SERVING THE ROANOKE/BLACKSBURG/NEW RIVER VALLEY REGION

A Geographic

CenterBev Fitzpatrick,

executive director of the Virginia Museum of

Transportation

MARCH 2013

Roanoke was built on freight hauling;

is the region poised for a renaissance?

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26 INTERVIEW Attracting customers and jobs What’s good for Appalachian Power can be

good for local economies. by Kevin Kittredge

28 LIFESTYLES Riding to work Roanoke, a bike commuter community in its infancy, is rolling along. by Sam Dean

31 ROANOKE NEXT Creating a network Native returns home to start a business and

a young professionals network. by Rebekah Manley

32 FACTS & FIGURES33 NEWS FROM THE CHAMBER36 NEWS FROM THE PARTNERSHIP

F E A T U R E SCOVER STORY

6 A geographic center Roanoke was built on freight hauling; is the region poised for a renaissance? by Tim Thornton

TECHNOLOGY

14  Security in cyberspaceCompanies can diminish the risks but never eliminate them. by Rebekah Manley

HEALTH CARE

16  Innovations that are saving lives LewisGale and Carilion offer new ways to fight cancer and heart problems. by Rich Ellis

EDUCATION

22 Building connections along the interstate

The I-81 Corridor Coalition is working for safety and efficiency. by Joan Tupponce

March 2013

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President & Publisher Bernard A. Niemeier Roanoke Business Editor Tim Thornton

Contributing Writers Rebekah Manley

Rich Ellis

Joan Tupponce

Kevin Kittredge

Sam Dean

Art Director Adrienne R. Watson

Contributing Designer Elizabeth Coffey

Contributing Photographers Sam Dean

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Email Letters to the Editor to

Tim Thornton at tthornton@roanoke-business.com

4 MARCH 2013

Vol. 2 MARCH 2013 No. 3

Museum reminds city of its heritageby Tim Thornton

Bev Fitzpatrick likes trains. He likes buses more. He likes Roanoke better than either of those.

Fitzpatrick got a job with Norfolk & Western soon after graduating from Virginia Tech. He resigned within weeks, when it became apparent the railroad wouldn’t keep him in Roanoke.

Soon after that, he was drafted. Shortly before he mustered out, Fitzpatrick says, a colonel told him he should go to officer candidate school.

Fitzpatrick asked, “Can you guarantee I can stay in the Washington military district [which includes some Virginia installations] for the next 20 years?”

“Fitz, you know I can’t do that.”“Yes, sir, I do. That’s why I’m getting out.”

So Fitzpatrick came home, drove a dump truck and looked for another job. Someone asked if he’d ever thought about working in a bank. He hadn’t, but he went to an interview, got hired and spent a career in banking. His employer changed its name, but it didn’t make Fitzpatrick change his address.

Now Fitzpatrick is the executive director of the Virginia Museum of Transportation. Housed in an old Norfolk & Western freight station, the museum’s prize pieces are a pair of old Norfolk & Western steam locomotives. The famous 611 pulled passenger cars. The 1218 hauled fast freight.

Fitzpatrick is steeped in Roanoke and its history, and he can’t understand why everyone doesn’t embrace it all as completely as he does. “To me, we have not yet accepted the fact that we are what we are. We can’t change it. We’re known all over the world for the rail. People in Roanoke have yet to grasp they wouldn’t be here if not for the Norfolk & Western and its predecessors … People from outside see this a whole lot better than we do.”

It’s not unusual for outsiders to see value where people who’ve grown up in a place — or settled in it a long time ago — see something else entirely. And it’s true that if a Philadelphia banking firm hadn’t decided to headquarter a bankrupt railroad in a little town called Big Lick, Roanoke would be a very different place, and Salem almost certainly would have been the city the U.S. Census Bureau named this metropolitan statistical area after.

“There is one museum in the Roanoke Valley that should never be left behind, and it’s this one,” Fitzpatrick says. “It showcases what this valley is all about. The money people in Roanoke generally don’t give us money because they see us as a blue-collar museum. We are what we’ve turned our backs on.”

Fitzpatrick’s grandfather was a conductor for Norfolk & Western and he’s not ashamed of it — though he thinks other people with a similar family connection seem to be.

I’m not going to get into any argument about who gives money to what and why, but my grandfather worked for the railroad, too, and I think Fitzpatrick has a point. Roanoke — or at least some Roanokers — seems to have a hard time recognizing some of the area’s assets. For too long, Roanoke seems to have been bent on being some other city — Charlotte, Richmond, Atlanta, any place but an Appalachian city that owes its existence to a railroad that hauled — and whose descendant still hauls — a lot of grubby coal.

Thankfully, it seems to me that’s changing. The transportation museum and the O. Winston Link Museum are keeping the area’s railroad history alive. While that history may not be enthusiastically embraced by everyone, a lot of people are recognizing and promoting the mountains, rivers, trails, parks and national forests in and around the city. There’s even a business, the Six-Eleven Bicycle Co, that mixes those two Roanoke identities, naming handmade bikes after a steam engine built in those old N&W shops in downtown Roanoke.

Maybe there’s hope for Big Lick yet.

,

on the coverBev Fitzpatrick

executive directorVirginia Museum of Transportation

Photo by Mark Rhodes

FROM THE EDITOR

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COVER STORY

Photo by Mark Rhodes

Bev Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Virginia Museum of Transportation, thinks moving freight — so important to Roanoke’s past — should be an important part of the region’s future.

Roanoke was built on freight hauling;

is the region poised for a renaissance?

by Tim Thornton

ROANOKE BUSINESS 7

A geographic

center

8 MARCH 2013

cover story

Bev Fitzpatrick’s office in the Virginia Muse-um of Transportation is filled with reminders of how things used to be.

A photograph shows trucks backed up to loading bays sometime last century, when the building was a Norfolk & Western freight station.

“This was probably … the first real distribution center in the val-ley,” says Fitzpatrick, the museum’s executive director. “Most freight until the early ’50s came into this building if it came into the Roanoke Valley at all. Even automobiles came in box cars back in those days — all your white goods, all your food.”

Moving and distributing goods is an important part of this area’s past. It may be a big part of the fu-ture, too. FedEx is in the midst of a multimillion dollar expansion in Roanoke. Norfolk Southern Corp. is still eyeing a new intermodal yard in Montgomery County. And the

area has geography on its side. “We’re within 500 miles of most

of the East Coast’s population,” says Kevin Byrd, executive direc-tor of the New River District Plan-ning Commission. “That’s span-ning from New York City down past Atlanta, Georgia.”

Fitzpatrick was a bank execu-tive when Orvis was considering a distribution center in Roanoke from among five or six contenders. According to the bank’s analysis, Fitzpatrick says, being in Roanoke saves the company about $100,000 in annual transportation costs. But it takes more than a favorable lo-cation to make a good distribution center.

Byrd ticks off other assets in and near the Roanoke and New River valleys that make them strong des-tinations for moving parts or prod-ucts: the intersection of Interstates 81 and 77; the intersection of the railways of the Heartland and Cres-

cent corridors and an international port of entry at the New River Val-ley Airport.

Wayne Strickland, executive di-rector of the Roanoke Valley-Al-leghany Regional Commission, calls transportation and logistics “an im-portant cluster for our area.” In the formulas that measure the concen-tration of clusters of industries, a score of 1 means an area is at the national average. In the commis-sion’s five counties and three cities, the score for transportation and distribution is 1.37. That’s a higher quotient than health care’s score of 1.31. While not the area’s largest or most concentrated cluster of busi-nesses, Strickland says, transporta-tion and logistics do provide 6,500 to 7,000 jobs.

Those jobs aren’t concentrat-ed in one big corporation as they were when the Norfolk & Western Railway built its headquarters, rail yards, offices and terminals in Big Lick beside the hotel N&W also built and the shops where the railroad created locomotives that kept the whole process moving. No com-pany dominates the area the way Norfolk & Western did.

“Ninety percent of the people employed here work for companies with less than 50 people,” Strick-

Photo by Mark Rhodes

Wayne Strickland is executive director of the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission

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cover story

land says. “It’s that whole concept of economic gardening in your area. You’re growing businesses here — not that we don’t want to have the large plant and companies come in. We’d welcome them. That building of small companies is helping diver-sification.”

Fitzpatrick wants people to re-member that companies participat-ing in some form of distribution are still part of that diversification. “Sometimes if they’re not big, they’re kind of out of sight, out of mind,” Fitzpatrick says. “But added up, they’re much bigger than one big distribution center in terms of job creation and income and resources

to the community.”Some of those companies are big.

UPS and FedEx have regional dis-tribution centers at the Roanoke Re-gional Airport. FedEx broke ground in October on a $12.6 million ex-pansion that will give the company the ability to handle up to 50,000

packages a day, up from its current capacity of 30,000.

Sherry Wallace, manager of mar-keting and air service development at Roanoke Regional Airport, says FedEx and UPS handle 10,000 pack-ages in a typical night’s work out-side the holiday season. Last year, more than 22.7 million pounds of cargo passed through the airport.

Most of that was on FedEx and UPS planes, but passenger airlines and private planes often carry cargo, too. Fresh flowers, live fish and su-shi are among the cargo flying into Roanoke — dogs, too. (They fly in a special section in cargo that is cli-mate controlled and pressurized). “We hear them barking down at the check-in counter,” Wallace says. Sometimes she sees organ transplant teams, coolers in hand, headed for the general aviation terminal.

When people think of air cargo, says Wallace, “most of us think about shipping our gifts for the holidays, or I ordered something from Land’s End and it came in,” but it’s clearly much more than that.

Strickland notes that, measured by the value of goods shipped, the airport is the main cargo conduit in the area. “It’s got a higher value, but the tonnage is not that great,” he says.

For tonnage, the railroad still wins out. Norfolk Southern spokes-

Ethanol shipped into Norfolk Southern’s

yard in Roanoke is trucked to tank

farms to be mixed with gasoline.

“Ninety percent of the people employed here

work for companies with less than 50 people,”

Strickland says. “It’s that whole concept of

economic gardening in your area.

ROANOKE BUSINESS 11

man Robin Chapman estimates that around 150 million tons of freight pass through the valleys on trains. That’s a rough estimate, he says, and the number includes what’s simply passing through as well as goods that originate from or end up in the area. “The thing to remember is a lot of that is coal tonnage going east from the coalfields,” says Dan Motley, Norfolk Southern’s indus-trial development manager for the region.

Norfolk Southern owns a distri-bution yard in Roanoke. It’s part of a network of facilities serving com-panies that need things moved by rail but don’t have rail service at their sites.

“The biggest thing we’re do-ing there is ethanol,” Motley says. The biofuel is trucked to tank farms where it’s injected into tanker truck-loads of gasoline. Using what Mot-ley called “splash technology” — the sloshing inherent in the transporta-tion of liquids by truck — the ethanol is mixed with gasoline as it’s moved from tank farms to service stations.

Fitzpatrick argues that if the area is going to make a significant dif-ference in the amount of freight it ships, it has to change the way it ships freight. It needs, he says, a con-tainer terminal — a facility able to move tractor-trailer-size containers between trucks and rail cars.

“The majority of freight is car-ried that way, but the Roanoke Val-ley doesn’t have a container termi-nal,” Fitzpatrick says. “The closest container terminal today to us is in Greensboro … So we are at a com-petitive disadvantage at the moment for a lot of distribution-based in-dustry.”

The disadvantage extends to manufacturing, too, he says. “Most of those guys are going to go where they have really good access to con-tainerized freight,” Fitzpatrick says. “That’s why this thing in Elliston is so critical to the future.”

Fitzpatrick is talking about an

intermodal rail yard Norfolk South-ern proposed for a 65-acre site at the edge of Montgomery County. Pro-posed in 2006, it hasn’t been built. A legal challenge and a realloca-tion of state funds earmarked for the project due to the delays have put it in limbo, although Norfolk Southern remains interested. (See story on page 13).

Ninth District Congressman Morgan Griffith knows how impor-

tant logistics have been to the area.“I think it is a part of the econo-

my and it always has been,” Griffith says. “It’s one of the reasons people came here.”

Griffith supports the intermod-al rail yard in Elliston. He supports the development of Interstate 73 more or less along the route of U.S. 220 between Roanoke and North Carolina. He advocates the devel-opment of a cross between a busi-

cover story

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ness incubator and an inland port, a place where fledgling distribution companies can develop and exist-ing distribution companies can try out the area before committing to locate here.

Those companies will bring jobs, he declares. “They won’t be million-dollar jobs,” Griffith says. “They will be good jobs for hardworking, tax-paying Americans.”

Griffith is an amateur histori-an, so he would appreciate Roddy Moore’s explanation of how vital the pathways that intersect in the Roanoke Valley have been to the region’s people and businesses —and for how long those routes have been important. Moore, director of the Blue Ridge Institute at Fer-rum College, talks about the Great Road that carried pioneers west, the Great Valley Pike that carried set-tlers south into the Roanoke Valley and the Carolina Road that carried

some of them farther south. Com-merce moved along those roads, too.

“We’ve got an account book here from a store in Tazewell,” Moore says, “and it was what a wholesaler in Baltimore was sending to Taze-well. Let me tell you, if you could buy it on the coast, you could buy it in Tazewell.”

Some people may be surprised that imported goods made their way that far into the mountains even when this was the edge of the fron-tier, but they might be more sur-prised that the transactions weren’t one-way. “What people don’t realize is that traffic moved both ways on these roads,” Moore says, explain-ing that everything from feathers to ginseng moved east and north on

those roads and cattle drives into Pennsylvania were organized by the end of the 18th century.

The cattle drives are anachro-nisms, but the roads they followed aren’t. “These roads never stopped because they were just taken up by other roads,” Moore says. The Val-ley Pike became U.S. 11 and then

I-81. The Carolina Road became U.S. 220. It may one day be part of I-73. Like those roads, Fitzpatrick argues, the region’s role in distribu-tion and logistics never went away.

“Distribution at every level is still what Roanoke is about,” he says. “I’m a firm believer that history repeats itself. The question is how savvy are we at understanding when to make history repeat itself.”

12 MARCH 2013 Photos courtesy Norfolk Southern

cover story

Though some railroad freight is loaded

and unloaded in the Roanoke and New

River valleys, most of the 150 million

tons of cargo that moves by rail in the

valleys is only passing through.

“Distribution at every level is still what

Roanoke is about.”

ROANOKE BUSINESS 13

Will Elliston project be derailed? Norfolk Southern’s intermodal rail yard is in limbo

by Tim Thornton

It’s been more than six years since Norfolk Southern Corp. chose 65 acres in Elliston, just on the

Montgomery side of the Montgom-ery County-Roanoke County line, to be an intermodal rail yard. The yard would lie along the Heartland Corridor, a rail system that carries freight from Hampton Roads to Chi-cago. Recent upgrades allow trains to carry double-stacked containers along the whole route.

According to a state study, the rail yard itself would employ only about a dozen people. However, busi-nesses attracted by it could generate 740 to 2,900 jobs in an area from Lynchburg to Radford, from Frank-lin County to Monroe County, W.Va. Just as important, the facility could make the region more competitive as a logistics center, because it would bring a container terminal — a facil-ity where tractor trailer-size contain-ers could be moved between trucks and rail cars.

The plan called for the state to pay for the bulk of the project’s cost, spending about $32 million on the site and its preparation, plus another $10 million to $15 million for a road connecting the site to Interstate 81.

Bev Fitzpatrick, a former Roa-noke city councilman, says that while Roanoke traditionally has been the center of the distribution industry in this region, the city doesn’t have space for big distribution centers anymore.

“The industry here is going to be to the west if anything, and it’s go-ing to be in Montgomery County, the very people that didn’t want this,” Fitzpatrick says. “It could be as far as Pulaski, but when you couple Virgin-ia Tech and Radford and the mind-set of engineers and bright students coming out of those institutions, you have in that particular area huge po-tential for new business and indus-try. And fortunately, they have a lot

of land. So this container terminal would be like the next step in our dis-tribution history as a region.”

It’s unclear when the region might take that step. Originally planned to open in 2010, the project was held up by a legal challenge from the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors. The supervisors argued it was unconstitutional for the state to spend public money on what essen-tially would be a private project. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled in the state’s favor, but by then the economy had slowed and the project had lost momentum, at least temporarily.

“So much time had elapsed since it was first proposed that we need-ed to take a second look at the eco-nomics, the anticipated traffic,” said Norfolk Southern spokesman Robin

Chapman. “I guess the short answer is we haven’t yet decided to go forward with it. It’s still planned, but we just — we haven’t gone forward with it.

“I think at one point the state funds that were available for that were redirected to other state rail projects. To move forward, I think the state would need to reallocate the funds.”

Reallocation shouldn’t be a prob-lem, according to Amanda Reidel-bach, spokeswoman for Virginia’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation. The Commonwealth Transportation Board included the Elliston project in the Six-Year Im-provement Program for fiscal 2013, so the money is likely to be available if Norfolk Southern decides to move ahead.

cover story

Photo by Anne Wernikoff14 MARCH 2013

TECHNOLOGY

Security in cyberspaceCompanies can diminish the risks but never erase them

by Rebekah Manley

Cyber safety is like house security — all the win-dows and doors need to be shut and locked. For personal and consum-

er security, think of a tree house — less to guard, but diligence with secret passwords is essential.

Businesses are mansions with many threats requiring many pre-

cautions, including employees ded-icated to double- and triple-check-ing intruder passages. These days, people pocket more computer pow-er in their cell phones than NASA used on the first moon mission. As technology progresses, so does the threat. There is no way to secure every single outlet. However, safe practices are available — and es-

sential. T. Charles Clancy, director of

the Hume Center for National Se-curity and Technology at Virginia Tech, says such practices include maintaining a “digital hygiene.” This hygiene comes down to keep-ing firewall rules up to date and turning on auto-update features for software. Clancy warns, “Beware of email asking you for personal in-formation or username/passwords. Don’t click links in emails. Instead, type them in manually to your web browser.”

Universally, experts stress strong passwords and the need to keep them secure. Tad Woods, owner of T&T Software LLC, cau-tions against reusing logins and passwords. “Your bank could have the most secure systems in the world, but if you use the same log-in and password with another or-ganization who is vulnerable, then your bank account is vulnerable.” Never include those passwords in an email. Whether you are send-ing or receiving personal infor-mation, make sure it travels in an encrypted, password protected at-tachment.

For Woods, preventing attacks is about putting security standards in place and consistently testing and improving them. “Security is part of our design and testing strategy; it is not an afterthought,” he says. “We use the third-party Trustwave.com to routinely scan our website for vulnerabilities and we address issues when they are reported.”

Businesses need to seal as many entrances as possible and secure those left “open” to conduct busi-

Charles Clancy

is director of the

Ted and Karyn

Hume Center for

National Security

and Technology.

ROANOKE BUSINESS 15

ness. With Woods, this security in-cludes strict adherence to standards established by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards Council. Woods points out, “Any-one who captures and handles any personal data can help ensure the safety of this information by becom-ing and maintaining compliance with the PCI DSS guidelines.”

Clancy disagrees and says small businesses don’t have to do that. “There’s no reason for the average small business to worry too much about things such as PCI DSS,” he says. “That’s something they pay their banks to worry about.”

Instead, for small businesses, Clancy suggests the focus be on standard digital hygiene. Accord-ing to Demian Pace, a Microsoft certified systems engineer, PCI DSS guidelines are important for dealing with credit-card companies or the banking industry. There-fore, those running e-commerce websites need to adhere. Most small e-commerce sites use a third party to do that processing and therefore the third party provider has the PCI certification, not the e-com-merce site.

As the senior systems adminis-trator for an insurance pool man-agement services company, Vaco Risk Management Programs, Pace must be on top of cyber security risks. Pace thinks businesses of all sizes should be concerned about se-curity and aware of consequences that can result from a loss of data integrity. Problems can lead to a damaged reputation and financial damages, fines and adverse court judgments and proprietary code being copied by competitors.

According to Pace, business risks can often be profound:

· Contractual obligations may in-clude direct damages for data loss.

· Entire business models can be damaged.

· Relationships with vendors, clients and partners can be adversely af-fected.

· Your reputation in an industry can be lost.

“IT staff should be constantly monitoring new vectors of attack. Proper standards of infrastructure design and maintenance must be maintained,” Pace says. To keep a site secure, he gives these sugges-tions:

· Separate your internal network and data from your external fac-ing network via good firewalls and other network infrastructure design and equipment.

· Virus and spam filter all emails.

· Allow only the minimum neces-sary data to flow out of your net-work.

· Follow best practices in web de-sign to prevent hacking and data-base corruption.

· Keep all software up to date and all security patches installed.

· Have a secure remote network connection topology if mobile users need access to internal re-sources. This topology should al-low only minimum access.

· Place limits on what internal per-sonnel can and cannot do with their work computers.

· Frequent backups and redundant systems should be in place.

· Limit physical access to network equipment and servers.

· Disallow personal computers, smart phones and other devices from connecting to the internal corporate network.

· Database design and security should be a prime consideration.

· Implement two-way encryption for all data traveling across the Internet.

Mitigation can be as much of

a financial strain as the threats themselves. Clancy offers perspec-tive, “As to whether or not a busi-ness should be worried, it entirely depends on their market and the value of information they have on their computer systems.”

Like Pace, Clancy recommends mitigation and says, “At the end of the day, for most companies it’s an economic decision — the amount you spend on securing your net-work should not be more than the value of the compromised informa-tion times the probability of an in-trusion.”

However, this financial factor for small businesses might make them targets. Woods maintains that diligence is needed in all businesses that capture any personal or credit card data. According to him, the need applies equally to brick-and-mortar businesses and online busi-nesses. He says they must pay at-tention, “otherwise, sooner or later they will experience stolen or mis-used information.”

Still, there is no perfect an-swer for businesses, only a need to be aware and to seal off as many doors as financially possible. Pace explains, “If your data is available to anyone internal to your com-pany, you are at some risk of data integrity loss either intentional or accidental. If your electronic data is available to the Internet in any form, you are at much greater risk for data integrity loss.

“The only way to prevent all risk of data loss is to store it on a system without any connections to any other system, then lock it in a room with limited physical access. Now your data is very secure but not at all useful in today’s world.”

Pace also recommends proper management and weighing risk versus reward. With this, Pace says, “Your chances of loss and the se-verity if one occurs can be greatly lessened, but never completely re-moved.”

Innovations that are saving livesLewisGale and Carilion offer new ways to fight cancer and heart problemsby Rich Ellis

The region’s two health-care powerhouses — LewisGale Re-

gional Health System and Carilion Clinic — are introducing

advancements in imaging and cardiac care. Hospital execu-

tives say they are saving patient lives and improving their quality of life. LewisGale, for example, is using

advancements in imaging for the early detection of breast and lung cancer. In fighting breast cancer, the health system is employing Molecular Breast Imaging (MBI), also known as Breast-Specific Gamma Imag-ing (BSGI). Dr. Jackson Kiser says MBI doesn’t replace annual mam-mograms, which remain the first line of defense for detecting breast cancer, but the imaging serves as a valuable supplement to those ex-ams. “MBI is used in very specific instances — women who are at high risk for breast cancer, perhaps be-cause a family member had breast

cancer, and particularly for women with dense breasts that make cancer detection through mammography difficult,” says Kiser, who is a phy-sician with Radiology Associates of Roanoke and the medical director of imaging at LewisGale Medical Center in Salem.

Dense breast tissue, often found in young women, can result in screen-ings that miss the presence of cancer. Kiser compares cancer screenings of dense breast tissue using mam-mography to trying to locate a cot-ton ball in a snow bank.

In the MBI procedure, which regionally became available only at

LewisGale near the end of Febru-ary, the patient receives a low-dose radiopharmaceutical tracer, and then specialized cameras capture high-resolution images of the breast. “Prior to this new technology there was not a camera available specifi-cally designed to image the breast — that’s the breakthrough,” says Kiser. “Anything we can add as a tool in the fight against cancer is a welcome addition to our arsenal.”

While young women with dense breasts tend to be the main benefi-ciaries of MBI technology, middle-age and elderly patients are benefit-ting from a new type of screening

16 MARCH 2013

HEALTH CARE

Photo by Sam Dean

David Killeen,

a pulmonologist

with LewisGale

Regional Health

System, says

CT lung scans can

detect pea-sized

cancers.

ROANOKE BUSINESS 17

Photo by Sam Dean

health care

18 MARCH 2013

offered by LewisGale to detect lung cancer earlier.

A low-dose, CT lung screening is the first type of screening proven to detect lung cancer early. A study by the National Lung Screening Trial found that patients who had low-dose, CT lung screenings reduced their chances of dying from lung cancer by 20 percent in comparison with patients receiving a standard

chest X-ray. “By the time [lung cancer] pa-

tients are symptomatic, the suc-cess rate in treating them drops off precipitously,” explains Dr. David Killeen, a pulmonologist with Lewis-Gale Regional Health System. “The low-dose, CT lung scan provides us with a 3-D, high-resolution image of the lungs that allows us to detect cancers as small as the size of a pea.

If we can detect the tumor when it’s this small, we can remove it and pos-sibly cure the disease.”

LewisGale Regional Health Sys-tem offers screenings at LewisGale Medical Center to patients at high risk for lung cancer: people 55 to 74 years old who are current smokers or former smokers who have quit in the past 15 years and who smoked 30 or more packs annually.

Carilion Clinic’s

Dr. Jason Foerst

and a procedure

called Transcatheter

Aortic Valve

Replacement are

helping some

high-risk heart

patients.

health care

20 MARCH 2013

The screening, currently avail-able in the region only at LewisGale, is not covered by insurance, which is why the health-care system is offer-ing it to patients for just $150. “It’s not covered [by insurance] now, but hopefully it will be soon,” Killeen says. “I think if you’re going to re-duce cancer death rates by 20 per-cent, it’s worth covering.”

Nationally, cancer trails heart disease by a small percentage as the leading cause of death, according to

the most recent data from the Cen-ters for Disease Control and Preven-tion. Two medical innovations avail-able locally only at Carilion Clinic, however, are helping improve the function of damaged and diseased hearts, keeping patients alive.

When it’s functioning properly, the heart’s aortic valve opens to al-low blood to flow into the aorta and then closes to prevent blood from flowing back into the heart. When the treatment calls for a new aortic

valve on a high-risk patient, Carilion Clinic’s Dr. Jason Foerst, and Trans-catheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) might enter the picture.

TAVR involves implanting a new, artificial aortic valve crafted from stainless steel and a cow’s peri-cardium (a double-walled sac con-taining the heart and the roots of the great vessels) within the defec-tive aortic valve. The new valves are expected to last 10 to 15 years or longer. After being trained in the

Carilion Clinic’s

cardiothoracic surgeon

Scott Arnold has been

installing Left Ventricle

Assist Devices for

nearly a year.

Photo by Sam Dean

ROANOKE BUSINESS 21

TAVR procedure for a year in Ger-many, Foerst has been performing it on patients at Carilion since May of last year.

“Essentially, this is a procedure that’s evolved for patients who are very high risk for open heart sur-gery,” Foerst explains. “These are usually, but not always, elderly pa-tients who have other risk factors as well.”

Compared with traditional open-heart surgery, TAVR is minimally in-vasive, with the new valve and surgi-cal equipment being delivered to the heart after being inserted through a leg artery. For some patients whose arteries aren’t large enough, Caril-ion offers the procedure through a small incision between the ribs.

“Within the next year, we’ll be able to perform this procedure on a lot more people because the size of the delivery systems — the sheaths and tubes inserted into the leg — is going to come down,” Foerst explains. “This is the beginning of a whole new revolution, much like coronary stents were in the ’90s. It’s evolving, consid-ered very safe, less invasive, and has a quick recovery time.”

Medical innovations are also helping patients who have weak or failing left ventricles — the heart’s main pumping chamber.

Carilion Clinic and its cardiotho-racic surgeon, Dr. Scott Arnold, have been implanting the HeartMate II by Thoratec, also known as a Left Ventricle Assist Device (LVAD), in patients for almost a year as a spe-cialized treatment for severe heart failure. The failure or weakening of the heart’s left ventricle is most often the result of coronary artery disease but can also be caused by a virus, genetics or as a rare condi-tion some women experience after childbirth.

“In layman’s terms, HeartMate II is an internal, implantable pump that connects to the left ventricle,” Arnold explains. “It drains blood out of the left ventricle and sits parallel

to the native heart so the left ven-tricle can rest, and maybe recover, or it serves as a replacement to the left ventricle and provides a good, functional quality of life.”

Patients who receive an LVAD see improvements in energy levels and

breathing as HeartMate II restores blood flow throughout the body. HeartMate II is neither an artifi-cial heart nor a heart replacement. It simply assists or takes over — de-pending on the condition — the left ventricle’s pumping function.

HeartMate II is implanted through an incision nearly iden-

tical to that made during regular

open-heart surgery, Arnold says.

The pump is inserted in the upper

abdomen, beneath the muscles, and

connected to the left ventricle about

an inch away.

These innovations in imaging

and cardiac treatment represent sig-

nificant and rapidly evolving ad-

vancements in health care. Physicians

are already looking ahead to the next

generation of tools and technology

and their promise of even greater

life-saving capabilities.

Compared with traditional open-heart surgery,

TAVR is minimally invasive, with the

new valve and surgical equipment being

delivered to the heart after being inserted

through a leg artery.

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Photo by Alisa Moody22 MARCH 2013

EDUCATION

Building connections along the interstateThe I-81 Corridor Coalition is working for safety and efficiency.

by Joan Tupponce

High truck traffic

is one of the

challenges facing

Interstate 81

and its users.

ROANOKE BUSINESS 23

Like other drivers navi-gating the busy Inter-state 81 corridor, Ra-chel Cogburn is some-times intimidated by

the number of trucks barreling down the four-lane highway. “Any-time you are on I-81 you can look at the other side or the side that you are on and count the trucks. There is a lot of truck traffic,” she says. “It does make you nervous when you are driving.”

Cogburn isn’t just any random driver. She serves as executive direc-tor of the I-81 Corridor coalition, a post she assumed last August after working for the Atlanta Regional Commission. She was interested in the position not only because of her background in economics and en-gineering, but also because of her childhood in East Tennessee. She and her family used I-81 when trav-eling from Knoxville to Bristol to visit relatives. “It was a road I was familiar with,” she says.

The coalition is housed at the Virginia Tech Transportation In-stitute in Blacksburg. The VTTI is a research arm of Virginia Tech. The Coalition is funded primarily through the state Department of Transportation, Virginia Tech and contributions from counties and communities along I-81. Virginia’s share of funding comes from the Virginia Department of Transpor-tation and Virginia Tech.

Virginia was the first state to work on I-81, starting construc-tion in 1957. By the mid-1970s, the 855-mile-long interstate was essen-tially complete from Tennessee to Canada. It is now one of the coun-try’s leading corridors for truck traffic with vehicles traveling from populated urban markets to small-er rural markets.

The coalition that Cogburn heads promotes communication, collaboration and coordination be-tween the states and communities traversed by I-81. “The coalition be-

gan in 2009 as a small group of local and regional representatives meet-ing informally to discuss the im-pacts that I-81 was having on their communities,” Cogburn says. “It was located in the Cumberland County, Pa., area and was formed by County Commissioner Rick Rovegno.”

The coalition now includes lo-cal, regional and state organiza-tions from each of the six states that the interstate crosses — Ten-nessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. The organization operates through a steering committee that includes representatives from the department of transportation in each of those states as well as the U.S. Department of Transportation and county and regional transpor-tation-related groups. “That makes the coalition unique,” Cogburn says, adding that each of its three program committees focuses on freight movement, public safety or environmental issues, all of which impact I-81.

Each state along the interstate’s route has a stake in the coalition’s goals but the benefits of the coali-tion’s efforts go far beyond individ-ual jurisdictions. “It’s not about any single county or state; it’s the collec-tive benefit,” says Robert Thomas, county commissioner for Franklin County, Pa., who sits on the coali-tion’s steering committee. “There are an awful lot of people traveling from one state to another on I-81.

It’s important to have communica-tion between the states in clearing the interstate for an accident, snow emergencies, road closures, etc. That is the key. That is what we have been encouraging.”

The coalition, which became part of the Virginia Tech Trans-portation Institute in 2011, holds monthly steering committee meet-ings as well as an annual confer-ence. “We encourage first respond-ers, trucking companies and truck-ing associations as well as anyone that is interested in I-81 to come to the annual conference,” Cogburn says. This year’s conference will be held March 25 and 26 in Hagers-town, Md.

One of the coalition’s primary goals is to promote ways to im-prove freight and passenger move-ment along the corridor. “This is a major freight corridor,” Cogburn says, citing a 2007 study from the U.S. Department of Transportation that showed trucks represented 25 percent of vehicle traffic on all por-tions of I-81. “That is a heavy vol-ume of truck traffic.”

The number of trucks is con-tinuing to climb. “It’s expected to double in the next 20 years,” says Kevin Cole, who serves on the steering committee as the appoin-tee for U.S. Congressman Phil Roe of the 1st District of Tennessee. Truck traffic often is diverted from I-95 to I-81 to avoid traffic conges-tion on that major north/south in-terstate. Also, the widening of the Panama Canal will allow ships to bring supplies to more ports in the U.S.

“Anything coming from those areas and going up north will come through the Tri-City area,” Cole says. “Anything we can do in terms of coordinating with the Corridor Coalition to move freight more safely will be a big help to us.”

The U.S. Department of Trans-portation points to Roanoke Coun-ty near the I-581 junction as one

Rachel

Cogburn

heads

the I-81

Corridor

Coalition.

Photo courtesy of Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

Photo by Alisa Moody24 MARCH 2013

education

of the busiest segments of I-81 in Virginia. The interstate travels through the Appalachian region’s valleys and mountains with wind-ing roads and steep inclines. Weath-er — ranging from snowstorms to hurricanes — can affect safety, and safety is a major coalition concern. The Roanoke Times reported 266 fatal crashes on I-81 in Virginia from 1998 through 2008.

“One of the first initiatives of the public safety committee es-tablished a protocol within the six states to establish communica-tion standards when an incident happens that will last two hours or longer,” Cogburn says. “Trans-portation operation centers in ad-jacent states to the incident would be contacted. That gives them time to divert the traffic and take other measures to minimize the backup.”

As part of its mission the coali-tion hosts workshops for first re-sponders to train in the latest state

and federal safety regulations. “We bring together all types of first re-sponders to work through imagi-nary incidents on the interstate,” Cogburn says. “It’s hard to get all those different agencies to work through that without being at an actual incident.”

Feedback on the workshops has been promising. A police officer told Cole it was one of “the best things” he had ever attended. One of the leaders of the workshop is a former

firefighter who lost his best friend

in an accident on the interstate. “If

the workshop saves one life, it has

been worth it,” Cole says.

The coalition is currently fin-

ishing up a truck parking inventory

with data that includes information

on the number of truck parking

spaces at each rest stop along I-81.

“We are getting ready to send that

out to participants,” Cogburn says.

“We are looking to find out if we

are missing information.”

The goal is to one day be able to

provide truck drivers with crucial

information regarding I-81. “Get-

ting in touch with truck drivers

is important,” Cogburn says. “We

want to let them know about rest-

stop parking and any traffic inci-

dents.”

The coalition’s website also pro-

vides important information, rang-

ing from corridor statistics to safety

data. “We want to be a resource for

other agencies,” Cogburn says, not-

ing that the first page of the site

shows real-time incidents. “We also

have a library resource that links

to studies that have been completed

on I-81.”

Cogburn is pleased with the co-

alition’s progress to date. “We want

to find ways to add value,” she says.

“I have seen a great tendency for

different agencies to work together

and get information out to other

states and other entities. That is

valuable.”

Construction on five miles of climbing lanes in Montgomery County should be complete before the year ends.

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26 MARCH 2013

INTERVIEW: John Smolak, Economic Development Director, Appalachian Power

Attracting customers and jobsWhat’s good for Appalachian Power can be good for local economies.

by Kevin Kittredge

Most businesses want more cus tomer s . Appa lach ian Power wants more business-es, too. The logic isn’t hard to understand.

When it comes to economic develop-ment, what’s good for the region is good for the power company, especially when economic development includes energy-consuming new industries.

New commercial power customers can help offset the cost of new environ-mental requirements and other capital improvements, says Appalachian Power spokesman Todd Burns. “Energy-intensive customers can ease the load on every-one,” he says.

That, in a nutshell, explains the role of John Smolak, Appalachian Power’s new Roanoke-based economic development director. A graduate of Kent State Uni-versity and the Economic Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma, Smolak previously was Appalachian Pow-er’s manager of economic development for Kentucky and West Virginia and later led an economic development group in

Hampton Roads. His current job, which he assumed

last spring, is part of a renewed effort on the part of AEP, Appalachian Power’s par-ent company, to seek new business as the nation’s economy improves.

Roanoke Business spoke with Smolak recently at the power company’s Roanoke offi ces at First Street and Franklin Road.

Roanoke Business: Tell us a little bit about where you came from and how you ended up here. Do you have ties to the area?Smolak: I don’t have any direct ties to Roanoke. Previously I was with Appala-chian Power/AEP for almost 18 years. I worked in Charleston [W.Va.] and Co-lumbus, Ohio. My most recent job was in the Hampton Roads market doing re-gional and local economic development for a group in that area. Previous to my employment with Appalachian, I was with the West Virginia Development Offi ce for about 12 years as well.

So a pretty extensive background in economic development. About a year or

so ago, the company wanted to bring back the economic development function, re-energize that function, to a greater extent than they had been doing the past seven or eight years. Obviously if we put more people to work, they’re building homes, buying homes. The tax base is good. The community is more viable. We benefi t as well.

RB: How many people are on Ap-palachian Power’s economic devel-opment team?Smolak: For Appalachian Power, you’re talking to him right here. It’s me. But our team consists of other people within the company that do different functions as well, like our customer services group, our external affairs group, our communica-tions group. We all kind of work together to help support what I do. Other operat-ing companies within AEP have a person like me as well. Sometimes they have more than one depending on their situation. AEP also has a small group in Columbus, that provides support for the operating companies.

RB: How large is your territory?Smolak: Appalachian Power covers not only Virginia but also a good portion of West Virginia in the southwestern part of the state and also Kingsport, Tenn.

RB: Is it diffi cult to balance the in-terests of these different areas?Smolak: Not really. Everybody sort of has the same goals and missions in mind as far as business development and new industry and new growth. Everybody does it sometimes a little bit differently depend-ing on the goals of each individual region or each individual state that we’re work-ing with. But the basic mission and goal remains the same: new investment, new jobs, new growth.

RB: How do you work with others outside the utility who are trying to bring new business to the region?Smolak: It’s a partnership. It’s a partner-ship with the state of Virginia and its eco-nomic development group, the regional economic development groups such as the

John Smolak’s job is

attracting companies

to Appalachian

Power’s service area.

Photo by Sam Dean

ROANOKE BUSINESS 27

Roanoke Regional Partnership, and other regional groups in Virginia, and then down in the local areas, where you have the city of Roanoke’s economic development, Franklin County, Botetourt County — those groups as well. It’s a partnership to work with ev-erybody to make things happen.

One of the key things I do on a daily basis is staying in touch with the regional groups on projects they’re working on, on some of the marketing activities they may be performing, to make some new con-tacts, to build those relationships. I attend their marketing meetings. I meet with the local economic development groups on a kind of a regular basis, depending on the situation, help them out.

RB: How do you go about bringing new business and industry to the area? Smolak: We market directly to compa-nies that are targets of the areas we serve. We work with site consultants. A site con-sultant is a person that a large company or even a small company would hire to help them fi nd a new expanded location or a new location for their business in the U.S. We work with them in many ways, mak-ing sure they understand our service area, who we are, what we do, the benefi ts, the strengths and weaknesses of the areas we serve. We would provide complete loca-tion type of services to them. We would make the introductions to the regional partnership. We would make the introduc-tions to the city of Roanoke. We would talk to them about infrastructure that’s here, the type of industry that’s here. We can arrange for them to have a site tour of the area. We would arrange for them to talk to existing industry in the area, talk about the labor force, skill sets, those kinds of things as well. It’s kind of a comprehensive look at what a company might need.

RB: Would new infrastructure some-times be part of the conversation?Smolak: It’s possible. What we try to do is to show them properties or locations that have good infrastructure in place al-ready. But if their requirements are a little bit more than what’s there, we have those kind of discussions about how we would upgrade a substation, or upgrade a distri-bution or a transmission line to that loca-tion, and we would provide them a cost estimate and how long that would take and how that would play into their decision-making process.

RB: Is there a certain type of busi-ness or industry that you’re look-ing for?Smolak: We work with the state and lo-cal and regional groups on all the projects they bring to us, but our particular focus happens to be on … the energy-intensive industries: automotive, chemical, data cen-ters. We’re making some concerted efforts to meet and discuss our service area with some of those larger energy users as well.

RB: Do you have a standard pitch?Smolak: One of the great things is the quality of life type issues. Some of those are more important to certain industries than others. Others are very cost driven. If those cost factors are satisfactory to them and reasonable, they’ll locate there. You have to have a good dialogue and discus-sion with those industries to fi nd out what is the decision-making process they’re going through, fi nd out more about their busi-ness model. What’s driving this project? Is it because they want to be closer to their customer base? Do they want to establish a new customer base? Is it because of raw materials? It’s kind of a laundry list of things that you try to draw out of them so you understand their needs. You can tailor then the kind of location and property that they would require for their new operation.

RB: What’s a typical work day like?Smolak: I have to say there‘s probably no two days the same. That’s what makes this job really fun and really interesting. There will be some days where you’re doing re-search on companies that you want to contact. Some days you’ll be making calls to companies you want to talk with. Some days I’ll be out in the fi eld on a site tour with a prospect. Or I’ll be meeting with a regional group to talk about their market-ing activities, what they’ve been doing.

RB: How many miles a year do you put on your car?Smolak: Fifteen or twenty thousand a year … With today’s world of electronics and email, there’s a lot that can be done. Pros-pects today also want information quickly. We have to have information that we pro-vide them in an electronic format so we can email that to them that day. They don’t want to wait several days to get information. They want it now. The information exchange is quite rapid, and you’d better have your in-formation on your website, or have informa-tion that you can send them quickly.

RB: Who are you competing with for new business and industry?Smolak: Everybody. Specif ically, we’re looking at North Carolina, Maryland, all the adjacent states around. It’s kind of a region-al perspective.

RB: Isn’t this an unusual thing for a company to do — recruit other businesses?Smolak: Utility companies were probably one of the f irst companies that did eco-nomic development work. In the 1950s and ’60s and ’70s it was called area develop-ment versus economic development. A lot of utility companies had people assigned to certain areas within their service area to do some of the very basic things we’re still do-ing today; to identify the sites and locations and strengths that certain industries would be looking for and to focus on energy-in-tensive companies that would be a good user of our product. There’s a long history of the utility companies being involved in economic development.

The key to everything, I think, is work-ing collaboratively together in a partner-ship. Everybody wins. When you have a 200- or 300-job company come to your area, it’s a domino effect … It becomes a regional type thing, and you really have to focus as a region for new growth. It’s got to be a concerted effort of people working together to make it happen.

RB: Any successes that you’re par-ticularly proud of?Smolak: Yeah, I do have a few. Toyota Motor Manufacturing is one of those, their engine facilities and transmission facility in the Charleston area, and several Japanese suppliers that actually supply components to them, was a big thing that I was involved with during my tenure up there …

It’s always good to know that you’ve helped in some way provide somebody a job, or a community to grow. It does pro-vide a lot of job satisfaction. It’s not always that way. When you do succeed, it is a great feeling. It’s a fun thing.

RB: Is there anything you can talk about that’s in the works right now?Smolak: Not really. We are working with several prospects. There are several that are in the fi nal stages of trying to make a decision. And so you may hear something

in the future.

28 MARCH 2013 Photos by Sam Dean

LIFESTYLES

Roanoke, a bike commuter community in its infancy, is rolling alongby Sam Dean

Riding to work

Jamie Helmer commutes to

her job at Norfolk Southern in

downtown Roanoke.

ROANOKE BUSINESS 29

It’s a dark, cold and wet Janu-ary morning.

So nasty, in fact, that it would be easy to grab an ex-tra cup of coffee and show up

half an hour late to work, but that’s not Jamie Helmer’s style. By 6:30 a.m. she has buckled her bike hel-met, turned on her flashing safety lights and started pedaling the six miles from her home off Plantation Road in Roanoke to her downtown office at Norfolk Southern.

“The only thing that keeps me from riding is ice,” she says. “There is always going to be some obstacle; you just have to figure out a way to overcome each new one as it arises.”

Plastic bags seal out the ele-ments on particularly cold and wet days, and before her workplace installed showers, she freshened up on hot summer days with baby wipes.

Helmer is a bicycle commuter.To her, the benefits of better

health, a greener world space and maybe even a few dollars saved on gas are worth the extra effort it takes to get rolling on a dreary morning.

She’s not alone. The number of Roanoke-area bike commuters is small, but growing. According to the 2010 census, bike commuting in the region has more than doubled in the past decade. In fact, biking as a whole is becoming a force for social and economic growth in the region.

Pete Eshelman, director for out-door branding for the Roanoke Re-gional Partnership, says it’s about time. “I think as a whole, we’re just catching up,” he says. “People are starting to see the value in it for many reasons.”

For many people, it’s about fit-ness. As the pace of the workplace seems to accelerate, leaving little time for family or civic life, fitness often takes a back seat.

So for many, bike commuting affords the opportunity for a regu-

lar workout.“It’s forced exercise,” says Shane

Sawyer, a regional planner with the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Re-gional Commission who also sits on the greenway commission and is a father to young children. With his schedule, Sawyer doesn’t have much time for a workout. “I ride hard my 13-mile commute.”

But the draw isn’t just health benefits; it can be measured in dol-lars and cents, too. As health-care costs continue to soar, businesses are promoting healthy living in whatever way they can, and area civic and business leaders are be-ginning to recognize the value of investing in quality-of-life services, such as developing the region’s po-tential as a biking community, as a recruiting tool.

“Young professionals consider many factors in choosing to take a job. Quality of life and the out-doors is very important to many of the people relocating to the area, so developing outdoor resources is a tool to recruit and retain talent,” says Eshelman.

Eshelman is a bike commuter, and part of his job for the partner-ship is to clear a path for cycling and other outdoor pursuits in the area.

One of the main resources he and other regional development professionals and volunteers pro-mote and cite as a key to the growth of biking in the Roanoke Valley is the greenway system. “I consider it a gateway resource,” he says. “Peo-ple try it out, and it leads to their involvement in other activities.”

Helmer incorporates a portion

of the greenway into her commute. “It’s peaceful and quiet and it keeps me off of the main roads,” she says. Staying off main arteries is a safer, more pleasing way to travel.

Partially because of the devel-opment of the greenway system, the city of Roanoke received a bronze level designation from the League of American Bicyclists in 2010 and

joined Alexandria, Arlington and Charlottesville as Virginia’s fourth bicycle-friendly city. Among other factors cited in the award was the city’s commitment to develop and implement a street-planning sys-tem that considers bike routes.

Although a decade ago there were few marked bike lanes, the number is growing, admittedly not fast enough for some. “It’s unre-alistic to think that a city the size of Roanoke can just go lay down 20 miles of bike lanes, but we are making progress,” says Jeremy Holmes, coordinator of sustain-ability programs for the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Com-mission (RVARC) and a bike com-muter. “There’s a perception that cities like Portland [Oregon] with a great reputation for being bike-friendly have miles of bike lanes, but what they have is great routing, planning and signage.”

With a little planning and cre-ativity, cyclists in Roanoke can find routes just as easily as in cities like Portland, he believes.

Holmes directs Ride Solutions, an RVARC program that promotes alternative transportation, includ-ing cycling. The program’s website (ridesolutions.org) offers a wealth of cycling tips, including bike-

The number of Roanoke-area bike commuters is small, but growing. According to the 2010

census, bike commuting in the region has more than doubled in the past decade.

Photo by Sam Dean

friendly routes. Additionally, the program offers members a guar-anteed ride home should weather or some other emergency circum-stance require it.

“It takes a lot of the stress out of it,” says Helmer, who as a mom has to factor her kids’ needs into commuting plans. Still, the thought of leaving the security and conve-nience of a car is daunting for some.

Will it take longer to get to the office? What about work attire?

“My commute is four minutes faster by bike than car,” says Es-helman, who always keeps a spare change of clothing in his office as an insurance policy that he can still maintain a professional appear-ance.

Helmer was encouraged to give it a try by a coworker who commut-ed by bike from the base of Bent Mountain. If he could come in all that way, then surely she could manage her own commute, which

is much shorter, she reasoned.

He even offered to mentor her.

“We met in the parking lot at

Target and he helped me find a

route,” she says.

Her advice for picking a route?

“Start small, not during peak

hours — say on a Saturday — and

test the route before you try it on a

week day.”

Equipment is key, too, accord-

ing to veteran commuters; not the

bike necessarily — almost any bike

will suffice for commuting — but a

good helmet, cold weather gloves,

a spare tube and, most important-

ly, safety lights and reflective cloth-

ing are key.

Bike safety and best biking

practices are fundamental ele-

ments in growing a vibrant com-

munity on two wheels. “We’re a

biking community in its infancy,”

says Eshelman. “It’s up to current

cyclists to ride defensively and set a

good example of what safe biking

should be.”

Three years into the bike com-

muting lifestyle, Helmer hopes

to see the community grow and

wouldn’t change a thing about how

she travels to work. “It gives me

such a sense of accomplishment,”

she says. “I’ve never once regretted

riding into work, but I’ve regretted

it many times when I haven’t.”

30 MARCH 2013

lifestyles

Pete Eshelman regularly

commutes by bike to

his job at the Roanoke

Regional Partnership

where his duties

include promoting

cycling in the

region.

540.767.3000 | Roanoke434.237.3384 | Lynchburgwww.thalhimer.com

WE ARE YOUR ADVOCATE IN THE MARKET

ROANOKE BUSINESS 31

NextROANOKE

Photo by Sam Dean

Bill Meador, founder, Roanoke United Network

Creating a network Native returns home to start a business and a young professionals network

by Rebekah Manley

Call it insurance for a

growing young profes-

sional population. Bill

Meador, a 30-year-old Cave

Spring and 2005 James Madi-

son University graduate, not

only returned to his home-

town — where he owns an

independent insurance agency

— he star ted a networking

group for young professionals

in the Roanoke area.

In November, Meador

formed the Roanoke United

Network, a young professional

networking group that meets

once a month after work at

various restaurants. “This is a

great opportunity for young

professionals here in the Roa-

noke Valley to come together,

share sales ideas and tech-

niques that have been proven

successful, and also just come

out to meet new friends and

unwind after a long and stress-

ful day at work,” says Meador.

“I strongly encourage anyone

who is new to Roanoke to

attend one of our monthly

meetings to socialize and meet

other like-minded individuals,

both on a personal and busi-

ness level.’’

While Meador’s insurance

business is currently a one-man

show, he has plans for growth

in the next few years. He envi-

sions a fi ve-plus person team

including one or two customer

service representatives along

with a few sales associates,

each specializing in a particular

line of insurance.

Meador visits clients as

insurance agents have always

done, but he also reaches out

to clients online, updating his

Facebook page weekly with

pitches and tips for clients and

potential clients.

A January post read: “For

any brides-to-be out there,

make sure to stop by my booth

at the bridal show this week-

end…” Another one: “Please

take a minute to read the at-

tached article from my web-

site...some good information

about lessons learned from

Superstorm Sandy!” Mixed

in with the information was a

picture of his daughter’s f irst

Christmas.

Roanoke Business: How do

people get connected to

Roanoke United Network

online between meetings?

Meador: I created a Face-

book group, Roanoke United

Network, to post information

about upcoming events, as well

as to allow business owners

and those who work in sales

to post information about

their company or product to

the young professional demo-

graphic here locally. This is a

great way to make an informal

sales pitch and let everyone

know why and how their prod-

uct or service is better than

the rest. As of right now there

are more than 160 members

in the group, and it is growing

day-by-day.

RB: What could happen

to encourage young pro-

fessionals to move here?

What would you say to

someone interested in

moving to Roanoke?

Meador: I believe that slowly

but surely Roanoke is becom-

ing an at tractive place for

young professionals to live and

begin their careers. I remem-

ber when I graduated from

college in 2005, the last thing I

wanted to do was move back

home to Roanoke. However,

as the years have gone by, I’ve

begun to truly appreciate what

Roanoke has to offer. With all

the building renovations and

new businesses in downtown

Roanoke, this will attract — if it

hasn’t already — more young

professionals to move to this

area, or in my case, move back

to this area after college. Not

to mention all the outdoor ac-

tivities Roanoke has to offer!

RB: How do you find bal-

ance with family and work?

Meador: My wife and I have

an eight-month-old daughter

named Emerson. Sometimes it

is tough to balance the work/

home life since every day is dif-

ferent, but I always make time

to spend with my baby girl

before she goes to bed each

night.

32 MARCH 2013

oooooooooooooooookk kkkkkk k kkkk atatatataaaatataata pppppppagagagagagagagaaga eseseeesesesesee oof f nuumbbers for too long and you’re bound to seessosssosoos mmemememem ooodddddddddddd ttttttttthihihihihihhh nngn s.FFFFoFoFoFFoFF r r r inininininininnnninststtststs aananaaanana ceccccececee, aaccording to the running averages compiled through

ththhhhthhthhheeeeeeeeee UUUUUU.UUUUUU S.S.S...... CCCCCCCCCenenenennnee susususuuuuuuuss ssssss BuBBBBuBBB reau’s American Community Survey, ththhththhhhhheee poppppppopp pupupupuuuullalallalalalal titititiononononnon ooooooof fffff tthe Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford Metropoli-tatatatatatatatataatan n nnnn nnnnn SStSStStStStStSStSttatatttatatatttatisisiisisisisiissisttttttittitttt cacacacaaacacacaacal lll l l ArArAAArArArArArAAAreeaae is pretty close to the work force in the Roanoke MeMeMeMeMeMeM trtrrrtrropopooppolololoollllo iiititiititi ananann SSSSSSSSSStatatatatatitititiititiitit ststststsststs iiiiicii al Area. The median age in the Blacksburg-ChChChChChChCCChCC ririririririissstssss iaiiiaaaansnnsnssnssnsbuububububbuburgrgrgrgrgrggggg-RR-RRRRRadadadadddadadadfford Metropolitan Statistical Area is nearly 11yeeeyeyeeearaaararaa ssssssssss yoyoooyoounununnunnnu gegegegeggg r thththhhhananananannannan tthe median age in the Roanoke Metropolitan Sta-tiiitiit stttststticicicicci aalaalaall AAAArererreererr a.aaaa.aa

MaMaMMMMaMMMaM ybybyyyby eee e eee thththhthhththththatataatataaataataat’sssss wwwwhhhyyhhh the median household income in Roanoke is momomomomoreeeeeeee tthahahahh nnnn nnnn $3$3$$333$33,44,4,444440000000000000 hhhhhhhiigher — but is that why it’s higher in every educa-tiiiiiiononononnnoon cccccccaatategegeggeggoororororory?y?yy??y?y?y?y?y IIIIssssss itiitiitit jjjjjjjjjjjuust a coincidence that the Roanoke MSA’s work fofoofofoooofooorcrrcrrcrrcrr e e ee eeeeeee fefefefeefeff llllllllllll bbbbbbbby y y yyy 2,2,,,2,,,,90909090909000000 00 bebbebbbbb tween November 2011 and the same month in202020200002012121212122122, ,,,, whwhwhhwhhwhhhw iiliiillilliii eeeee ththhththththt eeeeeeeeee BlBlBlBlBlBlaaacacacaa kksburg-Christiansburg-Radford work force rosebybybybbyybybybbby 333333,1,,,1,11,1,1000000000000000??? ?? AnAnAnAnAnAnAnAnnddddddddddd hohhohohh w wwww w iss it that, in a world in which it seems only families ononoonoonoo oollldlddllll ssssitititiitcoccccccoccococc msmsmsmsmssssmm hhhhhhavavavavvvva e eeeee aa stay-at-home parent, at least one spouse in more ththhhthhananananannann 44455555 ppeppppeppeep rcrcrcrcenenenenent t ofofoofffoffff thhe married couples in the Blacksburgrgrgrgrgrgrggggg-C-C-CCCCChrhrrhrhrhrhrhrisisisisisi tititititititititianananananannannnans-s-s-s-s-s-s-ssbubbbubububb rgrgrgrgrgrggrggrg-RRRRRRRRadadadadadadada fofofofofoordrdrdrdrd MMMMMSASAAASASASA iisn’t in the work force?

IIIIInnII ttttthehehehehehehhehhe RRRRRRRRRRoaoaoaoaoaaoaoaoaoaao nononooookekekekeke MSA, that’s more than 47 percent.t.t...t IIttttttt cacacacacacan’n’nnn t t t bebebebebeb bbbbbbe-e-e-ee-e-cacacaaacacacacaacaaausususuususuuuuu eeeeee ofofofofofofoffff uuuuuuuuuuuneneneneneeenenenemmpmpmpmpmpmmpmplololololooloymymymymymymymmmy eneneeneneent. In November, that was at 5.6 pepeppeepercrcrcrrcrccenennenene t t tttt inininininii RRRRRRRo-o-oo-oananaanananana okokokokokokokoko e,,,,,, 555555555.4.44.44.444 pppppppperererererereree cececeeeceeentnttnttntntntntnntt iiiiin nnn nn n ttthtttt e Blacksburg-Christiansburg-RRaRaRRaRR dfdfdfdfdfdfdd ororrrrrddddddd MSMSMSMSMSMMSSA.A.A.AA.A

LABOR FORCE UNEMPLOYED

November November2011 2012 2011 2012(000) (000) (000) (000)

Virginia 4,321.1 4,332.2 249.9 228.2

Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford MSA

87.4 90.5 5.1 4.9

Roanoke MSA 162.5 159.6 9.9 8.9

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce | SPONSORED CONTENTRoanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce | SPONSORED CONTENTTT

EVENT SPONSORS123rd Annual Meeting

of the Membership

LewisGale Regional Health System

First Citizens Bank

Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore

Appalachian Power

Salem Printing Co.

xpedx

Business Before Hours — Jan. 17

Goodwill Industries of the Valleys

Doctors Express

2013 Capital Dinner

Lanford Brothers Co.

Norfolk Southern Corp.

Verizon

Casino Night

Market Building Foundation

Spilman Thomas & Battle

PLLC

Blue Ridge Catering

Fun Times Party Warehouse

CHAMBER CHAMPIONS BB&T

Brown Edwards

Blue Ridge Copier

Cox Business

Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore

Grow Inc.

LifeWorks REHAB (Medical Facilities of America)

Lumos Networks

rev.net

Spilman Thomas & Battle

PLLC

Trane

Tread Corp.

Wells Fargo

Woods Rogers Attorneys at Law

Pepsi Bottling Group

Note: Chamber Champions are members who support the Roanoke Regional Chamber through year-round

sponsorships in exchange for year-round recognition.

Roanoke Regional Chamber recognizes Chamber Champions and event sponsors

ROANOKE BUSINESS 33

Motley to chair Roanoke Regional Chamber

The Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce, Western Vir-

ginia’s largest business organization, has elected officers and

directors for 2013.

Dan Motley, industrial development manager of Norfolk Southern,

has been elected chair. Other officers are: John Francis, First

Citizens Bank, past chair; Barry Henderson, SunTrust Banks,

chair-elect; F.B. Webster Day, Spilman Thomas & Battle, vice

chair economic development; Ken Randolph, Rockydale Quarries,

vice chair membership; Vickie Bibee, Scott Insurance, vice chair

of public policy; Jonathan Hagmaier, Interactive Achievement, vice chair at-large;

Melinda Chitwood, Brown, Edwards & Co., treasurer; and Joyce Waugh, Roanoke

Regional Chamber, president and secretary.

New members of the 2013 Board of Directors are: Jeffrey Marks, WDBJ7; Greg

Freeman, Roanoke Stamp & Seal; Ellis Gutshall, Valley Bank; Tye Campbell, SFCS;

Phil Anderson, Frith, Anderson & Peake PC; Karen Turner, StellarOne Bank; and Dr.

Cynda Johnson, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.

Continuing to serve on the board are: Josh Bradley, First Citizens Bank; Steve

Cronemeyer, Verizon; Beth Doughty, Roanoke Regional Partnership; Kay Dunkley,

Virginia Tech; Roger Elkin, Hall Associates; Tamea Franco, Global Metal Finishing;

Nancy Oliver Gray, Hollins University; Betsy Head, Home Instead Senior Care; Scott

Hodge, AECOM; Landon Howard, Roanoke Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau;

Joe Jones, Appalachian Power; Penelope Kyle, Radford University; Dale Lee, RGC

Resources; Michael Maxey, Roanoke College; Thomas L. McKeon, Roanoke Higher

Education Center; Joe Miller, E.J. Miller Construction; Curtis Mills, Carilion Clinic;

Todd Morgan, MB Contractors; Garry Norris, Express Employment Professionals;

Todd Putney, Medical Facilities of America; Angela Reynolds, LewisGale Medical

Center; Robert Sandel, Virginia Western Community College; Kim Stanley, Cox Com-

munications; Steven S. Strauss, Strauss Construction Corp., Wayne G. Strickland,

Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission; and Leonard Wheeler, Wheeler

Broadcasting.

Advance Auto Parts, a leading

retailer of automobile aftermarket parts,

accessories, batteries and maintenance

items, has completed the acquisition

of B.W.P. Distributors in an all-cash

transaction. BWP, a privately held

company that supplies, markets and

distributes automotive aftermarket parts

and products principally to commercial

customers, was founded in 1962 and

is based in Armonk, N.Y. The acquisi-

tion will enable Advance Auto Parts to

continue its expansion.

Carilion Roanoke Memorial

Hospital was recently named the

Roanoke Valley’s preferred health-care

provider by consumers. National Re-

search Corp. awarded Carilion Clinic’s

Roanoke hospital the 2012/2013 Con-

sumer Choice Award, recognizing it

among the top hospitals in the country.

This is the ninth year in a row that Car-

ilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital has

received the Consumer Choice award.

Six million dollars worth of improve-

ments are under way at Roanoke’s

Elmwood Park. MB Contractors

of Roanoke began construction

Oct. 26. The reopening is projected

for August. Scheduled work includes:

revitalizing the magnolia-lined entrance

from Franklin Road; landscaping and

improving storm-water runoff with rain

gardens on Bullitt Avenue; creating an

art walk complemented by new street

lights, trees, landscaping and sculpture

podiums; building a new amphitheater

stage designed to the scale of the park

and with improvements to enhance both

the performer and audience experience;

creating seating arrangements for am-

phitheater patrons; building a conces-

sions plaza to bring food vendors into

a central area for easy access during

festivals and other activities; creating

interactive water fountains; building a

trail connection to Mill Mountain Gre-

enway to draw outdoor enthusiasts into

the park; installing new signage and en-

trance gateways; making improvements

for pedestrian access and on-street

parking to Williamson Road adjacent to

the park; and improving the connection

to the park from the downtown library.

The city of Roanoke has invited

residents to register their cell phones to

receive voice and text messages on local

emergency alert notifications, and per-

tinent information regarding the city’s

response to emergency situations at

https://roanoke.onthealert.com/.

Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic

Governance and Innovation has recog-

nized the city of Roanoke’s “Technol-

ogy Initiatives for Building Placards”

program as one of 111 innovative gov-

ernment initiatives for its 2012 Bright

Ideas in Government cohort. The city’s

Building Inspections Division

submitted an entry on a project that

applies quick response codes to permit

placards for new buildings, allowing

Member newsMember news & recognitions & recognitions

Motley

contractors and applicants to view the daily inspections

calendar online via smart phones or tablets. The codes

also link the customer to the online permit center, where

they can request inspections, view permit history and

inspection results, as well as receive notification of

required inspections to finalize the permit and complete

the job. For more information, call 540-853-6877.

Chittum

The city of Roanoke has named Chris

Chittum as the director of the Plan-

ning, Building and Development Depart-

ment after a national search that re-

sulted in 56 applicants for the position.

In his new position, Chittum will be

responsible for leading code enforce-

ment, planning and neighborhood services, develop-

ment review, building inspections and the HUD Com-

munity Resource Team.

Roanoke City Council has named the Rev. Carl T.

Tinsley Sr. as the 2012 Citizen of the Year for the

city of Roanoke. In recognition of this honor, Mayor

David Bowers bestowed the key to the city on Tinsley

at the city’s annual volunteer reception.

The Delta Dental of Virginia Foundation

recently awarded its inaugural oral health grants to 36

organizations across the state, totaling more than $1.1

million. The initial grants were awarded to programs

that have a significant impact on improving oral health

with sustainable solutions through improved access to

oral care, oral health education or oral health research.

Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore has announced that 23

of the firm’s attorneys were named “Legal Eagles” in

the April 2012 issue of Virginia Living magazine. The

honored attorneys and the category for which they

were selected are: J. Rudy Austin, personal injury

litigation – defendants; Thomas J. Bondurant

Jr., criminal defense – white collar; Matthew W.

Broughton, product liability litigation; David

N. Cohan, copyright law, trademark law; Lewis

A. Conner, corporate compliance law; Wilburn

C. Dibling Jr., municipal law; G. Franklin

Flippin, banking and finance law, corporate law,

mergers and acquisitions; W. William Gust,

employee benefits law, tax law; Gregory J. Haley,

commercial litigation, eminent domain and condem-

nation law, government relations practice; Guy

M. Harbert, insurance law; Kevin W. Holt,

commercial litigation; Paul G. Klockenbrink,

employment law, management litigation, labor and

employment; Todd A. Leeson, employment law,

management litigation, labor and employment law;

K. Brett Marston, construction law, litigation

– construction; Monica T. Monday, appellate

practice; S.D. Roberts Moore, personal injury

litigation – defendants, personal injury litigation –

plaintiffs; G. Michael Pace Jr., banking and

finance law, corporate law, litigation – real estate,

real estate law, land use and zoning law; W. David

Paxton, employment law – individuals, employ-

ment law – management, labor law – management,

litigation – labor and employment; William R.

Rakes, antitrust law, banking and finance law,

bet-the-company litigation, commercial litigation,

corporate law, litigation – banking and finance,

litigation – mergers and acquisitions; J. Scott

Sexton, commercial litigation, oil and gas law;

Bruce C. Stockburger, trusts and estates,

tax law, leveraged buyouts and private equity law;

Charles L. Williams, environmental law, liti-

gation – environmental; and Clark H. Worthy,

real estate law.

The Virginia law firm Gentry Locke Rakes

& Moore has been named one of the 2013 U.S.

Top Ranked Law Firms. The list appeared in For-

tune magazine’s Special 2013 Investor’s

Guide, as well as in the January 2013 issues of

Corporate Counsel and The American Lawyer, pub-

lished by American Lawyer Media.

Motley

The Southern Economic Development

Council (SEDC) has announced that

Dan Motley, industrial development

manager of Norfolk Southern, has been

elected chairman of the SEDC board of

directors. Motley will serve a one-year

term on the board.

Roanoke County Administrator Clay

Goodman has announced important informa-

tion for residents with property located in flood

hazard zones. The county has maintained a Class 8

designation in the Community Rating System (CRS).

This means all National Flood Insurance program

policies renewed on property in flood hazard zones

in Roanoke County will receive a 10 percent discount

on flood insurance premiums. Properties not deemed

to be in a flood hazard zone, but whose owners want

flood insurance coverage, will be offered a preferred

risk policy. For more information on the Community

Rating System and Roanoke County’s Floodplain

Management plan, contact Butch Workman at 540-

772-2096, ext. 234.

Hunter

William F. “Bill” Hunter has been

named the new director of Roanoke

County’s Communications and Informa-

tion Technology Department. Hunter

has worked for the county for more than

nine years.

Altizer

The Roanoke County Board of Super-

visors has elected Mike Altizer,

who represents the Vinton District, as

chairman of the board. Charlotte

Moore, who represents the Cave

Spring District, was chosen as the

vice chair.

Canada

Members of the Roanoke County

School Board have elected Hollins

District representative Jerry Can-

ada as 2013 chairman. Drew Bar-

rineau, representative of the Wind-

sor Hills District, was elected vice

chairman.

The Roanoke Regional

Chamber of Commerce

honored two of f icers

of the year, ambassa-

dor of the year and the

Backbone Club’s Jack

C. Smith Top Producer

award at the organiza-

t ion ’s 123rd A nnua l

Meeting of the Mem-

bership. Ivy Dill with

First Citizens Bank was

named the Jack C. Smith

Top Producer in recognition of her outstanding

service to the Backbone Club. Amanda Rog-

ers with Bright Services was honored as the 2012

Ambassador of the Year. Roanoke City Police De-

partment Sgt. Jason Hicks was named the city’s

2012 Officer of the Year. Officer R.J. Wygal

was honored as the Roanoke County Police Depart-

ment’s 2012 Officer of the Year.

The Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional

Commission has received a 2012 innovation

award from the National Association of Develop-

ment Organizations (NADO) for its Save-a-Ton

campaign. The campaign was recognized for its

regional approach to the energy conservation edu-

cation awareness program and the effort to reduce

duplication across local governments. Save-a-Ton

was started in 2011 by Roanoke County, the city

of Roanoke and a number of nonprofits and other

partners. The commission assumed management

of the program in July. The program uses its web

presence, including a website and social media,

to share information about local energy efficiency/

conservation programs and to connect residents

with businesses that provide energy-related goods

and services across the Roanoke and New River

valleys.

Hemphill

The Science Museum of Western

V i rg in i a h a s n a m e d Michael

Hemphill as its new director of

development and marketing. Hemp-

hill will direct the Science Museum’s

membership, special events, fund-

raising and promotion initiatives as

the museum prepares for its return in the spring

to a revitalized Center in the Square in downtown

Roanoke.

Bandy Missell

Spectrum Design has

announced that its vice

president and director

of design, David L.

Bandy, AIA, has been

promoted to president.

Bandy succeeds John

Garland who retired from the firm Dec. 31. The

firm also announced the hiring of John A. Mis-

sell, AIA, as chief operating officer.

34 MARCH 2013

SPONSORED CONTENT | Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce

Dill

Hicks

Rogers

Wygal

ROANOKE BUSINESS 35ROANOKE BUSINESS 35

The law firm Spilman Thomas & Battle

has announced that M. Mallory

Mantiply of its Roanoke office was

elected as a new member effective Jan.

1. Mantiply’s practice focuses on trials

and litigation of all types. He earned his

undergraduate and law degrees from the

University of Virginia.

Witt

SunTrust Bank, Western Virginia

has announced that Tiphanie A.

Witt has been promoted to assis-

tant vice president. Wit t serves as

the branch manager at the Vinton

K roger of f ice loca t ion wi thin i t s

retail division.

Virginia Tech’s Personal Touch Catering has

been awarded the National Association of College

and University Food Service (NACUFS) 2012 Loyal

E. Horton Grand Prize in the Catering Online Menu

category. Personal Touch Catering’s online menu

received a gold medal in the large school division

last spring and was then showcased at the national

NACUFS convention in July, where it was judged

against gold medal winners from the small- and

medium-school divisions and ultimately named

the top online menu.

All Virginia Tech undergraduate students may

enroll in science, engineering and law, a unique and

intrinsically interdisciplinary minor. The new minor

was introduced last fall and was developed under

the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Science Education grant.

With more than $450 million in research expendi-

tures for fiscal year 2011, Virginia Tech continues

to rank in the top 5 percent of research universities

and colleges in an annual survey of more than 900

institutions conducted by the National Science

Foundation. Rising three places to No. 41, Vir-

ginia Tech remains the top university in Virginia for

funds expended in pursuit of science, engineering

and other scholarly activity, and the only Virginia

institution in the top 50.

Bachelez

Dr. Andreas Bachelez has joined

the Virginia-Maryland Regional Col-

lege of Veterinary Medicine at Vir-

ginia Tech as a clinical assistant pro-

fessor of small animal surgery in the

Department of Small Animal Clinical

Sciences.

Blanco

Myra Blanco, leader of the Safe-

ty and Human Factors Engineering

group with the Virginia Tech Trans-

portation Institute’s Center for Truck

and Bus Safety, will receive the J.

Cordell Breed Award for Women Lead-

ers, to be presented at the SAE Inter-

national 2013 World Congress April 16-18 in

Detroit. The award recognizes a woman active in

the mobility industry.

Cecere

Dr. Tom Cecere has joined the

Virginia-Maryland Regional College

of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech

as an assistant professor of ana-

tomic pathology in the Department

of Biomedical Sciences and Patho-

biology.

Chambers

Yohna Chambers has been named

assistant vice president of human

resources at Virginia Tech. In her new

position, Chambers oversees benefits,

compensation, performance manage-

ment, staffing and recruiting and well-

ness.

Flynn

Virginia Tech’s Thomas E. Cook Counsel-

ing Center has received notification of

its accreditation from the International

Association of Counseling Services. The

accreditation signifies that the counsel-

ing center adheres to the highest stan-

dards of professional counseling.

Christopher Flynn, director of Cook Counseling

Center, recently was elected to the 14-member Inter-

national Association of Counseling Services board.

Gutierrez

Dr. J. Claudio Gutierrez has

returned to the Virginia-Maryland

Regiona l Col l ege o f Ve t e r ina r y

Medicine a t V irginia Tech as an

anatomy instructor in the Department

of Biomedical Sciences and Patho-

biology.

Hafez

Dr. Shireen Hafez r ecen t ly

joined the Virginia-Maryland Re-

gional College of Veterinary Medi-

cine at Virginia Tech as an anatomy

ins t ruc tor in t he Depa r tmen t o f

Biomedical Sciences and Pathobi-

ology.

Khansa

Lara Khansa, an assistant profes-

sor in the Depar tment of Business

Information Technology at Virginia

Tech, has developed and taught the

university’s first-ever online health-

care information technology graduate

course.

Leftwich

Sara W. Leftwich has been named

manager of dual career and special proj-

ects in the Department of Human Re-

sources at Virginia Tech. Leftwich will

lead the university’s dual career program

which provides job search assistance to

the spouses and partners of the new

faculty who are relocating to the New River Valley.

Smith

Robert L. “Bob” Smith has been

appointed interim head of the Department

of Sustainable Biomaterials of the Vir-

ginia Tech College of Natural Resources

and Environment. Smith follows Barry

Goodell, who stepped down as depart-

ment head after serving for two years.

Sorensen

Richard E. Sorensen, dean of

the Pamplin College of Business at

Virginia Tech, received an honorary

doctorate from the Grenoble Ecole de

Management during Pamplin’s black-

tie donor recognition celebration in

Blacksburg.

Sumichrast

Senior Vice President and Provost Mark

McNamee has announced the appoint-

ment of Robert T. Sumichrast as

dean of the Pamplin College of Business

at Virginia Tech. Currently serving as

dean of the Terry College of Business at

the University of Georgia, Sumichrast

will begin his appointment at Virginia Tech on July 1.

He will succeed Richard E. Sorensen, who will retire

June 30 after 31 years as dean.

Whaley

Sherrie Whaley has been named

director of communications at the Vir-

ginia-Maryland Regional College of

Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech.

Whaley will be responsible for strategic

communications, including internal and

external communications, branding,

media relations and marketing of programs. She will

also manage the college’s Office of Public Relations

and Communications.

Witney

Doug Witney has been named director of

production services for the Center for the

Arts at Virginia Tech. Witney brings almost

30 years of production experience, rang-

ing from lighting and sound design to

production and operations management,

to the position. He will oversee event

production and technical operations for Center for the

Arts programs, which will be presented throughout the

center’s 147,000-square-foot facility currently under

construction on the Virginia Tech campus.

Yohn

Brian Yohn has been named creative

services manager for the Center for the

Arts at Virginia Tech, bringing a blend

of creativity and innovations, as well as

extensive experience managing print

and digital publications. He also man-

ages the creative services work for the

Center for the Arts and the Institute for Creativity, Arts

and Technology.

Virginia Western Community College

was ranked as the safest college of 2012 in Virginia

and eighth nationally in the annual list compiled by

StateUniversity.com. The Safest Schools findings are

based on incidents of campus crime as reported by

campus safety officials. As part of the Safest Schools

rankings, StateUniversity.com analyzed crime statistics

for 450 colleges and universities, and assigned a safety

rating to each school. Other regional colleges and

universities ranked in the top 10 for Virginia include,

Virginia Tech, sixth, and Radford University, tenth.

Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce | SPONSORED CONTENT

Mantiply

SPONSORED CONTENT | Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce

36 MARCH 2013

News from the Roanoke Regional Partnership

Forbes.com recognizes Virginia as a top state for business

Forbes.com named Virginia second in the nation for busi-

ness-friendliness in its 2012 rankings.

Virginia was the top state east of the Mississippi River and

was ranked behind only Utah. Virginia has consistently been

named a Forbes top state for business based on business

costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, economic

climate, growth prospects and quality of life.

Forbes ranked Virginia as the No.1 state for a business-

friendly regulatory environment and among the top 10 in

labor supply, economic climate and quality of life.

Roanoke featured by Virginia Living

Another magazine has a headline

about the Roanoke Region on its

cover. Virginia Living featured “A

Small City Bursting with Big Ideas”

on the cover of its December issue.

Titled “The Little City That Could,”

the story details some of Roanoke’s

history, its present and plans for

the future. It features a handful

of downtown hotspots and the

outdoors.

Writer Daryl Grove wrote: “I rented a bike from the Cambria

Suites hotel and enjoyed a leisurely early-morning ride

through Smith Park and Wasena Park, alongside and then

over the Roanoke River, around Vic Thomas Park and then

up onto the road to find the legendary Black Dog Salvage,

home of reclaimed and repurposed architectural and an-

tique wonders (two men were unloading what looked like

a torpedo). Along the way I passed families, joggers, dog

walkers and fellow bikers enjoying a traffic-free commute

to work and exchanged cheery hellos with them all.”

Homestead Creamery to expand

Homestead Creamery, known for its farm-fresh dairy prod-

ucts and back-in-fashion home delivery, plans to expand its

facilities and introduce a line of cheeses as part of a $1.1

million expansion supported by a new state grant designed

to support Virginia’s agricultural industry.

The expansion is expected to create 20 new full-time jobs

over three years at the dairy’s Franklin County production

facility.

Announcing the expansion at the Homestead in Decem-

ber, Gov. Bob McDonnell said, “Awarding the first-ever

Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development (AFID)

Fund grant to a company like Homestead Creamery, with

its full commitment to Virginia farmers and

Virginia grown products, is the perfect

way to launch this new program from my

administration’s economic development

and jobs creation agenda.

“Homestead is just the type of company

for which this program was built, one that can take the

high-quality agricultural products Virginia has to offer

and turn them into value-added products consumers are

seeking. I’m certain the AFID will provide further growth

opportunities for Virginia’s diverse agricultural economy,

the commonwealth’s largest industry.”

Homestead will receive a $60,000 grant through the fund,

established last year by the General Assembly as a new

economic development tool to develop incentives helping

the creation or expansion of businesses that use Virginia

agricultural and forestry products, particularly in rural areas.

The expansion also is made possible by a $45,000 grant

through the Tobacco Region Opportunity Fund from the

Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization

Commission and a Franklin County grant of $30,000. The

company will also receive training assistance from the

Virginia Jobs Investment Program.

“Agriculture is big business in Franklin County, and we’re

delighted to be the first locality in the commonwealth with

a business benefiting from a new state incentive program

that recognizes the economic benefits and contributions of

local farmers and growers,” said David Cundiff, chair of the

Franklin County Board of Supervisors and a commissioner

of the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community

Revitalization Commission. “A strong and prosperous agri-

cultural industry, coupled with manufacturing and services,

helps us maintain a diversified economy that improves our

quality of life.”

Agricultural product revenues totaled nearly $54 million in

Franklin County, according to the latest data from 2007,

up 40 percent over 2002. Revenues from milk and dairy

product sales accounted for two-thirds of all agricultural

sales activity in Franklin County.

Homestead Creamery plans to invest in real estate, build-

ing improvements and expansion, and new equipment. It

will include two new home-delivery trucks, freezer, cooler,

storage tanks for milk, pumping station, yogurt tank, cheese-

making equipment, mixer for flavored milk and an expanded

sewage treatment system.

Since 2001, the creamery has produced milk, butter and

ice cream at its Burnt Chimney production facility and

delivered it to stores such as Kroger, Whole Foods and

other retailers in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina

and Tennessee. The company also offers home-delivery.

Maybe you’ve found yourself stuck in your

search for a rewarding career. Maybe you

need to upgrade your skills to advance in your

current job, or perhaps you want to explore an

entirely new career. Maybe you are a business

manager who needs to find cost-effective

ways to train your team to stay current.

AND GET TO WORKdevelops

programs and training to address the

needs of employers and employees in

the Roanoke Valley. It gives students

opportunities to gain the real-world skills

they need to succeed in fields such

as science, technology, engineering,

mathematics and healthcare. Whether

you wish to be a nurse, a mechatronics

specialist or a software engineer,

Virginia Western will TAKE YOU THERE.

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innnneseseseseesss ssssss

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Virginia Tech helps the commonwealth weather financial uncertainty and high unemployment by

stimulating economic development and creating jobs. True to our roots, we’re using intellectual capital,

research prowess, and collaborative resources to launch innovative enterprises that improve lives.

Partnerships like the new Rolls-Royce jet engine plant in Prince George County, Virginia Tech Carilion

School of Medicine and Research Institute in Roanoke, and Southside’s Virginia Institute for

Performance Engineering and Research are all examples of how we’re boosting the economy and

creating career opportunities never before available, making Virginia Tech responsible for more than

17,000 jobs and a $1.5 billion economic impact across the state.

To learn more, visit www.thisisthefuture.com.

IMPAC .