FinTech: Bother or blessing? p. 16
JUNE 2016
Profiting from rail history p. 37
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Ten-year checkup Physician-led Carilion Clinic celebrates anniversary and plans new ventures
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CONTENTS SERVING THE ROANOKE/BLACKSBURG/ NEW RIVER VALLEY REGION
June 2016
F E AT U R E S COVER STORY
8
Ten-year checkup
8
Physician-led Carilion Clinic begins second decade with new ventures and more affiliations with Virginia Tech. by Sandra Brown Kelly
FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS Upstarts: bother or blessing?
16
Financial technology companies pose a threat and offer hope to community banks. by Dan Radmacher
21
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE Domino effect?
21
Two big moves and a reduction in employee space drops office occupancy to lowest rate in 29 years. by Jenny Boone
HIGHER EDUCATION Primary care
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VCOM’s mission: train physicians to serve in areas that don’t have enough medical care. by Shawna Morrison
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INTERVIEW: Chip and Bonnie Grubb
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E 37
local owners of the Rail Yard Dawgs by Beth JoJack
Virginia Tech web series aims to help small towns by Veronica Garabelli
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JUNE 2016
BUSINESS EXTRA: THE 611 The restored 611 excursions pull money into the state and region. by Donna Alvis-Banks
Canadian owner relies on locals to be his eyes and ears.
BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT
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Profiting from history
Roanoke’s hockey team
34
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41
PREVIEW
42
NEWS FROM THE CHAMBER
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FROM THE EDITOR
Economic health
A
by Tim Thornton
ccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, seven of the nation’s 10 fastest-growing jobs are related to health care. According to U.S. News & World Report, nine of the 10 best jobs in the U.S. are related to health care. According to just about any measure you can find, health care is a significant and growing segment of the American economy. There are few places where that’s truer than the Roanoke Valley, where Carilion Clinic is the major force in health care. It’s been a decade since Carilion became Carilion Clinic, embracing a different style of organization and operation. The Virginia Tech Carilion Medical School and Research Institute opened nearly halfway through that decade, forging a much closer tie between the Roanoke Valley and Virginia Tech than the two had ever had before. The school almost instantly made Roanoke a significant player in cutting-edge medical research and provided the western part of Virginia — an area underserved medically — with a new source for new doctors. Within three years, the research institute plans to double in size, supported by a $66 million investment from the commonwealth, Virginia Tech and Carilion. Roanoke benefits a great deal from all this, of course, but the effects go much farther. Carilion’s services reach throughout the Roanoke and New River valleys and into the Shenandoah Valley and the Alleghany Highlands. Carilion CEO Nancy Agee says her organization is Virginia’s biggest employer west of Richmond. With 11,700 employees, an annual payroll of more than $735 million and net revenues of $1.5 billion, Carilion would be a major economic force and a significant part of the region even if its business didn’t involve improving health and saving lives. But it does. An innovative health-care provider involved in medical research and training attracts both young, creative, talented people and people looking for a nice place to retire. It can stimulate growth and development and the reclamation and repurposing of buildings left over from when Roanoke was a railroad town and home to lots of old-school manufacturing jobs. It’s no coincidence that the Bridges, the city’s largest mixed-use development project, is just across Jefferson Street from the research institute and the rest of Carilion’s operations at Riverside Center. It’s also a short walk from Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. A person who knows where to look inside that hospital can see the old Roanoke Memorial Hospital building. It has been repurposed as the building and the medical organization that operates it have grown larger and more sophisticated. A person who looked from that building down Jefferson Street toward Riverside Center might see the future.
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JUNE 2016
SERVING THE ROANOKE/BLACKSBURG/ NEW RIVER VALLEY REGION Vol. 5
JUNE 2016
President & Publisher Roanoke Business Editor Contributing Editor Contributing Writers
Art Director Contributing Photographers Production Manager Circulation Manager Accounting Manager Vice President of Advertising Account Representative
No. 6
Bernard A. Niemeier Tim Thornton Paula C. Squires Donna Alvis-Banks Jenny Boone Beth JoJack Sandra Brown Kelly Shawna Morrison Dan Radmacher Adrienne R. Watson Don Petersen Natalee Waters Kevin L. Dick Karen Chenault Ashley Henry Hunter Bendall Lynn Williams
CONTACT: EDITORIAL: (540) 520-2399 ADVERTISING: (540) 597-2499 210 S. Jefferson St., Roanoke, VA 24011-1702 We welcome your feedback. Email Letters to the Editor to Tim Thornton at tthornton@roanoke-business.com VIRGINIA BUSINESS PUBLICATIONS LLC A portfolio company of Virginia Capital Partners LLC Frederick L. Russell Jr.,, chairman
on the cover Carilion Clinic Roanoke Photo by Don Petersen
Out About &
Share photos of your company’s special events with Roanoke Business. E-mail your candid photos and identifications to Adrienne R. Watson, arwatson@va-business.com.
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JUNE 2016
Contributed photos
1- 4. Advance Auto Parts partnered with the Salem Red Sox for a Pack the Park event on May 10 at the Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium. Proceeds from the event will be donated to JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation). Activities included games at the Advance Rev It Up RV Tour vehicle, which is traveling the country to introduce customers to a cost-saving loyalty program. Tuxlee, the RV tour mascot, was on hand to greet people. And of course, there was baseball. 5.
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Retired Congressman Jim Moran was recently appointed professor of practice in the School of Public and International Affairs in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech. The Roanoke Regional Chamber hosted its annual 2016 Business Summit at Virginia Western Community College on May 10. Pictured are: Adam Linkenauger, Media540; Chris Turnbull, Carilion Clinic; Thomas Becher, ndp; and Michael Quonce, The Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center. Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Southwest Virginia selected Victor Chase to be the 2016 ambassador for Virginia. Victor (between Batman and Captain America) celebrated with some superhero friends Friday, May 6, on top of Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
Calendar of events June Items on the calendar are just a sample of Roanoke/New River Valley business events this month. To submit an event for consideration, email Tim Thornton at tthornton@roanoke-business.com at least one month before the event.
June 9-11
North American Wind Energy Academy Symposium Blacksburg The event at Virginia Tech will focus on ways to increase wind energy use.
www.nawea.org
June 14
Business Basics
Bill Piatt and Barb Nocera, with the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce, show off one of the giveaways from their booth at the SML Chamber of Commerce Business Expo held on May 6.
Roanoke The class, held at the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce’s office, provides an introduction to owning a business.
Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital’s Donate Life ceremony in April brought together, Steve Roberts, (organ recipient); Britta Cruz, LifeNet; Robbie Key, LifeNet; and Dan Smith, Carilion Clinic Trauma Services.
www.rrsbdc.org
10. Medical officials gathered in May for a sneak peak at the opening of a new VelocityCare center in Lexington. Pictured on the front row are: Dr. Robert Childers, VelocityCare; Kim Roe, vice president family and community medicine and VelocityCare; Chuck Carr, VP Carilion Stonewall Jackson Hospital; Greg Madsen, VP Carilion Clinic, Western Division; Judy Flinchum, RN, VelocityCare Practice Manager. 11. Gov. Terry McAuliffe signs bond bill at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute on May 6 that includes $46.7 million for the expansion of the research institute. 12. Anne Holton, (second from left), Virginia’s secretary of education, was the keynote speaker in April at the building dedication for Kyle Hall, the home of the College of Business and Economics at Radford University. The building was named in honor of Penny Kyle (fourth from left), Radford’s president, who will retire this month. The group is standing around a commemorative plaque bearing the building’s name that will hang inside of Kyle Hall’s main entrances.
June 23
Virginia CFO Awards Richmond Virginia Business honors five chief financial officers at The Jefferson Hotel.
www.virginiabusiness.com
June 29 - July 10
Salem Fair Salem This regionally based agricultural fair is the largest fair in the state and has been recognized as one of the top 100 fairs and expositions in the country.
fair.salemva.gov
ROANOKE BUSINESS
7
COVER STORY
Ten-year
checkup
Physician-led Carilion Clinic begins second decade with new ventures and more affiliations with Virginia Tech by Sandra Brown Kelly
8
JUNE 2016
Background photo courtesy Carilion Clinic
Photos by Don Petersen
ROANOKE BUSINESS
9
Cover Story Nancy Agee, president and CEO of Carilion Clinic, says the health system is where she expected it to be at 10 years.
I
n 2006, Roanoke’s Carilion Health System began to transform into a new model of a physician-led Carilion Clinic. Its goal? Deliver quality health care at a lower cost. The clinic recruited physician specialists as employees and added medical education and research departments.
What was envisioned as a 13year plan followed a national trend that recognized traditional systems of patient care were not working for either quality or cost containment. Ten years marks a major milestone and prompts introspection. So how are things going? 10
JUNE 2016
“We are about where we expected to be,” says Nancy Agee, president and CEO of the health care system where she began her career as a registered nurse in 1973. Today, Carilion Clinic operates seven hospitals and a medical school and research institute, the last two joint
ventures with Virginia Tech. It’s the biggest employer west of Richmond, with 11,700 employees, and has been crucial in helping to diversify the economy in a region that has seen old staples such as railroads and coal fall away. As it heads into its second decade, the clinic’s future looks bright. A health and science innovation district is in the works, and new state funding is coming for research expansion. Yet perhaps more importantly, there’s a new mindset about what was once considered an experimental play to bring national scale health care and research to Roanoke. Agee sees all of the parts coming together, but before pronouncing success, she says healthcare costs must be cut. In 2006, Agee was chief operating officer and part of a team charged with deciding, “what will we look like in the future? Carilion was financially strong, but the question came up: ‘Could we stay on that high?’” Agee recalls. Like all health-care systems, Carilion felt pressure from Medicare and other insurers to deliver care at a lower cost. Also, Carilion saw its operating income drop despite an increase in operating revenue. Operating income in 2005 was $35.1 million; in 2006, it decreased to $29.1 million. The leaders considered options. They could merge the hospital with another health-care system or become a for-profit system – or both. “But we wanted to remain nonprofit and local,” Agee says. Leaders decided to embrace the concept of a physician-led organization like the Mayo, Cleveland and Lahey clinics, and they set about defining what the Carilion “clinic” would look like. When someone later suggested a medical school, then-CEO Ed Murphy and then-Virginia Tech president Charles Steger got the momentum going for it and a research institute. The Virginia Tech Carilion Medical School and Research Institute opened in 2010. The institute is Photo by Don Petersen
slated to double in size within three years, an expansion made possible by $45 million in bonds approved by the 2016 General Assembly and $21 million from Carilion Clinic and Virginia Tech. Roanoke officials announced in April that the Riverside Center will anchor a Health Sciences and Technology Innovation District, stretching from a new Gill Memorial Business Technology Center downtown to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. The district includes Carilion’s Jefferson College of Health Sciences, which has 1,100 students. Getting to now With an annual payroll of more than $735 million, Carilion’s influence is unsurpassed in the area. The clinic is visually conspicuous beyond the Riverside Center that houses the medical school-research facility and Carilion Clinic physician offices. A 15-story addition has been announced for the 703-bed Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, which also houses the Children’s Hospital and a 60-bed neonatal intensive care unit. In January, Carilion opened the Institute of Orthopaedics and Neurosciences (ION) near the corner of Franklin Road and Wonju Street, a major intersection a few blocks from Riverside Center. Agee says she especially likes the acronym for the facility because “an ion is a positive charge.” Defining the institute, however, is a work in progress. “We are sort of tiptoeing into the institute world,” says Agee, who notes that institutes don’t have to be physical places and that Carilion already is doing something similar in its cardiovascular division. The institute is housed in a 65,000-square-foot former grocery store building that sits on five acres. Carilion bought the property for $7 million and spent $9 million on renovations. The structure is art-intensive, as are most Carilion properties. For Carilion, exposure to art is part
The first 10 years by the numbers Employs
11,700 people
Pays
$735 million in annual wages
Operates
Seven hospitals. Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital and Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital, Carilion New River Valley Medical Center, Montgomery County; Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital, Rocky Mount; Carilion Giles Community Hospital, Pearisburg; Carilion Tazewell Community Hospital, Carilion Stonewall Jackson Hospital, Lexington; Carilion Clinic Properties LLC, Carilion Clinic Foundation and Carilion Services Inc. Also owns an 80 percent interest in Stonewall Jackson Community Health Foundation.
FY 2014: Total $146.2 million. This includes $120.8 million in uncompenCommunity sated care, $57.7 million, charity care; $20.8 million, education; $3.6 million, Benefit community outreach; and $1 million, research. Annual taxes paid to city of Roanoke for properties 1-6 on Riverside Circle: $1 million
Taxes
Carilion Clinic financial history (in $ thousands)
Not adjusted for bad debt
Operating income
Operating revenue
FY2015
$ 61,023
$ 1,513,523
FY2014
54,687
1,493,160
3.7%
1,921,936
559,191
FY2013
20,320
1,434,079
1.4%
1,755,300
602,631
Operating margin
Total assets
Net assets fund bal
4.0% $ 1,975,919
$ 517,307
CLINICAL CARE Family & Community Medicine •
55 locations, including 44 primary care, 8 VelocityCare, 2 student health and one occupational medicine office
•
177 physicians
•
28 family and community medicine residents
•
72 advanced care providers
•
300,076 patients (Oct. 1, 2014 – Sept. 30, 2015)
•
800,357 patient visits (during same time)
Education •
Jefferson College of Health Sciences, 1,100 students, up from 800 in 2006
•
VTC School of Medicine, 169 students, 80 graduates.
Graduate Medical Education •
260 residents and fellows in 13 residency programs , up from 157 residents and fellows in 7 programs in 2006
Number of physicians employed (includes residents and fellows) •
Today: 941 (681 physicians)
•
2006: 576 (419 physicians)
Source: Carilion Clinic, city of Roanoke
ROANOKE BUSINESS
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Cover Story of creating a healthy environment. The Carilion Clinic Design Group curates more than 1,300 pieces of local art featured throughout clinic properties. Getting to now, however, was expensive and painful. “It was a lot of change really fast,” says Agee. To create Riverside Center, which cost more than $150 million, the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority used eminent domain to obtain a flooring company’s three acres to package into the proposed medical complex. The business sued, and in 2010 a court ordered the housing authority to pay the business owners $2.2 million for the property. The housing authority sold it to Carilion for $1.5 million. The city of Roanoke spent $20 million to compile Riverside Center property before selling it to Carilion in 2006. When Carilion began to recruit clinic doctors, pushback was vocal. A radiology practice shifted
its affiliation from Carilion to the return “doesn’t mean I believe in privately owned LewisGale Medi- corporate medicine; I still believe cal Center in Salem, leaving Car- medical care is better delivered by ilion to scramble to hire radiolo- independents,” Cotter says. A group of independent docgists. Vistar Eye Center, a group tors led by Dr. Lawof eye and surgical specialists, also rence Monahan of went to LewisGale. An op-ed in Jefferson Internal The Roanoke Times by Vistar ophMedicine also balked thalmologist Frank Cotter said Viat joining Carilion and star would discontinue emergency applied for LewisGale call services for Carilion for a fuprivileges but kept its ture “that limits Carilion’s ability to Monahan contact with Carilion. harm us.” Vistar now serves Carilion, and Monahan is less conciliatory about Cotter attributes the renewed re- the clinic although his group conlationship to Agee’s tinues to refer patients to Carilion. “sincere effort to forge “They have islands of excellence,” a relationship. Before Monahan says, but adds he still Nancy, it seemed an believes Carilion Clinic created us versus them, and “a self-serving empire.” He bases we were not made to much of his position on the higher feel part of the team.” Medicare reimbursements allowed Cotter Vistar has become a to Carilion Clinic doctors over doc“full-fledged partner” with a rep- tors in independent practices since resentative sitting in on Carilion’s the reimbursements are based on meetings, but it also is “still totally the higher overhead of the clinic independent,” Cotter says. The structure.
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JUNE 2016
Changes underway While public debate about the value of a clinic continued in the medical community, Carilion began making physical changes. It spent $34 million to build a new hospital in Giles County. It built Carilion Clinic doctors’ offices at Riverside Center and spent $135 million to install Epic, an electronic records system that allows a doctor to follow a patient’s care and the patient to access medical information through MyChart. Epic costs $50 million a year to maintain and had 119,000 active users as of February, Carilion reports. The clinic conversion, coupled with the addition of a medical school and research center and the new clinic offices, put Carilion in a stronger position to recruit doctors. Whenever possible, Carilion sought physicians with previous clinic structure experience, Agee says. Since 2006, Carilion has added more than 300 physicians, residents
The $34 million Carilion Giles Community Hospital is one of seven Carilion Clinic hospitals.
and fellows. The new structure also meant revamping Carilion’s leadership model. It was divided into clinical departments, each led by a “dyad” of a physician and a nonphysician. “That was change for everybody. Administration was not used to sharing at that level,” Agee says.
Dr. Michael Jeremiah, a practicing physician and associate professor at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, is chair of the Department of Family & Community Medicine. His dyad partner, Kim Roe, an MBA, is vice president of the division, which includes 277 primary care providers in 43 sites.
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Photo courtesy Carilion Clinic
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ROANOKE BUSINESS
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Cover Story “I appreciate most that Kim has the business background, and I can tap into that,” says Jeremiah. The team members touch base almost daily and meet regularly. They might discuss hospital capacity or expansion of services or a need for space. “We Jeremiah also discuss what needs will exist three years out, which clinics need equipment, and what physicians are retiring,” says Jeremiah. “A new piece of equipment requires a thorough process,” explains Roe. “What benefit will it bring? Is that the wisest spending? We have to look at long- and short-term cost. We say no every week, and sometimes it’s a tough decision. For example, we are looking at radiology equipment throughout the clinic; some sites will not get equipment because usage has gone down.” Any request for equipment or staff ends up at the top, the 21-member Board of Governors. Decisions are based on most urgent needs, explains Dr. Patrice M. Weiss, chief medical officer and a member of the board. “Physician-led does not mean physician-commanded,” Weiss explains. “One department never wins at the expense of another department because we are in this together.” The structure also allows physicians to take the lead. This happened when Carilion decided to open urgent-care centers. The first thought was to outsource the clinics, but Dr. John Burton, Department of Emergency Medicine chair, came up with the concept for urgent-care centers called VelocityCare. Now there are eight of them, including one that opened in May at Stonewall Jackson in Lexington after “data indicated a need for low-level emergency care,” says Roe. Decisions are data-driven, but focus both on a patient’s need for access and on employees’ needs and health, too. “For example, how do we handle holidays,” says Weiss. 14
JUNE 2016
“Can you go a long weekend without access to care? All of our people have loved ones they want to be with, too.” This year, Carilion set up a “trust program” to aid staff mentally and emotionally, says Weiss. Physicians, especially, are at a high risk for burnout with many retiring earlier to get away from the long hours and increasing demands of their profession. And, yes, some doctors still have trouble adjusting to the clinic climate, says Jeremiah. To be part of Carilion Clinic means paying attention to documentation and understanding and buying into the system’s mission: “What can we do to improve the health of the whole community,” says Jeremiah. “Nancy asks that. We are lifelong learners; we need to be engaging with patients and pushing the envelope in research.” All departments know what others are doing, somewhat helped by Weiss’ monthly “Cheers for Peers” email listing awards, authorship of papers and job changes. “I know they are reading it because I get messages with information they want put in the next email,” says Weiss. “Sharing what’s working includes discussing our operating margin.” The ideal operating margin based on an annual estimate for inflation is 3 percent. Carilion has been slightly above that in the past two years, says clinic spokesman Chris Turnbull. “At Carilion Clinic, we consider that margin our patients’ money. We are a tax-exempt organization and so don’t use income to distribute to investors but instead re-invest in our communities – at about $130-$140 million a year in capital and via pay increases of about $25 million each year for our employees,” he said. What next? “When we announced the clinic, we put together a high level plan of 13 years,” Agee says. She doesn’t
see a stopping point in 2019, noting that health care is always evolving. “We now have to mature ourselves to real organized care. The pieces are in place; how does the Clinic create an environment?” Agee continues to emphasize a trio of goals: improved access, improved care and lower costs “as we stay committed to our mission of improving the health of our community.” She says Carilion continuously looks for ways to deliver “low-cost care,” such as using eVisits and telehealth to cut down on physical visits to doctors. “How often does a knee replacement patient need to go back to the doctor the next day for him or her to view the incision? Take a picture of it,” says Agee. A Carilion doctor in Roanoke already provides psychiatric tele-consultation in real time with a clinic site in Giles County. Roe points out that the community health focus depends upon patient satisfaction surveys – inpatient and outpatient – and “quality outcomes” and on identifying care that could be avoided. As part of its Medical Home team approach, care coordinators call and visit patients to see if there are barriers to following a doctor’s directions. Sometimes the coordinators learn a patient needs only transportation to pick up medications, says Jeremiah. Staff in a “BetterLiving 65” program keep in touch with Medicare patients with two or more chronic conditions to help them identify health changes. For example, a staffer might ask someone with a heart condition if there is a scale in the home so the person can weigh regularly. “If someone with a heart condition begins to gain weight it can mean hypertension and heart failure,” says Roe. In a pilot program looking at patients at a higher risk for readmission to the hospital due to heart failure, a home health nurse might talk with the patient about salt in-
take and even go over the canned foods in the home to point out the salt content of each. “How do we coordinate care better?” says Roe. “Who has been discharged? We know that if we follow up within 24 to 48 hours, the person has better outcomes. I don’t think the community understands the domino effects of Carilion on the community … the far reaching implications.” While Carilion is committed to remaining local and nonprofit, Agee stresses that position does not ignore collaboration. “We are open to collaboration with the hospitals around us,” she says, listing Wellmont Health Systems in Kingsport, Tenn., and Centra Health in Lynchburg as candidates for cooperation. Agee, who is in her second year of a three-year term on the American Hospital Association (AHA) board of trustees, sees Carilion’s reputation as growing beyond regional. The medical school’s class of 2020 attracted 4,600 applicants for 42 spots, up from nearly 3,600 for the class of 2019. Also, the U.S. News & World Report 2015 rankings that put Carilion Roanoke Memorial No. 5 among the Best Hospitals in Virginia said Carilion “performed nearly at the level of nationally ranked U.S. News Best Hospitals” in the adult specialties of diabetes and endocrinology, geriatrics, orthopedics and pulmonology. Gov. Terry McAuliffe, when announcing $45 million in bonds had been approved for the research institute expansion, said the expansion was a component of “a statewide portfolio that will accelerate bioscience and medical research as a major component of the new Virginia economy.” Agee says she regularly gets queries from potential buyers and partners, too. “We’re 40 percent larger than U.Va. We’re the largest employer west of Richmond. We give back. The relationship with Tech is really blossoming. We are working on how do we grow it,” says Agee.
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FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Upstarts:
bother or blessing? Financial technology companies pose a threat and offer hope to community banks
FinTech firms are disruptors, agents of change in the world of banking and finance.
by Dan Radmacher
“W
e’re going to need a bigger boat,” Roy Scheider’s character, Police Chief Martin Brody, famously says when he catches his first glimpse of the great white shark in Jaws. For local bank officials staring down the maw of something called FinTech, the refrain might be: “We need a different kind of boat.”
FinTech is Wall Street shorthand for financial technology companies, upstarts looking to bring a nimble and innovative Sili16
JUNE 2016
con Valley mindset to the steady, stodgy world of big finance. These companies are using technology to offer services that
have been the traditional domain of banks: lending, wealth management, investment advice and financial planning and mobile payments. Sometimes, these services complement traditional banking services. Apple Pay, for instance, allows iPhone users to make more secure transactions using traditional debit and credit cards. Others, like PayPal, try to supplant existing services, coming up with easier and cheaper ways to transfer money electronically. Photos by Natalee Waters
And then there are more disruptive ideas, like BitCoin, that want to totally change how people think about fundamentals, such as the very idea of currency. Local banks are definitely taking notice of FinTech, but most seem to be taking a measured approach to how they deal with its potential threats and opportunities. “Banks will be careful about jumping into something prematurely,” says Susan Still, president of HomeTown Bank in Roanoke. “We’re going to be careful what we do with technology until we’re sure it’s safe. Some of these new applications are good, but consumers expect them to be secure.” The potential for competition is there, Still adds, and banking officials talk often about FinTech. “There’s a lot of discussion,” she says. “It’s not a material problem at this point in our world, but it’s one we’ll definitely keep an eye on.” Of course, banks aren’t strangers to technology. ATMs and online banking have been staples for years. Banks are moving into the mobile space, too, either partnering in things like Apple Pay or offering mobile apps themselves. But adapting to some of the faster-moving changes can be a challenge for smaller, community banks. “Absolutely, we are threatened and feel pressure from FinTech companies,” says Andy Shotwell, chief information officer for the Bank of Botetourt. “The larger banks have more resources to adapt. When it comes to something like Apple Pay, the Bank of Botetourt doesn’t even show up on their radar.” That’s where associations like the Independent Community Bankers of America can help. “It’s a challenge to work directly because of the internal resources we don’t have, ”says Shotwell. “Associations help the smaller guys to have a voice and a say in participating in some of those newer technologies.”
Susan Still, president of HomeTown Bank in Roanoke, says FinTech developments are worth keeping an eye on, but they’re not “a material problem” for local banks yet.
According to George Morgan, SunTrust professor of finance at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business in Blacksburg, bigger banks are definitely pouring resources into countering or coopting FinTech companies. “JP Morgan is spending something like $3 billion on a FinTech bunker in Manhattan,” he says. “They’ve got
programmers, developers, mobile app makers. Their concern is how do they attract people away from Google and Amazon. They don’t know where it’s going to end up, but the focus is on developing new and innovative things, kind of a skunkworks.” Small banks can’t put that kind of money into developing their ROANOKE BUSINESS
17
Financial Institutions George Morgan, SunTrust professor of finance at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business, says big banks are spending a lot of money on FinTech.
own technology, but they don’t necessarily have to, says Morgan. “We’ve seen this happen several times before. I can remember when mainframes came around. Mainframes are expensive. Smaller banks couldn’t afford them, and there was a worry that small banks might go away — but they haven’t disappeared.” The developments in technology will most likely end up benefiting banks, and their customers, say
Morgan and Still. “The technology can make things more efficient, allow banks to get their money faster,” says Morgan. Still agrees. “Typically, technology is good for banks,” she says. “It helps us do business more efficiently, and ultimately, that’s good for customers.” Embracing technological changes in banking can help attract a younger generation of customers — customers who might tend to be Chuck Maness, CFO of HomeTown Bank, notes that the millennial generation has grown up with technology and appears to be less fearful about potential security issues associated with FinTech.
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JUNE 2016
more enthralled by the allure of FinTech, with less fear about potential security issues. “Banks have a high trust factor,” says Chuck Maness, CFO of HomeTown Bank. “How do you know if some tech startup is for real? But the millennial generation doesn’t seem to be as concerned about the security of their data. They have a comfort with the technology that I don’t have. They’ve grown up in that world.” Yet even though the millennial generation may be more comfortable with the kind of advances FinTech is bringing, they have other values that might attract them to community banks. “We’re banking on the premise that millennials and the younger crowd have a different perspective,” Bank of Botetourt’s Shotwell says. “Some may be all about the latest and greatest technology, but local is also important to them. Community banks take pride in knowing their customers — not just some of them, but all of them. We’re certainly trying to promote strong customer loyalty while still offering new technology services.” Virginia Tech’s Morgan stresses the need for community banks to take FinTech seriously. “Smaller banks need to start looking now,” he says. “It’s happening very quickly, and if they’re not aware of it, they need to be. The danger is not that the tech is there, and it’s going to wipe them out. The danger is that they won’t be aware of the need to incorporate it, and they’ll find themselves way behind in a very short time. And they don’t have to be.” For her part, Still isn’t planning on falling behind. “I’m pro-technology,” she says. “I think it’s great. We just want to do it in a disciplined way. Early adopters sometimes put themselves at risk.” Many traditional banking customers, on the other hand, are the opposite of early adopters. “We still have people who won’t do online banking.” Photos by Natalee Waters
List of banks in Roanoke/New River valleys Bank
Website
Phone
Corp. headquarters
HomeTown Bank
hometownbankva.com
(540) 345-6000
Roanoke
Bank of Floyd
bankoffloyd.com
(540) 745-4191
Floyd
Bank of Fincastle
bankoffincastle.com
(540) 473-2761
Fincastle
Bank of Botetourt
bankofbotetourt.com
(540) 777-2265
Buchanan
Wells Fargo
wellsfargo.com
(540) 563-7757
San Francisco
BNC Bank
bncbankva.com
(540) 769-8577
Myrtle Beach
SunTrust Bank
suntrust.com
(540) 982-3129
Atlanta
First Citizens Bank
firstcitizens.com
(540) 985-3334
Raleigh
National Bank
nbbank.com
(540) 951-6205
Blacksburg
Woodforest National Bank
woodforest.com
(540) 989-1394
Houston
First Bank & Trust Co.
firstbank.com
(540) 260-9060
Abingdon
Carter Bank & Trust
carterbankandtrust.com
(540) 342-8610
Martinsville
BB&T
bbt.com
(540) 983-7930
Winston-Salem
Union Bank & Trust
bankatunion.com
(540) 983-1412
Richmond
HomeTrust Bank
hometrustbanking.com
(540) 494-6622
Asheville
Bank of the James
bankofthejames.com
(540) 491-2045
Lynchburg
Source: Roanoke Business
ROANOKE BUSINESS
19
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CUTLINE ....
When jobs in the 203,632-square-foot, $19 million former Norfolk Southern building moved to Atlanta and Norfolk, it opened up a lot of office space.
Domino effect?
Two big moves and a reduction in employee space drops office occupancy to lowest rate in 29 years by Jenny Boone
T
he office building stands 11 stories high above Roanoke’s downtown, a symbol of a once thriving industry in a city with railroad roots. Yet that pristine office space is empty. It’s no longer filled with computers, copiers, water coolers and employees gathering in conference rooms. Still commercial real estate professionals call the former Norfolk Southern Corp.
Photo by Natalee Waters
building a gem. The 203,632-square-foot structure on Franklin Road went on the market last July after the company announced six months earlier that it would shift more than 400 jobs in accounting, marketing and information technology to Atlanta and Norfolk. The building has a $19 million price tag. Its vacancy has impacted the Roanoke Valley’s office market in a big way, forcing occupancy rates
to decline to the lowest point in 29 years, according to a 2015 report by Roanoke commercial real estate firm Poe & Cronk Real Estate Group. While occupancy lags, some real estate professionals describe the state of the current office market as an anomaly rather than a reflection of the economy. Barry Ward, vice president of the office services group at Cushman & Wakefield|Thalhimer in Roanoke, ROANOKE BUSINESS
21
Commercial Real Estate
Dennis Cronk, president and CEO of Poe & Cronk Real Estate Group, says the loss of two large office tenants accounts for much of the area’s decline in office occupancy.
acknowledged that the former Norfolk Southern building’s vacancy is a “big hole in the market.” But its emptiness is “skewing
the numbers,” he says. “I’m not concerned about the health of the office market. It’s a sense of timing.”
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Still, a report from Ward’s firm offers some caution for the office market’s future in the Roanoke Valley. “The speed with which the office market can backfill the large blocks of space coming vacant will determine the future health of the market,” states a fourth quarter 2015 office snapshot report by Cushman & Wakefield|Thalhimer. Total office occupancy for 2015 in the Roanoke Valley was 81 percent, down from 86 percent in 2014, according to Poe & Cronk’s report released earlier this year. Dennis Cronk, president and CEO, says much of the decline comes from the loss of two large office tenants – the former Norfolk Southern building and the emptying of the 180,000-square-foot Allstate Insurance building on Electric Road in Roanoke County. According to Cronk’s firm, both structures represent about 7 percent of the total Roanoke-area office market. Allstate’s Electric Road exodus is the result of a corporate relocation. Allstate built a new 75,000-square-foot office structure on Loch Haven Drive in North Roanoke County. About 300 of its employees also moved into the 48,000-square-foot Stone Printing Building on Jefferson Street, adjacent to the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center in Roanoke. The former Electric Road Allstate building likely could house multiple tenants or be redeveloped, says Jill Loope, economic development director for Roanoke County, who is helping the building’s owner market the site. As of early April, the structure represented the largest vacancy in the county. “We want it to be fully functional and of the greatest interest to the community,” Loope says. In Roanoke, Wayne Bowers, the city’s economic development director, says he sees some of the vacancies as potential, rather than a problem. The Allstate move helped to fill the vacant Stone Printing Building, while the former Norfolk Photos by Natalee Waters
Jill Loope, economic development director for Roanoke County, is helping to market the former All State building.
Southern building was only half occupied when the company announced its plans to shift workers. “We see it as a great potential to
Wayne Bowers, Roanoke’s economic development director, sees opportunity in the vacant office buildings, in terms of bringing in new tenants.
bring in and fill that building back up again,” Bowers says. “If we could get 700, 800 people in there, as opposed to 400 to 500, that would be
a positive for downtown.” Still, the building’s days as home to only one company likely are gone, Bowers says. Finding a company that will take over that large a space is not easy, he adds. That’s because many businesses nationally are cutting back on the amount of office space used per employee. They prefer open-style office space, Ratiu with or without cubicles, says George Ratiu, an economist with the National Association of Realtors. In Roanoke, businesses previously allocated about 200 to 250 square feet of office per employee. Now it’s 150 to 200 square feet a person, says Matt Huff, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Poe & Cronk. Ratiu agrees that companies are trying to be more efficient and save money. “It maximizes the
ROANOKE BUSINESS
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number of employees per available surface,” he says. “They need less space. In essence companies are trying to contain the cost of real estate.” In April, Wells Fargo consolidated its offices in Roanoke’s downtown, moving 90 employees from an office at 201 S. Jefferson St. to the Wells Marshall Fargo Tower, which already housed some of the bank’s employees. The move reduced the bank’s overall market footprint by 33,000 square feet, but Wells Fargo did not decrease its workforce in Roanoke, says Kristy Marshall, a company spokeswoman. The relocation created 50,668 square feet of vacant space at Wells Fargo’s former Jefferson Street office and retail building. Some of Roanoke’s older office structures have been transformed into residential spaces in recent years, a trend that has helped the city’s downtown market absorb vacant space in need of repair. Some of the buildings converted to apartments include the Crystal Tower building, now the Ponce de Leon on Campbell Avenue. The Boxley Building on Jefferson Street also is slated for apartments. “The market at this point is dictating a lot of residential as opposed to office,” Bowers says. Even so, all eyes in the commercial real estate world remain on the former Norfolk Southern building’s future. Poe & Cronk, in partnership with Colliers International, is marketing the structure. Huff says there have been inquiries about the building, but he would not discuss details. The structure is considered a Class A building, which by real estate standards means that it is in good condition and has modern amenities. “Once somebody buys it, it’s going to be the nicest space in all of Roanoke that is available,” predicts Cronk.
Roanoke Business won these awards in the Virginia Press Association’s annual journalism contest.
Congratulations to
Don Petersen FIRST PLACE for pictoral photo and
Tim Thornton THIRD PLACE for headline writing
Don Petersen
Tim Thornton
Cover story opening spread June 2015 “Quality of life” ING
MANUFACTUR
ates Magnet magnanniversary with a new facility. Roanoke Valley
company marks
25th
(left) ent Alan Turner Magnets USA presid Turner, company r Dale and his brothe president of sales and ered founder and vice they never consid Dale marketing, say ny, even though moving the compa a. Arizon , Tucson commutes from
Strumming along
TECHNOLOGY
Going bananas
Startup’s product may Edward Goyette wants to save bananas — and maybe soybeans, corn, cotton and peanuts , too.
save the endangered
fruit and protect othe
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When Fret Mill Music Co. began selling guitars, Jimmy Carter lived in the White House by Tim Thornton
nd n, Arizona, and Dale lives in Tucso regularly. Neioke n annualand $12 millio commutes to Roan dered moving the ts $9 million to Laura Weeks, Magby Beth JoJack brother consi emess that coun ding unications ther have some great oke,” t’s a rare busin So- ly, accor rican Quilter’s marketing commorders be- company. “We all in Roan net’s re both the Ame clithey’ its many and es ome Rock on to come ger. With so ules, cal- ploye easier for me ciety and Kid ocrat. mana hem d for sports sched et USA’s says Dale. “It’s h than it is for them blican or Dem Magn Craft- ing place mont ent roster. Repu one percenter. rs and notepads, h- back every here.” office in Nort Middle-class or rocker. All have re- enda out ets gnets 0-square-foot at the to move 60 employees, Magn er or Southern filing cabinets wait- 26,00 was bursting n’ss With nton’ for one of Vinto east Roanoke as space s of of s rank out frigerators and client easily been Lawrence, ned. All are ,” says USA seams. “We’ve ing to be ador . or four years the largest employers. Chris couldn’t be Magnets USA at least three got to manager, Vinton-based his to got its start sell-- President Alan Turner. “It Vinton’s town d any move comp The . Com the company at we what business cards the breaking point.” er, happier orces etized broth reinf his magn “It ing got with ays, “a ZIP code. Dale Turner ” he says, Turner works a sopany founder are in Vinton, president of sales to think we cards after doingmade Dale, who is vice ess.” idea for these They decided - good place to do busin Vinto . cards fan eting ling on mark pedd ated so business in hs. After 25 years in and Magnets into the old Grum While the renov g and ting ucts plant in cility smells of new carpe from photograp now offers an ex- move stil rs can still ets Emergency Prod ed walls, visito htt have man once built business, Magn producing 20 mil- man hav – n, where Grum d out to be freshly paint of what it migh panded menu promotional prod- Vinto turne idea s an “Thi fire trucks. says Alan. get lion magnetized fit our needs,” 27 en the spot that ucts a year. ESS range betwe ROANOKE BUSIN Annual sales
I
Photo by Natalee
by Beth Jones
E
24
JULY 2015
dward Goyette keeps a copy lack of of Dan Koeppel’s diversity is bad. “Banana: low “The yel- seriou The Fate of bananas that s threat to Changed the Worldthe Fruit That time are all geneti we eat all the diseases have the fruit. The two exper cally ” close to his desk. a fungus that attack identical so Cavendish is fightin ts saying the s one of them g for survival; will attack all of them,” Goyette, president one newspaper dubbed the crisis he explains. Banan anoke biotechnolo of the RoA virule agedd nt strain of Panam on. gy company American Biosys a One solution to tems, has a lot to Disease, which is caused by soilfight Black Sisay about the fruit. borne fungus and gatoka, Goyette has “Peop says, caused comes from le don’t masrealize how precar sive banana destru down the road in Blacksburg. “I ction in Asia, tion is,” Goyette says.ious the situa- the Middle East knew this produ and ct could deal with ceived more media Africa, has re- this problem,” Turns out, the he says. attention. But nanas sold are of majority of ba- Black Sigatoka, That product a single variety: anoth would er funga be a the Cavendish. Such a complete disease, has decimated Caribbeanl biofungicide developed by Joe banana farms and Falkinham, a biolog poses another Virginia Tech. “It’s y professor at Photo by Sam Dean a naturally deROANOKE BUSINE
SS
Waters
19
Headlines for stories in the January, May and June issues
ROANOKE BUSINESS
25
HIGHER EDUCATION: Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine
Brian Yeary, in the lab coat, is from Castlewood. He knows how much doctors are needed in rural areas.
Primary care
VCOM’s mission: train physicians to serve in areas that don’t have enough medical care by Shawna Morrison
T
rue to its mission, the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine is training primary-care physicians to serve in underserved areas at a time when a national shortage of such doctors is expected to worsen. Those efforts are gaining national attention. The college, commonly known
26
JUNE 2016
as VCOM, recently was ranked by U.S. News and World Report as seventh in the country for the number of graduates continuing to a primary-care residency. The ranking included statistics from VCOM’s campuses in Blacksburg and in Spartanburg, S.C., for the years 2013-2015. VCOM also has a campus in Auburn, Ala., which
began enrolling students last fall. In the medical category of its Best Grad Schools report, U.S. News and World Report noted that 66 percent of VCOM’s graduates chose to perform their residencies in primary-care medicine. VCOM students are trained in osteopathic medicine, so they are DOs, not MDs. The American OsPhoto courtesy Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine
CUTLINE ....
teopathic Association says DOs use a “whole-person approach to treatment and care … are trained to listen and partner with their patients to help them get healthy and stay well” and “receive special training in the musculoskeletal system, your body’s interconnected system of nerves, muscles and bones.” Cindy Shepard Rawlins, vice president for communications at VCOM’s Blacksburg campus, says the number for this year’s graduating class is expected to be higher. Of 177 May graduates, 132 – 74.6 percent – were headed into primary-care residencies. The number is significant because most medical school graduates become practic-
ing physicians in the same area in which they choose to do their three-year residencies, Rawlins says, making those areas likely to receive an influx of primary-care doctors. The national shortage of physicians is more prominent in rural areas and is expected to worsen as more doctors retire. VCOM is working to counter the shortage in the Appalachian region by recruiting students who show interest in returning to the region to practice. More than half of the students recruited by VCOM are from communities with fewer than 30,000 residents. “What we’ve found is that stu-
dents who come from those areas, they’ve lived it, they know that there’s a shortage,” says Rawlins. “They might have had to drive 50 miles to see a doctor or they had a grandpa or grandma that was sick and maybe had to drive them even further to see a specialist,” Rawlins says. “All of them have that desire to come to medical school and return home and be able to help the people in that community.” Brian Yeary is one of those students. Yeary is from Castlewood in Russell County, a town with a population of 2,045 at the time of the 2010 census. For the past four years, he has lived in Abingdon, where the population was 8,191 in ROANOKE BUSINESS
27
Higher Education
In addition to Blacksburg, the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine has campuses in Spartanburg, S.C. and Auburn, Ala.
2010. Yeary graduated in May and matched into a residency program at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke. “Carilion was my first choice as it shares my same passion toward western Virginia and is uniquely positioned to offer outstanding medical care to this underserved area,” he says. Yeary says he felt a calling to join the medical field in 2005 when his father, a former coal miner who started his own logging business, was hurt on the job and taken to an emergency room. The father learned that he had “serious medical concerns,” Yeary says. His father required open-heart surgery. Yeary sat in a waiting room, not knowing what to do. “However, God gives beauty for ashes and, as a result, not only did my father learn how to properly care for his health but I had found a new goal and direction for my life,” Yeary says. “I knew that God had called me to not only ministry but that of medicine as well.” After completing his three-year residency, Yeary plans to “remain somewhere in the Appalachian mountains, preferably in Southwest Virginia,” but will go wherever he feels led to go. Through a partnership with VCOM, Johnston Memorial Hospital in Abingdon, a Mountain States Health Alliance hospital, has estab28
JUNE 2016
lished a residency program there, which will likely lead to more practicing physicians for the area. Dr. Ronna New, director of medical education for the northeast region of Mountain States Health Alliance, which includes Russell, Smyth and Washington counties, is the program director for the Family Medicine Residency Program. New, who is originally from Grundy, graduated from VCOM in 2007 and is president of VCOM’s Alumni Advisory Board. Johnston Memorial accepted its first group of six residents last June. A second group of six residents begins this month. Johnston Memorial already had a relationship with VCOM as a site where VCOM students perform their clinical rotations; New did her clinical rotations there in 2005. She knew that a residency program there would be a boon not only for the health of the region’s residents, but for the local economy. While one of the major motivating factors for developing a residency program is the shortage of primary-care physicians, New says, “it’s also the workforce shortage. When you bring a residency program into a community, there are a lot of other services that are needed, a lot of other jobs created.” When family-medicine residents begin working at Johnston
Memorial, they have a monthlong orientation before they begin to see patients. During that month, they work on becoming acclimated to Abingdon, to the new hospital and to becoming a doctor and being responsible for patient care. Through the affiliation with VCOM, Johnston Memorial is able to provide workshops for the residents. For example, residents recently had a suturing workshop with a plastic surgeon. “Our residents benefit from the resources that VCOM provides,” including access to VCOM’s online library, New says. Because of the program, there eventually will be as many as 30 residents at Johnston Memorial, compared with zero before the program was put into place. Each year, six people are accepted for the family residency. A new internal medicine residency program will accept four per year, beginning this year. Since a residency is three years long, there eventually will be 18 family-medicine residents and 12 internal-medicine residents at a time. The residents can come from schools other than VCOM, but at this time must be from osteopathic schools. New says that will change in a few years. Most interest in the program has come from regional schools – VCOM and schools in Tennessee, West Virginia and Kentucky, she says. Small towns may not have the recruitment potential of big cities, acknowledges New. However, since VCOM seeks out students dedicated to primary care who want to practice in Appalachian areas, students who come to Johnston Memorial to do clinical rotations or residencies “come already having an interest in that area. We know that if they train in that program, they’re more likely to stay in that region, so all in all it’s a win for the community because they will fill the shortage of primary-care physicians in the region, which is one of our major goals.” Photo courtesy Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine
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INTERVIEW: Chip and Bonnie Grubb, local owners of the Rail Yard Dawgs
Roanoke’s hockey team Canadian owner relies on locals to be his eyes and ears
Chip Grubb, a long time hockey fan, drew his wife, Bonnie, into the sport. Now they’re part owners of the Rail Yard Dawgs, the area’s newest hockey team.
C
by Beth JoJack
hip Grubb didn’t grow up in Toronto, a city where schoolchildren go on field trips to the National Hockey League Hall of Fame. Nor does he hail from one of America’s big ice towns like Buffalo or Minneapolis-St. Paul. The 58-year-old human resources director for Advance Auto Parts is a native of Roanoke County. Grubb’s parents did take him as a child to see the Salem Rebels, the Roanoke Valley’s first hockey team. The Salem Rebels brought hockey to the valley in 1967. Since then, seven other teams have had varying degrees of success. The Roanoke Express lasted the longest, 11 years. But it was the Rebels who got
Photo courtesy Rail Yard Dawgs
Grubb hooked. “I just fell in love,” Grubb says. “Just loved hockey.” Thirty years ago, Bonnie Grubb knew nothing about the sport. That changed after she married Chip in 1989. “It started out as a husband thing, but now I like it,” she says. That’s a good thing, since they’ve spent a sizable portion of their marriage cheering from behind the glass. “We followed hockey through all the different permutations in Roanoke and were obviously very disappointed when we lost hockey about 10 years ago,” Chip says. It was 2006 when the Roanoke Vipers, the valley’s last hockey team,
fled town after a single disappointing season. Most fans would be content to stand around the office water cooler bemoaning the Star City’s lack of a hockey team. Chip Grubb called up Robyn Schon, general manager at Roanoke’s Berglund Center. Schon still remembers the first time she heard from Grubb, about five years ago. He told her he thought Roanoke could support a hockey team. “He worked at Advance Auto Parts, and he’s got a great position out there,” Schon says when explaining why she didn’t just thank Grubb for his input and call it a day. “What he had to say was sincere, and he didn’t sound like a flake.” ROANOKE BUSINESS
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Interview The pair kept in touch. When one of the many potential team owners who considered Roanoke over the years took a tour of the town, they got together to compare notes. “Both of us said, ‘This ain’t going to happen,’” Grubb remembers of discussions about one would-be team. “There were too many red flags that we both saw. I think early we developed that kind of trust with one another.” In the years following the Vipers, Schon dealt with prospective team owners with the wariness of a oncejilted bride dipping a toe back into the dating scene. Hockey team owners who were interested in Roanoke, Schon found, either had money and knew zilch about hockey and business or were experts on the sport with empty wallets. Retired Ontario business executive Bob McGinn and his three professionalhockey playing sons were a different story. Not only did he meet Schon’s requirements of having appropriate capital and business acumen, he happily agreed to Schon’s stipulation that the team have local investors. “We’ve been down that road before where we had absentee owners,” she says. “There’s no sense of community. There’s nobody here who’re watchdogs for the team … Chip and Bonnie and the rest of the local gang will be faces of that team. They’re very approachable. You’ll be able to share your ideas with them. It’s not like decisions are being made in Europe or California or even in Ohio, like the last ownership group. They’re being made right here in Roanoke.“ “They are really the eyes and the ears to us,” McGinn agrees. The McGinns are the team’s majority owners with a 67 percent interest in the team. Local minority owners include the Grubbs, Robin and Chrissy Bennett, Steve and Dana Esworthy, Matt and Terri Skelton and Mason and Stephanie McLeod. “I struck gold on five amazing families [who] are passionate first about hockey, and they believe in the vision I was setting out as a professional hockey team,” McGinn says. Before any deals were made, Chip Grubb questioned McGinn on what role local owners would play. McGinn explained he’d be in Roanoke only five or six days a month. When he couldn’t be at a game, he would rely on Grubb 32
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Chip Grubbs and Robin Bennett, another local owner of the Rail Yard Dawgs, with some of the club’s fast-selling jerseys.
to report to him. “As soon as the game is over, I’m going to be calling you to see how they played,” he said. The Grubbs declined to say how much money they invested in the Rail Yard Dawgs. The investment is significant enough, however, that Schon says she wouldn’t have agreed to partnering with McGinn if she didn’t think he was the real deal. “When you’re playing with somebody’s livelihood, their money, you’re asking them to commit what they’ve worked long and hard for – that’s a huge responsibility,” she says. “I don’t take it lightly. I would not have brought them into something that I thought was just going to suck up all our money and be here for one and done. With Rail Yard Dawgs, we’ve got a real chance of having a solid team.” The Grubbs sat down in a conference room at the Berglund Center in early April – six months before the first puck drops – to talk about their role with the team. Roanoke Business: So what did you say, Bonnie, when your husband came home and asked to become a minority owner of the new local hockey team? Bonnie: We’d been talking about it long before it had happened. It had been his dream for a while. RB: Why is your role as local owners important to the Rail Yard Dawgs’ success?
Chip: You want that local presence. If there’s an issue, [you tell the ticket holder,] ‘Well, there’s Chip over in Section H. There’s Steve Esworthy over there.’ . . . We have a great group of local owners. This is a group project. We’re all in this together. Early in the game, we didn’t have any paid staff. You had the owners doing things like selling merchandise. Selling tickets. We went to Burlington, [N.C.] one night the week before Christmas because we’d run out of jerseys. [The Rail Yard Dawgs have staff now. Marissa Stom was named director of ticketing in March. Mickey Gray became vice president for business and hockey operations at the first of the year.] RB: You’ve said you carry the forms to sign people up for season tickets in your wallet. Chip: We’ve had some fun with this. Bonnie: When I went to pick my cell phone, he was talking to the owner of that particular Verizon store while I was getting my phone set up and selling him season tickets. Chip: We were having dinner one night at Annie Moore’s [Irish Pub] before Guns and Hoses [the charity hockey game]. I started talking to the folks at the next table, and I think I embarrassed the folks who were with me, because I ended up going out to the car and getting the seating chart. I came back in and sold them six season tickets before they left.
Photo courtesy Rail Yard Dawgs
Chip: We’ll play Fayettville [N.C.] and Knoxville [Tenn.] more than we will Lafayette, La. Just to help with travel costs. One of our big pushes here was to make hockey affordable family entertainment, and I think we’ve done that with our walk-up ticket prices, starting at $10 and going from there. We want a family of four to come out here, have a great time and not break the bank. I think we’ll be able to do that. [A family of four can see the Rail Yard Dawgs for $40, the cost of one seat at the cheapest Virginia Tech football game last season.]
RB: Did the minority owners have a say in the team’s name? Chip: We had an open debate. The local owners met, and Bob and his family took recommendations. They made the final call. We went back and forth, we exchanged ideas, we bantered and we ended up with a knock-it-out-of-thepark name. RB: How do the Rail Yard Dawgs keep from going the way of their predecessors, the Mississippi Surge, the Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL) team that folded in 2014? Chip: I think the key there is just getting the community involvement to the point that this is Roanoke’s team … I like to think [the local owners are] very fan accessible … All the owners have season tickets. We plan to be there at the games and try to be there to talk to folks. RB: There’s been a lot of talk about how being a team in the SPHL will allow the Rail Yard Dawgs to keep ticket prices down. Chip: In the heyday of the [Roanoke] Express, [the East Coast Hockey League team that played from 1993 to 2004] it was truly an East Coast league. Later [that league] had teams in Anchorage, Alaska, Las Vegas and Bakersfield, [Calif.]. You look at your travel budget in that situation. RB: The SPHL has teams as far as Peoria, Ill., and Pensacola, Fla.
RB: More than 500 fans turned out in November when McGinn unveiled the team’s new name and mascot at the Berglund Center. Were you overwhelmed by the turnout? Chip: We didn’t know exactly what to expect, and then, obviously, they just kept coming. It was great. The excitement was fantastic. We had longer merchandise lines and season ticket lines than what we would have liked. I was trying to walk and just talk to people to keep them from being upset. Nobody got upset. Everybody was laughing, and it didn’t matter they were waiting in line. They were just excited to have hockey. RB: How are the season tickets sales going? Chip: Our ticket sales have been off the charts. When we launched our On Track to 611 campaign, we had a number of folks who said, “You guys are a little bit crazy and you’ll never hit those numbers.” RB: You wanted to sell 611 season tickets by the Guns and Hoses charity game in January. You sold 750 by that night. Chip: We are now almost at 800 [season tickets]. I think all of us here believed in Roanoke, and we knew Roanoke was hungry for hockey. RB: The Rail Yard Dawgs donated $10 for every season ticket sold – $8,000 was split between Guns and Hoses, to be given to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the Virginia Museum of Transportation and Angels of Assisi. Chip: That says, I hope, that this team is part of the community. They are your
friends, your neighbors, your coworkers. This is Roanoke’s team. RB: You all are interviewing potential coaches. What kind of person are you looking for? Chip: It’s not just the job qualifications. It’s also being able to connect with our fans and be part of our community … I’m relying on Mickey [Gray, vice president for business and hockey operations] and Bob on the hockey part of the equation. What I’m looking for is the community involvement piece. The questions I’m asking are: “Tell me about what you did in the community [at your last job].” What you’re looking for there is if the team went out and read to the kids in the schools. They visited the hospitals and gave out teddy bears. It’s being part of the community and being Roanoke’s team. It’s not just having a good product on the ice. It’s being a good community partner. I know that sounds corny, but that’s how we look at it. RB: A group called Penalty Box Partners has a goal of building an ice-skating rink in Roanoke. Is that something you’re interested in? Chip: We certainly want to partner with them on that. That would be good for the team and good for the community. When the ice is down [at the Berglund Center] it’s used a lot. There are adult league games that happen at 11 p.m. at night because you’re just back-toback to back [with groups wanting to use the ice]. It makes it tough. RB: You talk a lot about how important it was to bring hockey back to Roanoke “the right way.” Chip: We were not going to get hockey here just to have hockey here. We actually said early in the game, “We’ve got one last chance for success. We’ve got to knock it out of the park.” RB: Bonnie retired in October as a sales analyst for Advance Auto Parts. Are you looking to retire? Chip: I think retirement is on the horizon. Advance has been very good to both of us. [But,] it’s time to enjoy life a little bit. RB: With your hockey team? Chip: And now we have a hockey team. ROANOKE BUSINESS
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BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT
Virginia Tech web series aims to help small towns A by Veronica Garabelli
monthly web series is targeting an unconventional audience — small-town mayors and town managers. Virginia Tech’s “Save our Towns,” program aims to guide and inspire Appalachian leaders working to improve their towns. The show has mostly Brunais been filmed in Virginia’s Appalachian region. The region includes 24 counties and 80 towns and cities. Some areas have been hit hard by the decline of the coal, tobacco and furniture industries.
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“We’ve had a lot of great response and feedback to show us that this is something of value,” says Andrea Brunais, the show’s executive producer who is director of communications for Vir-
ginia Tech’s office of outreach and international affairs. Each season the video series follows a small town and chronicles its triumphs and challenges in economic development. The first
Photo credit
season focused on St. Paul, a small town in Southwest Virginia with a population of just under 1,000. “It went well,” St. Paul Mayor H. Kyle Fletcher says about the experience. “We were able to cover the town, talk about small towns in general, some of the problems we had and some of the things we wanted to do.” Every 10-minute episode also features an economic development tip from an expert. More information from that expert can be found on the “Save our Towns” website, including contact information. Past experts have included James Baldwin, head of the Cumberland Plateau Planning District Commission, and Basil Gooden, state director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development. Virginia Tech also will hold the Save our Towns Summit Sept. 15 in Blacksburg. The event will explore challenges and opportunities facing small towns and rural communities. It also will look at best practices and examples of projects that are underway or completed and available resources. About 80 people attended the event last year when it was held for the first time, and Virginia Tech hopes to increase that to 100 this year. The show recently got a boost from the Virginia Cooperative Extension. The extension, a partnership between Virginia Tech, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Virginia State University, provided a $5,000 grant to cover the show’s travel and equipment expenses. The show also has won three awards this year, including two in the Bulldog Reporter competition, which is the only public relations competition judged by journalists. The third season of Save our Towns will begin by Sept. 1 and can be viewed at www.saveourtowns.outreach.vt.edu.
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The Professional MBA program hosts once monthly classes in Roanoke and Richmond geared toward working professionals who want the classroom experience without sacrificing work, family, or a personal life. Classes start August 22. Final deadline is August 1
www.mba.vt.edu/pmba Online Master of Information Technology
Virginia Tech’s online master of information technology program is a unique, interdisciplinary program jointly offered by the Pamplin College of Business and the College of Engineering. Designed for the working professional, our flexible online format allows you to juggle classes, professional and family priorities. Classes start August 22. Final deadline is July 1
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BUSINESS EXTRA: THE 611 Last summer the 611, built in Roanoke’s East End Shops, pulled its first excursions since 1994.
Profiting from history The restored 611 excursions pull money into the state and region by Donna Alvis-Banks
“Like the last of the good ol’ puffer trains, I’m the last of the blood and sweat brigade, And I don’t know where I’m going, or why I came. I’m the last of the good old-fashioned steam-powered trains ...” — “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains,” Ray Davies, The Kinks
N
orfolk & Western’s Class J 611 steam passenger locomotive personifies Bev Fitzpatrick’s city. The lifelong Roanoker and executive director of Roanoke’s Virginia Transportation Museum (VTM) remembers the 1950s when the Star City was
Photo by Don Petersen
larger than North Carolina’s now burgeoning Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte. Roanoke – where the “blood and sweat brigade” of N&W’s East End Shops built big streamlined locomotives to pull sleek passenger trains – made boys like young Fitzpatrick dream of
riding the rails. “I was so proud of Roanoke,” the now-69-year-old Fitzpatrick says. “That was because of the railroad, mostly. In those days, passenger trains were the primary form of passenger transportation … By the end of that decade, the ROANOKE BUSINESS
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Business Extra: The 611 steam engines went out.” No one was happier than Fitzpatrick to see the comeback of the 611. After several restorations and much work to make steam excursions again a reality, the 611’s inaugural season brought more than $500,000 to Roanoke and at least $4.5 million to Virginia in 2015, according to a VTM report released last September. Fitzpatrick predicted the 2016 season would meet or surpass those figures. “What that shows you is that the 611 is an economic engine. It’s not just a steam engine,” Fitzpatrick says. Like many steam locomotives of the era, the bullet-nosed 611 – designed and built in 1950 in Roanoke – was shut down in 1959, replaced by diesel engines deemed cheaper to maintain and operate. While others went to the scrap yard, the 611 was spared, primarily through efforts of devoteés such as photographer O. Winston Link, known for his artistic railroad photographs. In 1960, the 611 went to
VTM and sat inoperative for more than two decades until it was restored in 1981. Excursions under a new Norfolk Southern Corp. banner operated from 1982 to 1994. In December 1994, the 611 returned to the museum where it sat until 2014 when it was towed to the North Carolina Transportation Museum for restoration, thanks to the efforts of Fitzpatrick and the “Fire Up 611!” committee, which raised $3.1 million for the project. That, Fitzpatrick says, resulted from a leap of faith. When he was hired in 2006 as VTM’s director, he says, the museum was out of money. When Wick Moorman – then chairman of Norfolk Southern – came to him with the idea of reinstating a steam program, Fitzpatrick was faced with a big question. “Was this broke museum going to take on a task to raise $3 million when we weren’t on our feet?” he recalls asking himself. But his second thought trumped his apprehension: “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
“The best thing we could do to give back to Southwest Virginia was to fire up the 611,” he says now. Landon Howard, president of Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge, seconds that. “I can tell you that the 611 is a significant icon of the Roanoke re-
CUTLINE ....
The 611’s first season brought more than $500,000 to Roanoke and at least $4.5 million to Virginia in 2015.
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Photos by Don Petersen
The 611 draws crowds wherever it goes. This one is just outside the O. Winston Link Museum, which used to be Norfolk & Western’s Roanoke passenger station.
gion and Virginia’s Blue Ridge,” he says, noting that the thousands of people who turn out as spectators for 611 events, as well as those who buy tickets for excursions, have bolstered tourism. “We have enjoyed six consecutive years of record-breaking tour-
ism spending and rooms sold to visitors,” Howard says. “$784 million is spent annually on tourism in the Roanoke area. There’s no doubt that [the 611] does have a significant impact.” Michael Quonce, public relations director at the Hotel Roanoke
& Conference Center, remembers the excitement generated by the 611 when it made its grand entrance last year. “It all happened right outside our front yard,” he says. “Our staff was out there cheering it on.” The hotel offers guests a “Train Lovers Package” that includes rooms overlooking the railroad, as well as tickets to VTM and the nearby O. Winston Link Museum. Quonce said each time the 611 makes an appearance, the hotel sees an uptick in sales. Patty Prince, communications manager for the city of Manassas, where the 611 is scheduled to make a special run June 4-5, says last year’s visit “was great for the city and spurred many more visitors to the annual Railway Festival.” Although Manassas has not tracked the economic impact, Prince calls the 611 “a tourist attraction for both train aficionados and the general public.” “As soon as I started to promote 611’s return this year, there was an
Impact of 611 excursions in 2015 Total visitors 200,000 Visitors traveling more 60,000 than 100 miles Hotel room nights 12,000-20,000 About 30 percent of passengers came Demographics from beyond Virginia, and 47 percent came from more than 100 miles away. Total economic activity $4.5 million - $7 million (based on from visitors and multiplier estimates. The $4.5 million is passengers documented.) Source: Virginia Transportation Museum
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Business Extra: The 611
Bev Fitzpatrick, director of the Virginia Museum of Transportation, says, “the 611 is an economic engine. It’s not just a steam engine.”
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excited buzz on social media of those who wish to purchase tickets or come out and see the steam engine,” Prince notes. “Last year, people lined the tracks all four days of their visit just to catch a glimpse or take a photo of 611.” While tickets for 611 excursions range from $109 to $789 (for a dome car and 4-seat private room), Fitzpatrick says the emotional attachment fans have for the locomotive is something you can’t put a price on: “You see grown men crying. You see women commenting that a piece of steel and iron is a beautiful thing. It stands for the thing that shows how good we are, how good we can be.” Scott Lindsay, the 611’s chief mechanical engineer, calls it “a living, breathing piece of equipment” that represents the strength and ingenuity of Roanoke’s past. Noting that the 611 is 66 years old this month, he says “Take a piece of equipment today. Will it be around in 66 years?” Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge Board Chairman Lee Wilhelm, who at 68 is just two years older than the 611, says the locomotive bridged the generation gap between him and his 7-year-old grandson, Griffin Breakell. Griffin, a first-grader at Crystal Spring Elementary School, collects Thomas the Tank Engine trains. “We went on the inaugural ride from Lynchburg into Roanoke last year,” Wilhelm says. “He loved every minute of it. That created a great memory.” “Roanoke is well-known for its rail heritage,” Wilhelm adds. “There’s a big opportunity for us in having the 611 and what it represents in rail history.” Like the resounding wail of the 611 whistle, that’s music to Fitzpatrick’s ears. “We told the city and the folks in the Roanoke Valley that when we got this engine going, it would be an economic powerhouse,” he says. “So far, we’ve been true to our word.”
Photo by Don Petersen
Preview of next month’s Roanoke Business
Interview with Marc Edwards:
Are there more water crises in the pipeline? Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor of civil and environmental engineering who helped expose lead poisening in Flint, Mich.’s water system, sits down with Roanoke Business. He talks about his role and changes he’d like to see in the future. Also in the July issue: •
Specialty manufacturing continues to drive the region’s economy
•
A look at how medical training programs affect the region’s quality of care
•
Risk management/commercial insurance: How can businesses prepare for natural disasters?
•
Community profile: Blacksburg
•
Education: The Virginia Tech-Carilion School of Medicine
Photo courtesy Virginia Tech
ROANOKE BUSINESS
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SPONSORED CONTENT | Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce Chamber champions are members who support the Roanoke Regional Chamber through year-round sponsorships in exchange for year-round recognition.
2016-2017 CHAMBER CHAMPIONS BNC Bank
The Roanoke Times
Brown Edwards
Rockydale Quarries
Cox Business Gentry Locke Attorneys
Servpro of Roanoke, Montgomery & Pulaski Counties
LifeWorks REHAB (Medical Facilities of America)
Spilman Thomas & Battle PLLC
MB Contractors
Trane
Pepsi Bottling Group
Woods Rogers Attorneys at Law
EVENT SPONSORSHIP
NEW MEMBERS
Thursday Overtime – April 7 The Quarter Restaurant
The following members joined the Roanoke Regional Chamber between March 10 and April 11, 2016:
Business Before Hours – April 15 Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals AFC Doctors Express Urgent Care VirginiaFirst.com WFXR Fox
Appalachian Tire Products Capital Insurance & Bonding Services Co. Chase Professionals CIE Partners Industrial Process Technologies Inc. Network Computing Group Inc. Shabby Love
MEMBER NEWS & RECOGNITIONS The American Advertisement Federation District 3 (AAF) has announced companies and individuals who have created cutting-edge content that offers a voice to multicultural communities and corporate initiatives that promote inclusion in the workplace. AAF Roanoke received one of the AAF’s 2016 Mosaic Awards for its “Explore the Landscape of Advertising.” The local AAF chapter’s award was for its multicultural students program. Additional regional AAF awards included: a silver ADDY Award for “CCC Christmas Card – Observation Car” by Corrugated Container Corp.; a silver ADDY for “Change Your Perspective Posters” by ndp; a silver ADDY for “Universal Fibers Seal Ad” by ndp; a student gold (judges choice) ADDY Award for “Mug Hard Root Beer” by Paul N. Gartner from Radford University; a student gold ADDY for “Just My Type” by Janai Blowers from Virginia Tech; and a student silver 42 2
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ADDY Award for “Wrap Magazine” by Daniel Kagen from Virginia Tech. Advance Auto Parts, a leading automotive aftermarket parts provider in North America serving professional installers and do-ityourself customers, has announced that the company Greco has named Thomas (Tom) Greco as CEO and a director. Greco will succeed George Sherman, who has served as interim CEO since January. Sherman continues as president, a position he has held since April 2013. The American National University’s Roanoke Valley Campus has enhanced its pharmacy technician program. Students who complete the pharmacy technician program are prepared to sit for the Certified Pharmacy Technician national exam offered
by the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board. Students will gain an understanding of medical and pharmaceutical technology, pharmacology, pharmacy record keeping, pharmaceutical techniques, and pharmacy law and ethics. Three ADDY awards were presented to B2C Enterprises at the Western Virginia Division of the American Advertising Federation ceremony. The ADDYs are the advertising industry’s largest competition recognizing the creative spirit of excellence in the art of advertising. The judges awarded B2C Enterprises a gold award for its 2015 poster campaign on behalf of the Star City Roller Girls. B2C also received two silver awards, one for its radio commercial for Jefferson Surgical Clinic and one for the B2C Enterprises print campaign. Will Karbach, CEO of The Branch Group, has announced the receipt of the National
Safety Council’s Occupational Excellence Achievement Award for each of its four subsidiary construction companies: Branch Highways Inc.; Branch and Associates Inc.; E.V. Williams Inc.; and G.J. Hopkins Inc. Additionally, two of the subsidiaries – E.V. Williams and Branch and Associates – also received the National Safety Council’s Perfect Record Award, which recognizes individuals, companies, units and/or facilities that have completed a period of at least 12 consecutive months without incurring an occupational injury or illness that resulted in days away from work or death.
Arner
Holland
Baudreau
Madsen
Conte
Scheaffel
Dame
Moskal
The following Carilion Clinic employees have been promoted: Steve Arner has been named CEO of Carilion Medical Center. Kathleen Baudreau has been named vice president for clinical risk management and interactive patient care; Michael Dame has been named vice president of marketing and communications; Shirley Holland has been named vice president of planning and community development. The following employees have recently joined Carilion: Nick Conte has been hired as the senior vice president of legal services and general counsel; Greg Madsen has joined the staff as vice president for the Eastern Division; Margaret (Meg) Scheaffel has joined Carilion Clinic as chief nursing officer. Joseph T. Moskal, MD, has received the 2016 Achievement Award from the Ameri-
can Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons for volunteer efforts supporting patients, colleagues and the orthopaedic profession.
Routt
Ratliff
Clark
HomeTown Bank has announced three promotions: Kristin Routt has been promoted to vice president, branch support officer; Ashley Ratliff has been promoted to vice president, training officer; and Chase Clark has been promoted to vice president, underwriting manager. Kroger began offering online ordering with curbside pickup in the Roanoke Valley in April. The Kroger store at Bonsack, located at 3970 Valley Gateway Blvd., is the first Kroger store west of Richmond to offer the service. Kroger has been testing the ClickList service, and now about 45 Kroger stores offer the service. Customers order online and specify what time they want to pick up their groceries the next day. The store offers more than 40,000 items, including fresh meat and produce. National law firm LeClairRyan has announced that shareholder Elizabeth K. Acee has been named litigation department leader for the firm. She practices in the firm’s New Haven, Acee Conn., office. Acee will be responsible for managing growth opportunities and client service initiatives, while overseeing the practice area, industry and client teams within the more than 300-lawyer department. In March, the LewisGale Daleville Medical Pavilion opened its doors to a new family medicine practice and started offering cardiology services, the first of several specialties coming to this location. Over the subsequent weeks, obstetrics and gynecology care and pediatrics services also were added at the clinic. This is the first time LewisGale has offered some of these specialties in Botetourt County. The city of Roanoke has partnered with
NEOGOV, the nation’s largest cloud software for human resources in government and education, to allow job seekers to conveniently apply online to numerous positions via roanokeva.gov/jobs. Interested candidates can apply for current vacancies or sign up for new openings that become available. The Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority (RVBA) has announced that 47 miles of new, high-quality, fiber optic broadband cable is now buried beneath the cities of Roanoke and Salem. Thompson & Litton and Utility Service Contractors completed the outdoor plant construction at the Valley View Point location April 5. The project, which broke ground last summer, was designed to spur regional economic development by increasing access to extremely secure, high-speed and affordable, fiber optic internet service. Prospective customers interested in learning more about the RVBA’s new service availability, packaged offerings, pricing and adoption timelines should contact Frank Smith at 540.904.1073, or visit www.highspeedroanoke.net. Virginia’s Blue Ridge website (www.VisitVABlueRidge.com) reached an all-time monthly record with 88,917 unique website visitors in March 2016. This is an 87 percent increase over March 2015 and represents an average of 2,800 unique visitors per day. Year-to-date statistics also set records for January through March with website traffic totaling 179,103 in 2016 compared with 100,813 in 2015 and 79,576 in 2014. Virginia Community Capital (VCC) has converted its wholly owned, FDIC insured, for-profit bank into a Benefit Corporation, and it is the first regulated bank in the U.S. to do so under state statute. The conversion does not affect the bank’s status as a statechartered banking corporation. Benefit Corporations are stock corporations with the mission of creating a general public benefit defined as positive impact on society and the environment, as measured by a thirdparty standard. Virginia Western Community College has announced that four Franklin County High School students graduated in May and completed a Nurse Aide Career Studies Certificate through the college’s dual enrollment program. Emily Ayles, Leah Clingenpeel, Siera Robertson and Carolanne Sink earned certificates. ROANOKE BUSINESS
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SPONSORED CONTENT | Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute faculty members Warren Bickel and P. Read Montague were appointed as endowed professors by the Bickel Virginia Tech board of visitors. The board honored Bickel, professor and director of the Addiction Recovery Research Center, by naming him the first Virginia Tech Carilion Behavioral Health Professor. Montague Montague, professor and director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory, was named the first Virginia Tech Carilion Vernon Mountcastle Research Professor. Michael J. Friedlander, the founding executive director of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, has been named Virginia Tech’s inaugural Friedlander vice president for health sciences and technology. Friedlander will continue as executive director of the Virginia Tech Research Institute. Sally C. Morton has been named dean of the College of Science at Virginia Tech. Currently serving as professor and chair in the Department of BiostaMorton tistics in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, Morton will begin at Virginia Tech July 1. She will succeed Lay Nam Chang, who stepped down from the position June 30, having served as founding dean of the College of Science since 2003.
Popham
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David Popham, professor of biological sciences at Virginia Tech, has been elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. Popham is also an affiliate faculty member of the Fralin Life
JUNE 2016
Science Institute. He is one of 78 Fellows inducted into the American Academy of Microbiology in 2016. From funding prototypes to reducing risk, entrepreneurs face common roadblocks when taking an idea or business from invention to market. With a near $500,000 grant from Provo the U.S. Department of Commerce – one of 25 grants created to advance capacity-building and entrepreneurial efforts – Virginia Tech’s Catalyst Program will accelerate its efforts to support technology, innovation and job creation for entrepreneurs in the RoanokeBlacksburg region. John Provo is director of Virginia Tech’s Office of Economic Development and the principal investigator of the grant. The Catalyst Program began in 2015 with 45 students, faculty members and industry participants who met monthly to brainstorm and share updates. With the grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the program is expected to grow to 75 students, faculty members, and industry fellows. Lei Zuo, associate professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Energy Harvesting and Mechatronics Research Lab in Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering, has been Zuo named an American Society of Mechanical Engineers Fellow. Fellowship is the highest elected grade of the society’s membership and can be conferred on people with at least 10 years of active engineering practice who have made significant contributions to the profession. Virginia Western Community College is one of 10 national finalists for the second annual Community College Innovation Challenge, an initiative of the National Science Foundation in partnership with the American Association of Community Colleges. The challenge calls on students enrolled in community colleges to propose innovative solutions based in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in order to ad-
dress perplexing, real-world problems. The VWCC submission, titled Efficient Mechanical Collection Method of Recovering Waste Apples, proposes a mechanical way to recover apples that otherwise could not be sold to produce an environmentally friendly biofuel, allowing more efficient use of U.S. orchards and new economic opportunities for apple producers. The Virginia Western Community College Educational Foundation has presented the 2016 Community College Impact Award to the city of Salem, recognizing its pioneering support of the Community College Access Program (CCAP). One of the highest honors the college can bestow, the CCAP award recognizes significant philanthropic and community support by individuals, corporations or organizations that will provide perpetuating benefits for Virginia Western, its students and the region at large. In 2008, the city of Salem was the first Roanoke Valley locality to embrace the vision for a scholarship program that would provide up to two years of college, tuition-free. The Virginia Western Educational Foundation has recognized Dr. Mary B. Loritsch and Salem Chief of Police Michael Crawley as recipients of the 2016 Distinguished Alumni Loritsch Award. Established in 2006 by the Virginia Western Alumni Association, the award recognizes Virginia Western Community College alumni and former Crawley students who have attained extraordinary distinction in their professional field or life and serves to honor all the men and women whose attendance at Virginia Western helped them achieve their educational and professional goals allowing them to better serve their communities. Loritsch graduated with honors from the first class of the radiography program at Virginia Western in 1974 and taught at the community college for 38 years. Chief Crawley attended Virginia Western in 1995. He began working with the Salem Police Department in 1999.
Mike Maxey President, Roanoke College
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Banking with HomeTown Bank is a perfect fit for Roanoke Collegeit’s a great relationship. They know us. They’re responsive. They cut through red tape quickly. There are huge advantages in banking with our neighbors at HomeTown Bank, and we like knowing that doing business locally helps benefit the Roanoke Valley as a whole. That’s good for everyone. — Mike Maxey, President, Roanoke College
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