January 2015

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JANUARY 2015

SERVING THE ROANOKE/BLACKSBURG/ NEW RIVER VALLEY REGION

Senate Chamber of the Virginia General Assembly

Shrinking power Lagging population and sagging turnout reduce the region’s influence in Richmond

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CONTENTS SERVING THE ROANOKE/BLACKSBURG/ NEW RIVER VALLEY REGION

January 2015 F E AT U R E S COVER STORY

6

Shrinking power

6 12

Lagging population and sagging turnout reduce the region’s influence in Richmond.

by Mason Adams

HEALTH CARE High rankings

12

Annual patient satisfaction survey shows the valleys’ hospitals are above average.

by Shawna Morrison

19

TECHNOLOGY Going bananas

19

Startup’s product may save the endangered fruit and protect other crops. by Beth Jones

HIGHER EDUCATION Roanoke College

22

D 26

Educating students for jobs that haven’t been invented yet. by Gene Marrano

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P

A

R

22 T

M

INTERVIEW: Arielle Rosmarino Trading a tiara for a briefcase Former high-school wrestler and beauty queen talks about what comes next. by Beth Jones

28

COMMUNITY PROFILE: Montgomery County Wired for the future?

Virginia Tech accounts for one of every four jobs in fastgrowing Montgomery County. by Sandra Brown Kelly

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JANUARY 2015

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News from the Roanoke Regional Chamber

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FROM THE EDITOR

Shifting political trends

by Tim Thornton

T

here was a time when Virginia was ruled by a political machine that drew its strength from the commonwealth’s rural counties. That was a long time ago. Political power began to slip away from the countryside as the Byrd Machine evaporated. The Virginia General Assembly that convenes this month continues a long march — slow at first, but accelerating in the 21st century — of political power away from rural Virginia to the population centers in Hampton Roads, Richmond and, especially, Northern Virginia.

While those areas grow toward one another to create a megalopolis, Virginia’s 9th Congressional District has grown in a different way. Southwest Virginia’s population is so small compared with the rest of the commonwealth that the 9th now includes an area larger than New Jersey.

Five years ago, a delegate from Arlington told The Washington Post that a fight over school funding was “to a great extent … kind of the last gasp of the Virginia of the 20th century.” The next year’s redistricting would bring “a major shift toward the urban, suburban and exurban portions of the state and away from the rural Virginia of the past.”

While we may think of this area as home to a medical school and research center tied to a world-class research university and the innovation and entrepreneurship that brings, at least some of our neighbors to the north think of us as part of “the rural Virginia of the past.” Increasingly, those people and their neighbors hold political power in the commonwealth. That could be a problem for us.

In this month’s cover story, Del. Greg Habeeb, RSalem, cites the state money that comes to Radford University and Virginia Tech and the influence rural legislators have in the House of Delegates’ Republican caucus.

“There’s really no argument for the slippage in statewide relevance,” Habeeb says.

Former legislator Richard Cranwell, the Vinton Democrat who spent more than a decade as majority leader in the House of Delegates, sees things differently — and for a very basic political reason. “Northern Virginia and Tidewater,” he says, “are where the votes are.”

Republican Congressman Morgan Griffith, who represents the 9th District, argues this region could have more political impact if more potential voters actually voted.

That may sound like a pep talk from a high school civics class, but Mark Warner remains Virginia’s senator because he received 17,671 more votes than Ed Gillespie did last November. Montgomery County alone had 37,139 registered voters who didn’t vote in that election.

Population shifts are taking political power away from this part of Virginia. All the more reason we shouldn’t allow the power we have left to atrophy.

SERVING THE ROANOKE/BLACKSBURG/ NEW RIVER VALLEY REGION Vol. 4

JANUARY 2015

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on the cover Senate Chamber of the Virginia General Assembly Richmond Photo courtesy Virginia General Assembly

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JANUARY 2015

No. 1

Bernard A. Niemeier Tim Thornton Paula C. Squires Mason Adams Beth Jones Sandra Brown Kelly Gene Morrano Adrienne R. Watson Sam Dean Alisa Moody Natalee Waters

COVER STORY

Shrinking power Lagging population and sagging voter turnout reduce region’s influence in Richmond

by Mason Adams 6

JANUARY 2015

Photo courtesy Virginia General Assembly

ROANOKE BUSINESS

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cover story Now that Republicans have taken control of the Virginia Senate, John Edwards, a Roanoke Democrat, will lose his chairmanship of the Rules Committee.

W

hen lawmakers return to Richmond for the 2015 General Assembly session this month, power in the Virginia Senate will have shifted once again.

The chamber has teeter-tottered between Democrats and Republicans since 2011, when it split equally between the two parties. It tilted to the GOP in June, when Phil Puckett, a Russell County Democrat, resigned suddenly and a Republican was elected to replace him. The consequences of Puckett’s resignation – ostensibly to open the door for a judgeship for his daughter – have continued to ricochet through Virginia politics, dooming the governor’s chances of passing Medicaid expansion, sparking a federal probe and even becoming a debate topic during U.S. Sen. 8

JANUARY 2015

Mark Warner’s closer-than-expected re-election bid. (The probe ended with no charges filed.)

Control will be up for grabs again this fall when voters cast ballots for all 40 seats in the Senate and 100 in the House of Delegates.

With each partisan shift in power, Southwest Virginia has seen its influence in the chamber wax and wane. Statewide demographic shifts and the so-called “big sort” — the phrase coined in 2004 by journalist and author Bill Bishop to describe the increasing geographic polarization between Democrats and Republicans — has formed a partisan wedge in the commonwealth.

In the long term, the relatively slow growth and even loss of population in areas such as Southwest and

Southern Virginia means a steady erosion of political power compared with faster-growing Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.These counties include some of the richest areas in the country, and they help fill the commonwealth’s coffers, effectively subsidizing state services in poorer Southwest Virginia localities. In the short term, for a majority of the population, it also means frustration at the ballot box as their votes for Republicans are overruled in statewide elections by Democratic votes in the urban crescent.

Geoffrey Skelley, an analyst with the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, says Northern Virginia’s share of the statewide vote in presidential elections grew from 20 percent in 1968 to 34 percent in 2012.

Richmond and Hampton Roads stayed steady through that period.

The rest of the state saw its share decrease from 41 percent to 29 percent.

“I have to think there’s got to be a greater focus from the state on urban issues,” Skelley says. “So much more of the population is in urban and heavily suburbanized parts of the state. With a smaller population, the legislative representation of rural areas of the state has clearly decreased in the House of Delegates and state Senate. Naturally, in the long run that leads to more focus on urban and suburban issues and less focus on rural issues.”

Here’s another way to look at it: the 2010 population of Southwest Virginia north to Alleghany County and east to Franklin and Henry counties was 1.07 million. The population in Fairfax County alone was 1.08 million.

Those trends mean Southwest Virginia — and rural parts of the state generally — is steadily losing seats in the General Assembly and seeing its congressional districts grow ever larger. That means its political power is slowly eroding, too.

However, there’s no straight-line trend in terms of losing political influence, nor one single, definitive way to consider its consequences.

Photo by Sam Dean

“I think it is difficult to give exact implications, particularly in terms of business,” says Harry Wilson, a Roanoke College professor and director of its Institute for Policy and Opinion Research. “I don’t know that any statewide official is going to slight a particular region of the state. At the same time, it would be foolish to say there are no implications of losing seats … and positions of power in the General Assembly.”

Big political roles in the past Southwest and Southside Virginia played a big role in running the state through the 20th century, whether it was the Shenandoah Valley’s Harry Byrd and his longrunning political machine, the 11year term of Henry County’s A.L. Philpott as speaker of the House of Delegates or Vinton Del. Richard Cranwell’s 11-year stint as majority leader in the same body.

That tradition carried into the new century, too. Bedford Del. Lacey Putney, an independent who caucused with the GOP and accrued 52 years in the House before retiring in 2013, helped tilt the balance of power in the House to Republicans in 2000 and later served as chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee. Morgan Griffith of Salem succeeded Cranwell as majority leader when Republicans took over the House and held the post until he was elected to Congress in 2010.

With Putney and Griffith both leaving the House, however, the ranks of Southwest Virginians in leadership positions has dwindled, although Del. Terry Kilgore, RScott County, continues to chair the influential Commerce and Labor Committee. In recent years, Southwest Virginia’s House delegation has seen widespread turnover, which in a body driven by seniority diminishes the region’s power.

Still, it retains outsized influence in a party that’s tilted toward rural areas.

“I think what people miss when they look at top-line numbers is Photo by Sam Dean

that the General Assembly is very majority-caucus driven,” says Del. Greg Habeeb, R-Salem. “In the House majority caucus we have an incredibly disproportionate rural and Southwest Virginia distribution. Even with turnover, there are people in important positions.”

The situation across the Capitol in the Virginia Senate is even more

John Edwards of Roanoke to chair the Rules Committee. With Puckett’s resignation and another swing back to the GOP, it’s likely the party will reinstate Smith and others to their committee chairmanships.

“If the question is: How do we keep rural and western Virginia more relevant? Elect Republicans.

I get how partisan that sounds, but

Vinton’s Richard Cranwell spent 11 years as the House of Delegates Majority Leader.

striking. When Democrats won control of the chamber in 2007, the state’s western region found itself frozen out of chairmanship positions. When Republicans won the Senate back in 2009 — albeit only with the tiebreaking vote of the lieutenant governor in an otherwise 20-20 split — several members from western and rural Virginia were appointed as committee chairs, including former Roanoke Mayor Ralph Smith, now of Bedford County. When Democrats swept statewide elections in 2013, they essentially retook the Senate, and this time appointed

it’s demonstrably true,” Habeeb says. “To me that shouldn’t be the driving factor of how people vote.

If that is the outcome you’re looking for, you want your members to be members of the majority party.”

Edwards, a Democrat, disagrees that rural voters should vote for GOP candidates to maintain regional influence. “Here’s why: Republicans don’t provide the funding for infrastructure needs of the people in rural areas. They have won the rural areas on social issues alone. Rural areas are voting against their economic interests,” Edwards says.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

9

cover story Rural areas still benefit from state funding Aside from the question of partisanship, the General Assembly and state government affect business in plenty of different ways — many of which boil down to dollars and cents.

“I don’t think you can draw a clear dichotomy between what’s good for business and what’s good for government. I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive,” says Cranwell, the Vinton Democrat who served for years as the House majority leader. “I think what’s good for Southwest Virginia is what’s good for the whole state. We need to make sure we have a piece of the pie and we’re doing things to create markets. Without markets we can’t do anything.”

Despite the loss of seats in recent decades, Southwest Virginia lawmakers have managed to hold the line, working together and with party leaders to find tradeoffs and ways to keep the funding flowing.

Take Virginia’s transportation funding formula, for instance. At present, the state doles out dollars based on road miles, not population. Every year, however, legislators from the commonwealth’s more urban areas file bills to change that.

“There are transportation needs in this part of the state, but find anyone from this part of the state who says, ‘Gee, I love, when I go to Northern Virginia, dealing with the traffic up there,’” Wilson says. “Here, we complain if we have to wait through two traffic lights.

There, you’re sitting bumper to bumper on I-66 or I-95. Trying to get into and out of D.C. is crazy.”

Habeeb says the 2013 transportation funding package passed under former Gov. Bob McDonnell — which used a shift in fuel taxes, a bond package and permission for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to raise their own revenue to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for maintenance and construction projects — included a deal to keep the current version of the 10

JANUARY 2015

Harry Wilson is director of Roanoke College’s Institute for Policy and Opinion Research

transportation formula in place.

“Deals in Richmond are as good as people who are party to the deal,” Habeeb says. “But I can tell you the air has been taken out of that balloon by what we did. What Fairfax has said for years is give us our own dedicated money or change the formula. We gave them their dedicated money.”

That goes for higher education too, says Habeeb. “You look at funding for Virginia Tech, for higher education centers in rural areas, for Radford University — all of it is at least representative of our fair share if not disproportionately in our favor,” Habeeb says. “There’s really no argument for the slippage in statewide relevance.”

The state education funding formula similarly favors rural areas in Southwest and Southern Virginia. Statewide, local and state government splits education funding on a roughly 50/50 basis. The share varies with each locality, though, and is determined by a composite index that factors in a locality’s ability to pay based on its property values, adjusted gross income and taxable sales.

In some Southwest Virginia localities, “it’s 10 percent from locality and 90 percent from commonwealth. In Arlington it’s almost a flip-flop,” says Edwards, the Roanoke state senator.

“It’s extremely important we maintain the education funding formula. Otherwise our schools would really be second-class compared to Northern Virginia’s.”

One area where Northern Virginia does fare better than Southwest and Southern Virginia? Car tax reimbursement, says Edwards.

Former Gov. Jim Gilmore was elected largely on a pledge to eliminate the car tax. Instead, the General Assembly voted to reimburse localities about 70 percent of the tax, effectively lowering the rates that car owners pay each year while keeping the locality’s revenue intact. Because there are more cars in Northern Virginia, Edwards says, the biggest share of that money flows north to the D.C. suburbs.

For all the complaints from Southwest Virginians about their tax dollars going to Northern Virginia, however, the reverse is true.

Fairfax County, for instance, receives roughly 20 cents for every dollar it pays to Virginia, according to county studies.

“The fact is they [Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads] are still the donor sections of the commonwealth, and Southwest and Southside Virginia are still receivers of more money than we send to Richmond,” says Del. Charles Poindexter, R-Franklin County.

While its delegation has helped ensure the continued flow of state Photo by Sam Dean

funding to Southwest Virginia’s benefit, another sign of declining political influence is more troublesome for the region — the low number of local candidates elected to statewide office in recent years.

It’s true that at least one of the candidates running in the general election for governor, lieutenant governor or attorney general has been from Western Virginia in the past three elections: Republican Mark Obenshain of Rockingham County ran for attorney general in 2013; Democrat Creigh Deeds of Bath County ran for governor in 2009; and Republican Jerry Kilgore of Scott County ran for governor in 2005. To find a successful statewide candidate from Southwest Virginia, though, you’d have to go back to Kilgore’s 2001 run for attorney general.

To find a regional candidate elected to the U.S. Senate, the dial goes back to 1976, when Harry Byrd Jr. of Winchester won his final

election, capping a run that began in 1966. To find someone closer to Roanoke, you need to go to A. Willis Robertson, the father of evangelist Pat Robertson, who had ties to Lexington and who served in the U.S. Senate from 1946 to 1966.

What difference does fielding a successful statewide candidate make? Not much on the surface, since such an official is tasked with thinking on behalf of Virginia as a whole, not looking out just for his or her home region.

But Cranwell tells the anecdote of Willie Sutton, a famous criminal who was asked why he robbed banks. “Because that’s where the money is,” Sutton famously replied.

“Northern Virginia and Tidewater are where the votes are,” Cranwell says. “It’s a real thing.”

That means candidates running for statewide office are more inclined to spend time in populous, vote-rich areas than they are in rural areas.

That means they’re hearing more

concerns from those areas and fewer from Southwest and Southern Virginia, and they may be more concerned with keeping voters in those populous areas happy.

That’s even more the case when voter turnout lags in Western Virginia precincts.

“It makes it hard for either party to look at this region when we don’t turn out the vote,” says Griffith, whose congressional district is slightly larger than New Jersey. “We don’t vote in as high a percentage … If we were turning out in 55 percentage range, they’d make a greater effort to come to at least the media markets. Turnout plus geography really hurts us.”

Southwest and Southside Virginia may be leaking representatives because they are not growing as fast as the rest of the state. A closely knit delegation and use of seniority may help to slow the effects, but individuals can boost the regional profile just by getting out to vote.

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ROANOKE BUSINESS

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HOSPITALS & HEALTH CARE

High rankings Annual patient satisfaction survey shows the valleys’ hospitals are above average Carilion New River Valley Medical Center received the region’s highest marks in customer satisfaction with 78 percent of patients surveyed rating the facility a 9 or 10 on a scale of 1 to 10.

by Shawna Morrison

I

f a trip to the hospital can’t be avoided, at least people can go knowing that not a single hospital in the Roanoke and New River valleys received patient satisfaction ratings lower than the statewide average last year.

Across Virginia, an average of 68 percent of patients surveyed gave hospitals at which they had been admitted a rating of 9 or 10

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JANUARY 2015

on a scale of 1 to 10, according to data released by Virginia Health Information, a Richmond-based nonprofit organization. Each hospital across the region was awarded a 9 or 10 by at least 68 percent of patients, with several — Centra, Bedford Memorial, Carilion Franklin Memorial, Carilion Giles Memorial, Carilion New River Valley Medical Center and LewisGale

Medical Center — receiving higher marks.

Carilion Giles Memorial Hospital and Carilion New River Valley Medical Center were the only two hospitals in the Roanoke and New River Valleys that were awarded a 9 or 10 by a higher percent of patients than the U.S. average of 71 percent, however.

Carilion New River Valley Photos by Alisa Moody

Medical Center received the highest patient satisfaction marks across the region, with 78 percent of patients surveyed rating it 9 or 10 and 82 percent saying they would definitely recommend it to friends and family. Only 2 percent of those surveyed said they would not recommend New River Valley Medical Center.

“We are pleased to have the highest marks in the region and we constantly strive to be among the top in the nation,” says Bill Flattery, president of Carilion New River Valley Medical Center. “Our scores represent the fact that everyone on our team works hard each day to make a difference in the lives of those we serve.

“We are a growing medical center offering sophisticated services,” he says, “and we maintain the feel of a small community hospital. It’s the best of both worlds.”

Virginia Health Information, whose mission is, in part, to create and disseminate health-care information to promote informed decision-making, also released in late November its annual service line report, which shows how many patients were treated in dozens of areas, or service lines, at each hospital.

The report breaks down what percentage of the regional total that number makes up. The information comes from electronic hospital discharge billing records received from all Virginia hospitals and has been published by VHI for more than 10 years.

“Many studies have confirmed that experience matters when providing hospital care,” says Michael Lundberg, executive director of VHI. “VHI provides information about the hospital’s experience, such as how often is heart surgery or other care performed at the hospital. Or, what percent of the region’s care for a condition is provided by the hospital.”

Lundberg says the information can help patients work with their doctors to determine the best place for their care. They can use the in-

More than two-thirds of LewisGale Hospital Montgomery’s patients surveyed rated the facility a 9 or a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. That equals the state average.

formation released by VHI to compare how often hospitals provide open-heart surgery or orthopedic surgery, for example, and use that information “as a starting point when you speak with your doctor about the care you need.”

The information is also useful for businesses, he says.

“When employers and large purchasers of care build networks of health care providers, VHI’s service line and other reports can help them build hospital networks that are the most efficient, cost-effective and highest quality for their employees and customers,” Lundberg says.

Lundberg says there are generally no surprises in the annual reports.

“We see consistently that certain hospitals perform certain procedures more than others,” he says.

Carilion Medical Center, which includes Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital and Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital, cares for the largest percentage of Southwest Virginia patients in most service lines. Carilion cares for a particularly high number of trauma patients — 1,006, or 59.1 percent of trauma patients across Southwest Virginia, in the fiscal year October 2012 through September 2013.

Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital is the region’s only Level One Trauma Center, meaning it offers the highest level of care, says Mike Dame, senior director for communications at Carilion.

Carilion Medical Center also cares for the largest percentage of Southwest Virginia patients in the service lines of open-heart surgery (45.43 percent); ear, nose and throat surgery (54.71 percent); vasROANOKE BUSINESS

13

hospitals cular surgery (52.65 percent) and oncology surgery (46.24 percent).

In the fiscal year from October 2012 through September 2013, there were 36,584 admissions at Carilion Medical Center, up from 34,951 in the 2010-11 fiscal year.

Carilion Medical Center has 737 licensed beds, 34 of which are at Roanoke Community Hospital.

In the fiscal year from January through December 2013, LewisGale Medical Center saw 15,053 patients, a small increase from the 15,031 admitted between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2011. The facility has 506 licensed beds.

LewisGale Medical Center saw more than 1,000 patients in each of the service lines of medical cardiology, gastroenterology, orthopedic surgery, pulmonary and psychiatry.

Though it’s a smaller hospital than Roanoke Memorial, LewisGale Medical Center sees a similar number of patients in the service lines of psychiatry and rehabilitation.

LewisGale saw 21.5 percent of rehabilitation patients in South-

Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital is the region’s only Level One Trauma Center.

west Virginia from October 2012 to September 2013, compared with 21.3 percent at Carilion Medical Center. LewisGale saw 16.3 percent of psychiatry patients, while Carilion Medical Center saw 21.2 percent.

LewisGale serves as a tertiary, referral center for both of those services, according to Joy Sutton, the hospital’s marketing communications manager.

“While we specialize in inpatient rehabilitation, we also offer

Carilion Giles Community Hospital has the second-highest customer satisfaction rating in the region.

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JANUARY 2015

Photos by Alisa Moody

some unique services including Easy Street, the only real-world rehab environment in Southwest Virginia where patients can transition back to daily living in a comfortable setting that simulates routine tasks and environments such as a grocery store and automobile.

“We also have a long history of providing behavioral health services in this community,” she says.

“We are continuing to grow to meet the demand for psychiatric care and to provide our patients with a full spectrum of services to address their health care needs.”

For the most recent patient satisfaction reports, released in July, surveys were collected from October 2012 through September 2013.

Carilion Medical Center was rated 9 or 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 by 68 percent of patients surveyed, 22 percent rated it 7 or 8, and 10 percent rated it 6 or lower. Of those surveyed, 76 percent said they would definitely recommend Carilion Medical Center to friends and family. That’s well over the statewide average of 69 percent and the national average of 71 percent.

“At Carilion we have made patient satisfaction a priority both in

the quality of care we deliver and how we deliver that care,” Carilion Chief Medical Officer Dr. Patrice Weiss says. “Earlier this year, we dedicated an entire day’s conference of our physician leaders to ‘The Patient Experience’ to emphasize the importance of patient satisfaction and experience. We also understand that our internal morale and culture greatly affect our patients and their care.”

“While we are delighted to be above the state average for patients’ satisfaction,” Weiss says, “we will continue our passion of caring for patients and recognizing that excellence is not an endpoint but a continual journey.”

Of those surveyed, 70 percent gave LewisGale a rating of 9 or 10, 22 percent rated it 7 or 8, and 8 percent gave it a rating of 6 or lower; 74 percent said they would definitely recommend it to friends and family.

“Nothing is more important to LewisGale than earning the trust and respect of our patients by providing high-quality, compassionate care that exceeds their expectations,” Sutton says. She says LewisGale will not be satisfied “until 100 percent of our patients give us high ratings on every aspect of their care. Our commitment to achieve this goal includes continuously improving the patients’ experience and creating a culture of clinical excellence.”

Ratings varied widely among smaller hospitals across the region. Carilion Giles Community Hospital, a Pearisburg facility with 25 licensed beds and 1,132 admissions from October 2012 through September 2013, was a leader in patient satisfaction with 77 percent of patients surveyed rating it a 9 or 10 and saying they would definitely recommend the facility to friends and family.

Seventy percent of those surveyed rated Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital and LewisGale Montgomery County a 9 or 10, while 64 percent of those surveyed gave that rating to LewisGale Alleghany.

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hospitals

Hospital satisfaction rates 2013 Would patients recommend the hospital to friends and family?

How do patients rate the hospital overall?

Hospital

9 or 10

7 or 8

Bedford Memorial Hospital Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital Carilion Giles Community Hospital Carilion Medical Center Carilion New River Valley/St. Albans LewisGale Alleghany LewisGale Montgomery LewisGale Pulaski LewisGale Medical Center Virginia State Average U.S. Average

69% 70 77 68 78 64 68 68 70 68 71

21% 20 18 22 17 27 24 24 22 23 21

6 or Lower

Yes, Definitely

10% 10 5 10 5 9 8 8 8 9 8

68% 72 77 76 82 61 71 70 74 69 71

**Outlier Cases The number of hospital inpatient cases in a calendar year that were outside the pre-set range for the particular service line. Outlier cases do not include hospice patients. VHI removed those patients who had length of stays equal to 0 days or less or patients who had 0 dollar ($) charges or less.

Service Line reports

Source: Virginia Health Information Inc.

*Inlier Cases The number of hospital inpatient cases that were within the pre-set range for the particular service line.

Inlier cases were used to calculate length of stay and total charge values.

Inlier cases do not include hospice patients. VHI removed those patients who had length of stays equal to 0 days or less or patients who had 0 dollar ($) charges or less.

To view the complete 2013 Service Line Reports, log on to www.vhi.org

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Yes, Probably

No

25% 22 20 20 16 34 24 25 22 26 24

7% 6 3 4 2 5 5 5 4 5 5

Patient Survey Collection Dates: Oct. 2012 - Sept. 2013

Bedford Memorial Hospital Inlier cases*

Outlier cases**

Number of cases

Hospital total (%)

118

14

132

11.05%

1.12%

54

1

55

4.60

1.43

Gastroenterology

175

13

188

15.73

1.49

General Medicine

96

16

112

9.37

1.40

Neurology

57

9

66

5.52

0.90

Service line

Cardiology - Medical Endocrinology

Orthopedic Surgery

Regional total (%)

5

0

5

0.42

0.06

Psychiatry

12

0

12

1.00

0.10

Pulmonary

258

20

278

23.26

1.64

35

0

35

2.93

1.02

Urology

Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital Inlier cases*

Outlier cases**

Number of cases

Hospital total (%)

Regional total (%)

165

26

191

12.26%

1.62%

75

4

79

5.07

2.05

Gastroenterology

221

18

239

15.34

1.89

General Medicine

114

10

124

7.96

1.55

Neurology

85

15

100

6.42

1.37

Orthopedic Surgery

16

0

16

1.03

0.18

Psychiatry

11

0

11

0.71

0.09

Pulmonary

303

39

342

21.95

2.02

54

6

60

3.85

1.75

Service line

Cardiology - Medical Endocrinology

Urology

JANUARY 2015

Source: 2013 Service Line Report, Virginia Health Information Inc.

SERVICE LINE DESCRIPTIONS:

Carilion Giles Community Hospital Service line

Number of cases

Hospital total (%)

Regional total (%)

Cardiology - Medical

96

10.91%

Endocrinology

47

5.34

21.17

Gastroenterology

130

14.77

19.01

General Medicine

71

8.07

15.85

Neurology

52

5.91

30.59

Orthopedic Surgery

52

5.91

15.76

Psychiatry

9

1.02

20.93

Pulmonary

187

21.25

15.85

20

2.27

7.14

Urology

15.51%

Carilion Medical Center Inlier cases*

Outlier cases**

Number of cases

2,344

196

2,540

782

41

Gastroenterology

2,471

General Medicine

Service line

Cardiology - Medical

Hospital total (%)

Regional total (%)

6.46%

21.54%

823

2.09

21.33

156

2,627

6.68

20.78

1,594

125

1,719

4.37

21.43

Neurology

2,004

174

2,178

5.54

29.85

Orthopedic Surgery

2,883

177

3,060

7.78

34.35

Psychiatry

2,530

36

2,566

6.52

21.23

Pulmonary

2,477

263

2,740

6.97

16.17

514

39

553

1.41

16.13

Endocrinology

Urology

Carilion New River Valley/St. Albans Service line

Inlier cases*

Outlier cases**

Number of cases

Hospital total (%)

Regional total (%)

Cardiology - Medical

537

124

661

7.38%

5.61%

Endocrinology

173

15

188

2.10

4.87

Gastroenterology

670

53

723

8.07

5.72

General Medicine

300

32

332

3.71

4.14

Neurology

298

36

334

3.73

4.58

Orthopedic Surgery

210

4

214

2.39

2.40

Psychiatry

1,738

32

1,770

19.76

14.65

Pulmonary

665

74

739

8.25

4.36

Urology

135

7

142

1.58

4.14

CARDIOLOGY - MEDICAL: The study of the heart’s action; the medical specialty that deals with the diagnosis and therapy of heart diseases.

ENDOCRINOLOGY: The study and treatment of the ductless organs and structures (glands) that secrete internally and of hormones. Endocrinology typically includes the endocrine glands, the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands, thyroid and parathyroid glands, pancreatic islet cells, the testes and the ovaries.

GASTROENTEROLOGY: Specialty involving the study and treatment of the function and disorders of the organs of digestion, the alimentary (or gastrointestinal) tract: the esophagus, the stomach, large intestines (colon and cecum) and small intestines (duodenum, jejunum, ileum), sigmoid colon, rectum, gallbladder, pancreas, liver, spleen, biliary tract and bile duct.

GENERAL MEDICINE: Treatment for those disorders that can fall under family practice or primary medical needs, which may include internal medicine or the diagnosis or treatment of internal organs, and that are not otherwise grouped into the specialty services listed in this report.

NEUROLOGY: The field of medicine dealing with the normal or diseased nervous systems (central, peripheral and autonomic, plus the neuromuscular junction and muscle). May include clinical neurology that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of nervous system disorders.

ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY: Preservation or restoration from disease or injury by surgical means of the function or condition of the musculoskeletal system, the spine and the extremities.

PSYCHIATRY: The diagnosis, prevention and treatment of mental disorders by those medical specialists trained in the science of psychiatry.

PULMONARY: Of or pertaining to lungs/respiratory system, to the pulmonary artery; to aperture leading from right ventricle into the pulmonary artery.

UROLOGY: The medical specialty that is concerned with the study, diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the urinary tract in the female and both urinary and genitourinary tract in the male.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

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hospitals

LewisGale Hospital - Alleghany Service line

Cardiology - Medical

Inlier Outlier Number cases* cases** of cases

Hospital total (%)

Regional total (%)

37

339

12.10%

99

2

101

3.61

2.62

Gastroenterology

231

17

248

8.85

1.96

Cardiology - Medical

General Medicine

211

17

228

8.14

2.80

Endocrinology

Neurology

150

14

164

5.86

2.25

Orthopedic Surgery

175

5

180

6.43

Psychiatry

427

13

440

Pulmonary

368

28

84

7

Endocrinology

Urology

2.88%

LewisGale Hospital - Montgomery

302

Cardiology - Medical

Inlier Outlier Number cases* cases** of cases

Hospital total (%)

Regional total (%)

289

41

330

7.20%

2.80%

92

8

100

2.18

2.59

Gastroenterology

394

18

412

8.99

3.26

2.02

General Medicine

191

24

215

4.69

2.68

15.71

3.64

Neurology

181

19

200

4.36

2.74

396

14.14

2.34

Orthopedic Surgery

416

13

429

9.36

4.82

91

3.25

2.65

Psychiatry

48

5

53

1.16

0.44

Pulmonary

489

44

533

11.62

3.15

Urology

107

11

118

2.57

3.44

LewisGale Hospital - Pulaski Service line

Service line

Inlier Outlier Number cases* cases** of cases

Hospital total (%)

Regional total (%)

309

46

355

15.28%

81

1

82

3.53

2.12

LewisGale Medical Center

Gastroenterology

277

24

301

12.95

2.38

Service line

General Medicine

202

13

215

9.25

2.68

Cardiology - Medical

Neurology

129

19

148

6.37

2.03

Endocrinology

Orthopedic Surgery

81

4

85

3.66

0.95

Gastroenterology

Psychiatry

23

3

26

1.12

0.22

Pulmonary

436

22

458

19.71

2.70

77

1

78

3.36

2.28

Endocrinology

Urology

3.01%

*Inlier Cases The number of hospital inpatient cases that were within the pre-set range for the particular service line.

Inlier cases were used to calculate length of stay and total charge values. Inlier cases do not include hospice patients. VHI removed those patients who had length of stays equal to 0 days or less or patients who had 0 dollar ($) charges or less. **Outlier Cases The number of hospital inpatient cases in a calendar year that were outside the pre-set range for the particular service line. Outlier cases do not include hospice patients. VHI removed those patients who had length of stays equal to 0 days or less or patients who had 0 dollar ($) charges or less.

18

JANUARY 2015

Inlier cases*

Outlier Number cases** of cases

Hospital total (%)

Regional total (%)

1,196

104

1,300

232

13

245

1.53

6.35

1,231

50

1,281

8.01

10.13

General Medicine

734

51

785

4.91

9.79

Neurology

714

57

771

4.82

10.57

Orthopedic Surgery

1,080

18

1,098

6.86

12.33

Psychiatry

1,950

16

1,966 12.29

16.27

Pulmonary

1,187

83

1,270

7.94

7.50

306

23

329

2.06

9.60

Urology

8.12% 11.03%

Source: Virginia Health Information Inc.

TECHNOLOGY

Going bananas Startup’s product may save the endangered fruit and protect other crops Edward Goyette wants to save bananas — and maybe soybeans, corn, cotton and peanuts, too.

by Beth Jones

E

dward Goyette keeps a copy of Dan Koeppel’s “Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World” close to his desk.

Goyette, president of the Roanoke biotechnology company American Biosystems, has a lot to say about the fruit. “People don’t realize how precarious the situation is,” Goyette says.

Turns out, the majority of bananas sold are of a single variety: the Cavendish. Such a complete

Photo by Sam Dean

lack of diversity is bad. “The yellow bananas that we eat all the time are all genetically identical so a fungus that attacks one of them will attack all of them,” he explains.

A virulent strain of Panama Disease, which is caused by soilborne fungus and has caused massive banana destruction in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, has received more media attention. But Black Sigatoka, another fungal disease, has decimated Caribbean banana farms and poses another

serious threat to the fruit. The two diseases have experts saying the Cavendish is fighting for survival; one newspaper dubbed the crisis Bananageddon.

One solution to fight Black Sigatoka, Goyette says, comes from down the road in Blacksburg. “I knew this product could deal with this problem,” he says.

That product would be a biofungicide developed by Joe Falkinham, a biology professor at Virginia Tech. “It’s a naturally deROANOKE BUSINESS

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technology

Leone BioVentures biofungicide is produced by bacteria, and could be used in the fight against diseased bananas.

rived compound that is produced by bacteria,” Goyette says. “It’s not genetically modified. It’s just something that exists in the environment.”

Goyette launched a startup called Leone BioVentures in 2013 to keep the biofungicide from languishing in Falkinham’s lab. “I sat down with Dr. Falkinham and put together a proposal where we at least get started on a path of getting this product toward the marketplace,” he explains.

To get the ball rolling, Goyette applied for and won a grant of about $50,000 from the Center for Innovative Technology’s Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund, a state program designed to spur economic growth in science and technology fields.

In three to four years, the biofungicide will be on the market, Goyette maintains. “People realized certain pesticides that were being used were dangerous, but when they took those off the market they 20

JANUARY 2015

needed to have new ones take their place that were much safer to work with,” Goyette says. “That’s where our product fits.”

This development has been a long time coming for Falkinham.

In 1994, the professor helped found a biotechnology company called Dominion BioSciences, which was interested in bringing natural products to agribusinesses. Around that time, Falkinham learned of a Penn State researcher who had discovered a unique microbe with special properties in the soil of a campus parking lot. “We were interested because this was a natural organism producing a natural compound, and this natural compound has a spectacular ability to kill fungus,” Falkinham explains.

Dominion BioSciences licensed the product and went on to complete more than 72 trials of the biofungicide. Those trials showed, Falkinham says, the product was “able to get rid of the fungus better than the standard chemicals that

are used regularly.”

“He had a couple of very large agrochemical companies interested,” Goyette says of Falkinham.

But in 2000, manufacturers of a similar product removed it from the market because of concerns it could cause diseases in cystic fibrosis patients.

Luckily, this was a problem with a solution. By heating the organisms, Falkinham found, he could kill the cells without damaging the antifungal properties. “So we could use the product without running any risk of infecting the cystic fibrosis patients,” he explains.

After maneuvering through that obstacle, Dominion BioSciences faced more roadblocks. The company needed more capital.

Then, one of the founders died.

A few years later, Dominion BioSciences folded, but Falkinham refused to throw in the towel on the biofungicide. “I never felt the project was dead,” he says.

All along, Goyette had followed Photo by Sam Dean

Falkinham’s work. The scientists knew each other through Virginia Tech, where Goyette received his bachelor’s degree in microbiology in 1978 and where he now serves on the alumni advisory board for the biology department. “I knew Dr. Falkinham had worked so hard on this, and I want to see it come to fruition,” he says. “He just wants to see his technology commercialized.”

The two men have talked at length about the best use for the product. Of course, a certain fruit has been much discussed. “We got really obsessed with bananas for a while,” Falkinham admits.

Only a few large companies distribute the world’s bananas, and they spend a lot of money to keep fungus off their plants, Falkinham says. “We thought that would be a marvelous market,” he explains.

Attempts to get banana executives on board, however, haven’t yet proven fruitful.

“I tried to reach out to some people at Dole,” Goyette says.

“They seemed very interested, but we couldn’t get to the right people.”

“Part of that might be that they’re banana producers and not really in the business of supporting and producing [products] for [fungal] treatment,” Falkinham adds. “So I think we need to focus on other partners.”

The goal isn’t necessarily for Leone BioVentures to take the biofungicide to market itself, Goyette says. Instead, he hopes to get the product far enough along that a big agribusiness company will license it.

The next step, Goyette says, will be to register the product with the Environmental Protection Agency. As part of that process, he explains, Leone BioVentures will have to fund expensive field tests.

According to Goyette, developing a new chemical pesticide costs about half a billion dollars.

“That’s the reason there are very few chemical pesticides coming onto the market,” he says.

File photo

Commercial bananas are Cavendish bananas, and they are threatened by Panama Disease and Black Sigatoka.

It’s cheaper, Goyette says, to get a biopesticide to market at a cost he estimates between $2 million and $10 million. “Since it’s a biological product that exists in the environment, there are fewer restrictions,” he explains. “So a small company like us could conceivably do that if we get some more financial help down the road.”

The amount of testing required will depend on how Leone BioVentures plans to use the biofungicide, Goyette says. “If you’re going to use the product in the soil in a greenhouse to grow poinsettias or flowers … that’s different than if you’re going to spray it on soybeans or corns in the open field,” he says.

The company will take one of two routes. “You can either say it works for everything every place and then try to get it approved for a large variety of uses in a large variety of ways,” he says. “Or you can pick an easier way that will require simpler registration and then just focus on those areas.”

A decision on which route to go will be made in coming months

after Goyette receives the results from field trials on corn, cotton, soybeans and peanuts at the Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Suffolk. He also has an introductory meeting scheduled with the EPA. There’s reason for Goyette to be optimistic that the EPA will eventually give the green light. In 2014 Marrone Bio Innovations, a California-based provider of biobased pest management and plant health products, gained EPA approval for a bioinsecticide. That product, according to Falkinham, is produced “by a relative of our organism.”

If Leone BioVentures decides to get the product approved for a specific use, it doesn’t necessarily mean giving up on the dream of coming to the rescue of the mighty banana.

After the biofungicide proves to be successful in one arena, Falkinham says, it will get the attention of big companies. “Then with that small start we can start growing bigger and bigger,” he says.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

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HIGHER EDUCATION

Roanoke College Educating students for jobs that haven’t been invented yet

by Gene Marrano

22

JANUARY 2015

Photo by Sam Dean

The Princeton Review has called Roanoke College’s campus one of the most beautiful in the country.

Photo credit

ROANOKE BUSINESS

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higher education

Michael Maxey worked at Roanoke College for more than two decades before becoming its president.

Photo by Sam Dean

A

source of confusion for some newcomers, Roanoke College is not located in Roanoke. It’s right next door in Salem. Compared with the mammoth, somewhat imposing Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Roanoke College is small, bucolic and quaint, set back several blocks from Salem’s Main Street.

Michael Maxey was named school president in 2007, succeeding Sabine O’Hara. Maxey already had served at Roanoke College in a variety of capacities for 22 years.

The Brackety-Ack newspaper — christened in 1915 after a naming contest — and the campus radio station WRKE (the Wreck of Roanoke) keep students in the know.

The NCAA Division III school boasts a rich athletics tradition, having won three national championships (men’s basketball, 1972; men’s lacrosse, 1978, both as a Division II school; Casey Smith, women’s

24

JANUARY 2015

10,000-meter NCAA championship in 2000) and more than 100 Old Dominion Athletic Conference titles since the conference’s founding in 1975. Roanoke became a Division III school in 1980.

The Princeton Review has ranked the school’s campus among the most beautiful in the country, but that has not stopped the college from renovating dormitories

and breaking ground on the Cregger Center, a new athletics and cultural hub, slated to open in 2016.

The groundbreaking ceremony at the site of Bowman Hall, a former dorm, began with Maxey counting down to the start of demolition, as Bruce Springsteen’s “Wrecking Ball” wailed in the background.

The Cregger Center (which will include an indoor track) is named for Morris Cregger, a standout Roanoke College basketball player in the 1960s, who is now a major contributor to the school. Cregger earned letters in four sports while he was a student. “[The Cregger Center] will help us compete for students with other institutions that have that wholesome amenity,” says Maxey.

The science complex and residence halls also have also been updated, using LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) construction standards.

Salem also is a drawing card when Maxey talks to potential students and parents: “part of what I try to sell them on is this area ... a college in a town beside a city [Roanoke] beneath a mountain. Oftentimes you can get one or two of those on any campus. It’s awfully hard to find that combination.”

Maxey sounds like he should be working for the chamber of commerce or the visitor’s bureau. He tells potential communications students, for example, that they may be able to intern at a local TV or radio

The Cregger Center, named for Morris Cregger, an outstanding basketball player who became a major donor, is scheduled to open in 2016.

Photo credit Photo by Natalee Waters

station, hike parts of the Appalachian Trail on off days and attend a symphony concert. “That’s what makes this such a virtuous place to go to school.”

Notable graduates over the years have included Hollywood actor John Payne, former U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, country singer Tom T. Hall, McAfee security software creator John McAfee and Henry Fowler, who was secretary of the treasury under President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Maxey stresses the “rigorous education,” available at Roanoke College — with professors who are “available and will get to know you.

Relationships matter.” Traditional courses are explained in relevant, modern terms, he adds — like tying statistics to events occurring in government today. Maxey believes that in many ways, “we’re in the process now of trying to educate students for jobs that don’t exist. The jobs will change and evolve.”

People always need to know how to write and think clearly, he says, but relating their liberal arts education to the world typically means sending students abroad for research or to internships and service learning projects before graduation. “That’s really where we try to help [students] relate to the world —which is a huge challenge today.”

Tuition and fees can be quite steep: estimated around $50,000 for the 2014-2015 academic year, including room and board. (There is a link to information about payment plans and financial aid on the college’s admissions webpage.)

Use of financial aid has increased “dramatically,” says Maxey, with the economic downturn in recent years a major factor. About 85 percent of students are now receiving some sort of assistance, a percentage that has remained consistent for the past several years.

Having a socio-economic balance in the student population on campus “is a big deal to us,” notes Maxey. About 16 percent of current

Roanoke College students are classified as minorities.

“Roanoke is Rising” is the motto the school has adopted in recent

years, serving notice that it intends to keep making changes. “That’s part of the Roanoke way,” Maxey says. “Never rest on your laurels.”

A quick glance at Roanoke College History: In 1842 the Virginia Institute — a prep school for boys — was founded near Staunton. One of its creators, Lutheran pastor Christopher Baughman, moved the school, then known as Virginia Collegiate Institute, to Salem, in 1847. It was chartered as a college in 1853. Women were admitted with a status equal to men for the first time in 1930. Roanoke College remains a private, liberal arts college.

Student body: A recent count shows about 2,100 students from 40 states and 25 countries. Within six months of graduation, 91 percent of alumni reported they had found a job in their chosen field or were attending graduate school to seek an advanced degree.

Degrees offered: Bachelor’s degrees in 36 majors, from biology to history to environmental studies; 57 minors and concentrations; and pre-professional programs for those planning to study various facets of health care, engineering, ministry and law.

Rankings: The Princeton Review and Forbes magazine have ranked Roanoke as a Top 9 percent college — from more than 4,100 colleges and universities that were examined nationwide. U.S. News & World Report has pegged the school as No. 4 on a list of “up and coming” liberal arts colleges for 2015. In 2012, The Princeton Review rated the Salem campus the 18th “Most Beautiful” in the U.S. “I’d rather be on the list than not,” says school President Mike Maxey, who is partial to the up-andcoming poll, compiled from a survey of college presidents and deans.

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ROANOKE BUSINESS

25

JANUARY INTERVIEW: Arielle Rosmarino: beauty queen, wrestler, marketer

Trading a tiara for a briefcase Former high-school wrestler and beauty queen talks about what comes next RB: Will those jumps be in the Star City?

Rosmarino: They’re definitely not in Roanoke.

Arielle Rosmarino is a former Miss Virginia USA, a former high school wrestler, and marketing director for her mother’s pageant, prom and bridal shop.

by Beth Jones rielle Rosmarino has promised her mother, Tabitha Cain, that she’ll stay on as marketing director at the family’s formal wear shop in Roanoke through April.

After that, the 23-year-old 2014 Miss Virginia USA plans to leave Proms, Pageants, and Pretty Things at the Bride’s House to strike out on her own.

When she sits down for a job interview, Rosmarino expects to talk about what she learned as a marketing major

A

26

JANUARY 2015

at Radford University, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree last year. If faced with the obligatory question about a time she handled a stressful situation, maybe Rosmarino will talk about how she kept her cool as a top-20 finalist during the nationally televised Miss USA pageant. Then again, she could talk about a strategy she used to break a tough hold when she was a wrestler for Roanoke County’s Glenvar High School.

Roanoke Business magazine sat down with Rosmarino a few weeks before she prepared to pass on her crown at the Miss Virginia USA 2015 pageant Nov. 30.

Roanoke Business: I’ve heard you’re not telling people what your next move will be.

Arielle Rosmarino: I’m looking to branch out, and specifics are not laid down yet. I’m looking to make some jumps in the marketing world.

RB: In addition to your Miss Virginia USA crown, you served as National American Miss Virginia Teen in 2010 and Miss Vermont United States in 2012. You’ve said you didn’t compete in your first “real” pageant until the age of 12. What caught your interest?

Rosmarino: I didn’t know anything about pageants. I got a pamphlet in the mail that asked if I wanted to do the National American Miss Virginia pageant. I turned around and asked mom if I could do it. She was like, ‘You did one when you were 6, and you cried because you got last place. So are you sure you want to do that?’ I did.

So, I really didn’t even know what I was getting myself into, but luckily my mom had done pageants when she was [in her late teens].

RB: You’ve said as Miss Virginia USA you’re required to make only a handful of appearances, but you made more than 100 during your reign. Why would you do that?

Rosmarino: That is part of who I am. Even before I won Miss Virginia USA, I’ve always done community service. I’ve been a public speaker for over 10 years, so I just [made it part of] the job. I talk about “Leaving No Doubt.” What I mean by that is I talk specifically to our youth … about the importance of setting goals and how to achieve those goals and to leave no doubt [that they are] achieving those goals.

Photo by Sam Dean

RB: Billionaire Donald Trump produces the Miss USA pageant with NBC Universal. Did you get to meet the Donald while in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for the pageant in June?

Rosmarino: He said, “Hi.” I said, “Hi.” Then he shook the hand of the next girl.

RB: Do you consider him a role model?

Rosmarino: Absolutely. I don’t know him personally, nor do I judge him on his personal life. As far as his business, he’s done some great things. Definitely from a business professional standpoint, he’s a huge role model.

RB: You made it as a top 20 finalist at Miss USA. You’ve said that following that pageant, you didn’t cry, which was surprising since in all your years of competing, you always cry afterward, even when you win. What was that about?

Rosmarino: I guess the feeling was before Miss USA started. I was backstage. I felt this overwhelming calming feeling I’d never felt before a pageant. Because I truly felt that no matter what happened, whether I walked off stage with a crown or not, that I had won, and I was successful. I did what I had set out to do there. Actually, this past weekend my director [Kim Nicewonder] put it in great words. She said one of the things she wanted to teach her girls was to take the competition out of the pageant … When Kim told me that last year, I laughed at her face. But that’s what Kim really taught me to do. I left the competition at my house, and I really took Miss USA as a summer camp and just a fun experience and that’s how I was able to be successful. I didn’t focus on the winning and losing aspects of the pageant. I focused on being myself. I finally felt I was successful in the way I wanted to be.

RB: Did you learn anything competing in pageants that you will bring with you to the working world?

Rosmarino: The interview skills. That’s the biggest thing … The job of Miss Virginia USA, if you look at it, is a marketing job.

When you’re crowned Miss Virginia USA, part of your duty is to promote the Miss Virginia USA organization. A lot of the things that I did to promote myself and promote the system [can be used] in my business life when promoting other businesses.

RB: During Miss USA, you were known as the wrestling beauty queen because you wrestled at Glenvar Middle School and until your junior year at Glenvar

High School, when you switched to managing the school team instead.

When you hit the mat, how did you face competitors with greater muscle mass?

Rosmarino: I compensated with my flexibility, more times than not. A lot of guys couldn’t figure out what to do with me because I was so flexible, and they couldn’t turn me. They’d be like, “What’s going on?

This isn’t normal.”

RB: Will you take any lessons from wrestling to the business world?

Rosmarino: It’s true in the wrestling world as in the business world: you’re going to have a lot of people trying to bring you down and trying to say that you don’t belong. The business world is very much a man’s world … as the wrestling world is. I feel like with me going into certain places, I’ll have people look down on me, especially because I’m a beauty queen. They kind of doubt my abilities, just like in wrestling they doubted my abilities because I was a girl. It’s really wrestling … [that] has taught me how to be strong individual and go after what I believe in.

RB: You’ve said you suffer from headaches so severe they caused you to quit wrestling your senior year of high school. How do you juggle working with chronic pain?

Rosmarino: It’s because my hands are in so many places. I feel if I take a sick day, I’m letting down a lot of people.

RB: You started at Radford University as a communications major. What made you switch to marketing?

Rosmarino: I honestly felt that the skills that I was going to learn in the communications classroom, I had a lot of those under my belt already from being a national public speaker. I was getting a lot of training from speaking through pageantry. I’ve always been a young business professional in everything I’ve done, so when I took a basic business class one of the professors talked to me about possibly doing marketing. So, I tried marketing and management.

Marketing came so easy, and it was a lot more fun than management, in my opinion.

It was a fun, easy subject that I was good at.

RB: Your mother bought Bride’s House and Formals on Peters Creek Road in 2012 and changed the store’s name to Proms, Pageants, and Pretty Things at the Bride’s House. Bride’s House and Formals had been part of the Roanoke

shopping fabric for decades. Were you ever worried that Roanoke shoppers would resist seeing new owners make changes?

Rosmarino: No. When my mom came in, the first thing she did was change the name. It immediately became her own at that point. From there, we redid the floors, and we split up the store so all of the bridal was on the left side and all the [pageant products were] on the right. We transformed the store, and we still have a lot more transformations to go.

RB: You’ve said your mom bought the 4,500-square-foot store after spending so much time with you on the pageant circuit.

Rosmarino: The joke is that it was cheaper to buy the dress store than to keep buying me dresses. In all of our journeys through our pageants … we had to go all over the place for this and that. We really wanted a centralized location where girls could go and get their evening gown, their interview outfit, their swimsuit, their jewelry, their shoes, their appearance dresses. We wanted a place where a pageant girl could come and be like, “OK! Everything I need is right here.” Not only do we have everything right together, we have consultants who are knowledgeable and, even if they don’t know the answers, they know people to ask to get the answers. So, it’s more than just a one-stop shop, it’s like a whole kit and caboodle …

RB: Cain declined to provide any revenue figures. Can you tell us whether putting an emphasis on pageant wear was a smart business move?

Rosmarino: It’s been very successful.

Since I won Miss Virginia USA, I feel like that has had a huge [impact]. It was huge for us at the store to win that because now girls know Miss Virginia USA works at Proms, Pageants, and Pretty Things at the Bride’s House. I have a lot of clients who request to work with me.

RB: Not only do you work with your mom, your grandmother Paula West works at the store. What’s it like working with family?

Rosmarino: I’ve loved every second. Because they’re family we all trust each other and the decisions that we make. We support each other. So, it’s been really awesome being the marketing director. They’ve given me the freedom to do what I’d like to do in making changes. So far, I feel like we’ve been really successful.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

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COMMUNITY PROFILE: Montgomery County

Wired for the future?

Virginia Tech accounts for one of every four jobs in fast-growing Montgomery County Virginia Tech is a center of learning, innovation and employment for Montgomery County.

by Sandra Brown Kelly

M

ontgomery County regularly appears on “best places” to live lists. Among its assets? The county includes Blacksburg, one of the fastest growing towns in the state. Its location on the Interstate 81 corridor between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains raises its profile, but Virginia Tech in Blacksburg is its most conspicuous asset.

A logo on the county’s economic development website gives Tech equal billing with its two independent towns — Christiansburg and Blacksburg. Blacksburg has been home of the university since 1872 when the Virginia General Assembly authorized the land-grant college, which now has more than 27,000 students.

As the county’s largest employ-

28

JANUARY 2015

er, Tech accounts for one of every four jobs and 33 percent of the payroll within the county. “The university’s overall impact, very conservatively stated, is about $1.5 billion,” says Larry Hincker, associate vice president of university relations.

County Administrator F. Craig Meadows says he meets weekly with a representative of the university. “We have a strong working relationship with the university,” says Meadows. “The spirit of cooperation in this county is very strong … the county and towns work with each other.”

Tech is an equal partner in the new 911 dispatch center in Christiansburg and will share staffing of the center. The university also belongs to the New River Valley Re-

gional Water Authority.

The effect of the university’s presence can be felt regularly. In 2014, San Francisco-based NerdWallet, a financial information website, ranked Blacksburg No. 3 among the fastest-growing places in Virginia. It also noted that income increased 25 percent between 2009 and 2012, with new jobs at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center and Falling Branch Corporate Park in Christiansburg influencing the growth.

NerdWallet credited alumni who stayed in the area with starting businesses that accounted for $13 million in economic growth since 2010.

Formed in 1776, the county was named for Gen. Richard Montgomery, a hero of the French and Photo by Jim Stroup, courtesy Virginia Tech

Indian War and the American Revolution. Christiansburg, the county seat, sits at the crossroads of Interstate 81, U.S. 11 and U.S. 460 and in the 1700s was an important stop on the Wilderness Road, a route for settlers going west. History says Daniel Boone stopped there to visit Davy Crockett, who worked at a tailor’s shop. In honor of its location, the town annually holds a Wilderness Road Festival.

As home to Virginia Tech and the school’s new Moss Center for the Arts, Blacksburg has developed into a cultural center with a renovated downtown that includes upscale condos, renovated retail and commercial space and more than 30 restaurants.

The county is part of the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) that encompasses Floyd, Giles, Montgomery and Pulaski counties and the city of Radford. Its population as of 2013 was 96,207, up 1,827 from 2010. Montgomery’s growth has made it a destination for residents from those areas.

“We’re a regional draw for retail,” says Meadows, who adds that despite some drop-off in retail sales in the past of couple of years, the county has continued to grow through the recruitment of new business and support of established ones.

The county is home to the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine and three major business centers, the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center (CRC), Blacksburg Industrial Park and Falling Branch Corporate Park. More than 160 companies operate at the CRC, which is on 230 acres adjacent to Virginia Tech.

And the companies keep on growing.

Last October, InMotion, an Italian maker of electric motor parts, invested $5 million to open its first U.S. plant in the Blacksburg Industrial Park with an expectation of up to 80 employees in three years.

Several established companies announced expansions in the past Photo by Josh Armstrong, courtesy Virginia Tech

Montgomery County Population

96,000-plus (estimated)

Employees

400

FY 2015 budget

$171.4 million

County seat Christiansburg Size Elevation Cost of living index

393 square miles 2,133 feet 94.4 (based on a 100 national average)

Administrator F. Craig Meadows Source: Montgomery Economic Development Department

Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine....

The Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine is a tenant at Virginia Tech’s Corporate Research Center.

couple of years. TORC Robotics, founded in 2005 by a Virginia Tech grad and housed at the CRC, announced the opening of a new $2.5 million research and development facility in the Blacksburg Industrial Park.

Polymer Solutions Inc., an independent lab for polymer and metals testing and materials analysis, invested $2.9 million in building a new headquarters and lab in Falling Branch Corporate Park in Christiansburg. Backcountry.com opened its $22 million fulfilment center in Falling Branch in 2012,

and Aeroprobe Corp. spent $3 million to build a headquarters and manufacturing facility there.

In early November, Wolverine Advanced Materials, which has been in the county since 1974, announced an expansion of its automotive materials manufacturing plant. Wolverine expects to invest $10.6 million and create 93 new jobs.

In the five years Meadows has been administrator, the county has opened two new high schools, renovated an old high school into a middle school and opened a new elementary school.

ROANOKE BUSINESS

29

Montgomery County Auburn High School is among Montgomery County’s newest school buildings.

Growth means challenges, too, says Meadows. Policies need to be in place to assure that growth focuses around the two towns. People who live in Riner, Pilot and Shawsville like the beauty of a small area, he says. Riner is home to a buffalo farm; the Meadowbrook Center is in Shawsville; Pilot epitomizes the beauty of Virginia’s mountains.

Other demands on the county will be to find ways to provide the senior housing needs of retirees attracted by Virginia Tech’s presence, expand recreational facilities and update libraries. “We’re bursting at the seams with youth who want to participate in sports,” says Meadows.

A new staff person has been added in recreation, and discussions have

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begun on developing a master plan for recreational facilities.

The county also wants to develop its tourism. It has a major outdoor draw in the more than 20 miles of the New River that run through it and in the Huckleberry Trail for cyclists and pedestrians. The trail extends more than six miles, from the Blacksburg Public Library to the Christiansburg Recreation Center, with the opening in early 2015 of a new trail bridge over one of the area’s busiest roads, Virginia 114.

While the county has a list of things it wants to accomplish, it has made a concentrated effort to keep up its reputation as a “wired” community. Blacksburg in 1996 was recognized as the first Internet-wired town by Porter Novelli, a worldwide public relations agency. At the time, 62 percent of Blacksburg residents had Internet access while the number was 8 percent for the nation.

The county has continued the highly wired image. For the past three years, its annual reports have been presented as videos on YouTube. They feature Meadows each of the county’s supervisors explaining an aspect of the report. In November, the 2014 annual report received a Silver Summit Award for Creative Advertising from the Blue Ridge chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

Ruth Richey, the county’s public information director, and a staff of two, record supervisors’ meetings, Christiansburg Town Council and School Board meetings for rebroadcast on Shentel and Comcast channels. They also manage Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, and Richey tweets during supervisors’ meetings.

The county seems poised for the future.

“We’re the fastest-growing county in Western Virginia,” Meadows says, “and I feel strongly that trend is going to continue.”

Photo by Alisa Moody

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Roanoke Regional Chamber | SPONSORED CONTENT 2015 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.

EVENT SPONSORSHIP Business Before Hours – Oct. 28 United Way of Roanoke Valley Doctors Express of Roanoke

Business Before Hours – Nov. 13 Hermitage in Roanoke Doctors Express of Roanoke

NEW MEMBERS The following businesses joined the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce from Oct. 9 through Nov. 10, 2014:

Ardagh Metal Packaging USA Inc.

Driver Training Inc.

Scale Up Roanoke Valley

Belk Department Store – Tanglewood Mall

Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corp.

Extreme Design Landscaping & Turfgrass Management Inc.

Hilton Garden Inn

Ply Gem

Controllers Etc.

River Rock Climbing

Member news & recognitions Advance Auto Parts, the largest automotive aftermarket parts provider in North America, has announced that Adriana “Andi” Karaboutis, who currently Karaboutis serves as executive vice president, technology and business solutions of Biogen Idec, has been elected to Advance’s board of directors.

CowanPerry PC congratulates associate attorney Eric D. Chapman on his admission to the North Carolina State Bar, his election to the board of Mental Health America of New River Chapman Valley and his appointment as the 27th Circuit representative for the Virginia State Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Conference.

Dr. Matt Burkhart has joined the staff of Balance Wellspace as a chiropractor. He is a graduate of the Cleveland Chiropractic College.

Devine Building Services has named Carolyn E. Dooley as executive vice president. Dooley will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company.

Burkhart

McMillan

Dooley B2C Enterprises has announced that Lauren McMillan has joined the staff as a project manager. She will specialize in client services for existing and new clients.

Carilion Clinic has named Patrice M. Weiss, M.D., to serve as chief medical officer.

Dr. Weiss had served as chair of the Department of ObstetWeiss rics and Gynecology at Carilion Clinic and professor of OB/GYN at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.

Ariel Lev has been named the new director of the CoLab. She is a graduate of Appalachian State University and received her master’s degree from Georgetown University.

Draper Aden Associates has announced the hiring of Lynn Davis as a senior accounting specialist in the Blacksburg office.

Davis The Virginia law firm Johnson, Ayers & Matthews has received top Roanoke-area rankings from “Best Lawyers 2015 Best Law Firms,” which is awarded each year by U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers. The firm received Roanoke Metropolitan Tier 1 rankings in the following practice areas: eminent domain and condemnation law; insurance law; personal injury litigation – defendants; and railroad law.

LeClairRyan has announced that 53 of the firm’s practice areas have been selected for in-

clusion in the most recent edition of U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers listing of Best Law Firms for 2015. Firms were ranked in tiers, both nationally and by metropolitan area, based on specific data including client and peer review surveys. LeClairRyan’s selected practices include: Metropolitan Rankings, Roanoke, Tier 1: bankruptcy and creditor debtor rights/insolvency and reorganization law; commercial litigation; employment law – management; labor law – management; litigation – banking and finance; litigation – bankruptcy; and medical malpractice law – defendants; Tier 2, personal injury litigation – defendants; national rankings, Tier 1, bankruptcy and creditor debtor rights/insolvency and reorganization law; litigation – construction; and mass tort litigation/class actions – defendants; Tier 2, corporate law; litigation – bankruptcy, and litigation – environmental; Tier 3, commercial litigation; communications law; construction law; energy law; franchise law; information technology law; insurance law; leveraged buyouts and private equity law; litigation – labor and employment; litigation – real estate; private funds/hedge funds law; securities/capital markets law; securities regulation; and venture capital law.

The national law firm LeClairRyan has been named among the 10 percent of commercial litigation firms ranked by the BTI Consulting Group (BTI). The rankings, published in BTI Litigation Outlook 2015: Changes, Trends and Opportunities for Law Firms, are based on 300 one-on-one interviews with corporate counsel.

BTI announced that corporate counsel nomiROANOKE BUSINESS

33

SPONSORED CONTENT | Roanoke Regional Chamber nated LeClairRyan to the Intellectual Property Honor Roll based on interviews with over 175 Fortune 1000 General Counsel and IP decision makers at top-spending organizations. The law firm was also recognized on BTI’s Client Relationship Scorecard, for which corporate counsel were asked to gauge the strength of their current relationships with law firms.

The Roanoke County Public Schools has announced that the Virginia Board of Education has named Mount Pleasant Elementary as a “Distinguished Title I School” for raising the academic achievement of economically disadvantaged students.

The Roanoke Valley Area Metropolitan Planning Organization has changed its name to the Roanoke Valley Transportation Planning Organization. The policy board of the organization, staffed by the Roanoke Valley Regional Commission, decided that the new name more clearly communicates the role and purpose of the organization.

Spilman Thomas & Battle PLLC has announced that the firm was ranked as a Tier 1 Metropolitan “Best Law Firm” by U.S. News – Best Lawyers in 24 areas of law across four of its office locations – Charleston and Morgantown, W.Va.; Pittsburgh; and Roanoke. The Roanoke firm was recognized as a “Best Law Firm” in employee benefits (ERISA) law, public finance law, and trusts and estates law.

William “Bill” G. Abplanalp has been named audit manager in the Department of Internal Audit at Virginia Tech.

Black

Virginia Tech’s Ted and Karyn Hume Center for National Security and Technology has named Jonathan Black as its first associate director of research for aerospace systems.

Ralph M. Byers, former executive director of government relations at Virginia Tech, has been conferred the title of “executive director emeritus” by the Virginia Tech board of visitors.

Byers

Flessner

Frimpong

Michael Flessner has been appointed assistant professor in the Virginia Tech Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology and Weed Science and Extension specialist with the Virginia Cooperative Extension.

Emmanuel Frimpong, associate professor of fisheries science in the College of Natural Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech, has been named a Carnegie African Diaspora Fellow.

David Haak has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology and Weed Science in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Haak

Harden

Samantha Harden has been named an assistant professor of human nutrition, foods and exercise in the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

The Virginia Tech Discovery Analytics Center has added Peter Hauck to its Early Model-Based Event Detection using Surrogates project, also known as EMBERS. Hauck will lead the software de- Hauck velopment team as a data scientist, specializing in the integration of research into production.

Valisa Hedrick has been named assistant professor of human nutrition, foods and exercise in the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Hedrick Vivica Kraak was recently named assistant professor of human nutrition, foods and exercise in the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Kraak

Kristy Daniels has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of Dairy Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Xueyang Feng has been appointed assistant professor of biological systems engineering in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Caroline Leeth has been named assistant professor of animal and poultry sciences in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

JANUARY 2015

Timothy Long, a professor of chemistry and associate dean for research and international outreach in the College of Science at Virginia Tech, has been named director of the university’s Long Macromolecules and Interfaces Institute.

Eric L. Moore has been named the testing and assessment coordinator at the Virginia Tech Language and Culture Institute.

Leeth

Moore

Mike Persia has been named assistant professor in the Department of Animal and Poultry Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Persia Besnik Pula has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

Pula

Read

Dustin Read has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of Apparel, Housing and Resource Management at Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

Marin Riegger has joined the Graduate School at Virginia Tech as child-care coordinator and will focus on identifying options for university students with children.

In her position, Riegger will as- Riegger sess students’ child-care needs, research potential and affordable programs and support services, and develop a parents’ child-care cooperative program.

Sands Lee

34

Li

Kiho Lee has been named assistant professor in the Department of Animal and Poultry Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Daniels

Feng

Song Li has been named assistant professor of crop and soil environmental sciences in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Laura P. Sands has joined Virginia Tech’s Center for Gerontology as a full professor in the Department of Human Development in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

Frank Shushok Jr., senior associate vice president for student affairs at Virginia Tech, has been recognized with the Anderson Inspiration Award for his work as an advocate of the strengths- Shushok

Roanoke Regional Chamber | SPONSORED CONTENT Abby Walker has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech.

based approach to education.

Daniel Slade has been appointed assistant professor of biochemistry in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Slade Venkataramana Sridhar has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. He is one of 19 new faculty members recently hired in the Sridhar university’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Meredith Steele has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Steele Former Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger, who served the university in several capacities for 40 years, has been conferred the title of “president emeritus” by the Virginia Tech board of visitors. Steger

Walker Tyler Walters, dean of University Libraries at Virginia Tech, has been named the founding director of SHARE initiative. SHARE, which stands for Shared Access Research Ecosystem, was Walters established in 2013 to ensure the preservation of, access to and reuse of research outputs, such as articles, conference papers and research data sets.

Brandi Watkins has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of Communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Watkins Achievements in fine particle recovery and associated environmental benefits, representing decades of work led by University Distinguished Professor RoeHoan Yoon of Virginia Tech, has Yoon garnered him the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award from the 27th International

Mineral Processing Congress.

Virginia Western Community College students pursing studies in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) fields have access to new scholarships, research experiences, internships and courses, thanks to a NASA grant awarded to the Virginia Space Grant Consortium. The Consortium’s newly announced program, STEM Takes Flight at Virginia’s Community Colleges, is designed to provide scholarships as well as real-world work and research experiences that foster community college retention in STEM academic tracks through graduation with an associate degree or transfer to a four-year institution.

James W. Jennings Jr. is the recipient of the Excellence in Civil Litigation Award, presented at the 2014 annual meeting of the Virginia Association of Defense Attorneys. Jennings has practiced law at Woods Rogers PLC for more than 45 years.

Jennings Josh Jackson has been named program director and content manager at WVTF Public Radio and RADIO IQ. He will be responsible for all programming produced, acquired and distributed by the two stations.

Ryan Stewart has been appointed assistant professor of crop and soil environmental sciences in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Stewart Trevor T. Stewart has been appointed program leader for English education and assistant professor in the School of Education at Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. Stewart

Tandon

Ravi Tandon, a research assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has joined the university’s Discovery Analytics Center’s team of research scientists.

Pamela B. Teaster has joined Virginia Tech’s Center for Gerontology as full professor in the Department of Human Development in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

Teaster Brian Thorsett has been appointed assistant professor in the School of Performing Arts at Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

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What is someone capable of?

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ROANOKE BUSINESS

35

Although winter has just arrived, we are busy planning for Spring.

Please check out our editorial lineup. I t ’ s sure to

WARM YOU UP!

MARCH APRIL MAY

Feature: Energy Business Trends: Commercial Real Estate Legally Speaking Community Profile: Christiansburg Special Report: New River Community College Feature: Diversity Business Trends: Hospitality and Tourism Technology Community Profile: Pulaski County Special Report: Hollins University Feature: Commercial Real Estate: History and future of historic tax credits Business Trends: Manufacturing/Distribution Healthcare Community Profile: Blacksburg Special Report: American National University

For information on how your marketing message can be a part of these exciting issue, please contact: Lynn Williams - 540-597-2499 lwilliams@roanoke-business.com

VWCC full page

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.

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