate professor of consumer studies in the Department of Apparel, Housing, and Resource Management in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, received the Esther Peterson Consumer Service Award.

Susan G. Magliaro, professor and director of Virginia Tech’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education program, has been appointed to Magliaro Virginia’s Standards of Learning Innovation Committee by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

May

Frank May has been appointed an assistant professor in the Department of Marketing at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business.

Whittaker

Ramsey

The Ted and Karyn Hume Center for National Security and Technology at Virginia Tech has named three new members to its advisory board. They are: Rodney Joffe, senior vice president, Neustar; Sherri Ramsey, a former executive with the National Security Agency; and Gwyn Whittaker, vice president at LinQuest.

Nancy McGehee has been appointed head of the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management in the Pamplin College of Business. A faculty McGehee member at Virginia Tech since 2001, McGehee conducts research on rural tourism development and volunteer tourism management.

John T. Novak, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, is the 2014 recipient Novak of the Association of Environmental Engineering Scientists and Professors (AEESP) Perry L. McCarty Founders Award.

Michelle M.H. Seref has been appointed an assistant professor in the Department of Business Information Technology at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin Col- Seref lege of Business.

Virginia Tech has announced two appointments that will support the Division of Student Affairs’ commitment to inclusion and diverSmith sity. Tricia Smith has been named director of Multicultural Programs and Services, and Anthony Scott will be the director of the newly formed unit of Community Engagement and In- Scott clusion.

Snodgrass Hee Jung Kang has been appointed an assistant professor in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business.

Kang

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Matthew Mayotte has been named director of Student-Athlete Academic Support Services at Virginia Tech.

Each year, Student-Athlete Aca- Mayotte demic Support Services serves more than 500 student-athletes in 22 athletic programs at Virginia Tech.

NOVEMBER 2014

Joel W. Snodgrass has been named head of the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation in Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment.

Scott Tate, formerly with Virginia Cooperative Extension, has been named senior economic development specialist in Virginia Tech’s Office of Economic Development.

Tate

David M. Townsend has been appointed an assistant professor in the Department of Management at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business.

Townsend

Jin Xu has been appointed an assistant professor in the Department of Finance at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business.

Through the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, Virginia Western Community College has announced that college-branded personalized license plates are now available for purchase.

After the first 1,000 qualifying plates, more than half the proceeds from the sale of these plates will go to the Virginia Western Educational Foundation to support student scholarships.

Xu

Virginia Western Community College has joined the National Junior College Athletic Association for men’s and women’s basketball and will begin playing in the association in 2014-15.

In conjunction with the move, the college has also announced that it has renamed its athletics teams the Virginia Western Rapids.

VOLATIA has been selected for the 2014 Best of Roanoke Award in the Interpreters & Translators category by the Roanoke Award Program. Each year, the Roanoke Award Program identifies companies believed to have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category.

Scott Campbell has joined Waldvogel Commercial Properties as an assistant property manager.

Waldvogel Commerc i a l Campbell Properties also announced the hiring of McKnight “Mac” U. Garner as a commercial and investment sales agent. Garner Waldvogel Commercial Properties represented the buyer in the sale of Northridge Apartment Village, a 174unit garden apartment community located along Cove Road in Roanoke.

The $7.2 million sale price is the largest transaction so far in 2014 in Roanoke City. Jason Fountain and Clay Taylor were the sales agents.

Virginia Western Community College has been a driving force of the Roanoke Region’s economy for nearly 50 years. Through hands-on training and strong ties with business and industry, Virginia Western is preparing students for long-lasting careers.

In Virginia Western’s dual enrollment and academy programs, high school students can learn about ďŹ elds they are interested in and discover career pathways. When they come to Virginia Western, those students are ready to pursue growing areas of study like mechatronics engineering, nursing and culinary arts. Workforce Solutions programs can help working adults get the training they need to move up in a current job or pursue opportunities such as commercial truck driving, welding or as a pharmacy technician.

Looking for a career with a future? Virginia Western will take you there.

.edu

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