"The growth is in the person, not the place."

I thought of this quote the other day, as I was researching workforce development programs at community colleges for my summer internship. The quote comes from Melvin, a community college student we met at Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville. His was one of the most inspiring stories we heard during our time in Southside.

Melvin grew up in Mount Vernon, NY, eldest child of a single mother. He told us about succumbing to the temptations of the street early in life, fathering children and getting involved in drugs. After a stint in jail, and with his thirtieth birthday approaching, Melvin decided he needed to do something to turn his life around; he was determined to be a father to his children in a way his never was. He got a job driving a truck cross-country to pay his child support and keep his kids on the right path.

Melvin continued to better himself by moving south from New York to Martinsville, to go to Patrick Henry. He decided to relocate to Martinsville because he liked the people, and he thought the city was a place where he could earn a second chance. He enrolled at Partick Henry, got a job in the Athletic Department, and is now student body president. He hopes to get a job working at a community college so that he can help others like himself, looking for second chances.

Melvin's story drove home a few key points for me about the challenge of redevelopment in a place like Southside. First, the most important resource Martinsville has is the people who live there, who love the community and want make it better. Outside money can be a bridge to redevelopment, but truly revitalizing communities will need people to cross that bridge. Second, buildings are not a panacea to blight -- a shimmering downtown will not save Martinsville. Only deep investments in human capital, education, and healthcare can transform neighborhoods. And, finally, in order to get it's second chance, Martinsville needs to make it easier for its people to pursue their own second chances. The programs described by Dr. Angeline Godwin, president of Patrick Henry, are a great first step toward that goal. The community college's investment in the New College Institute, programs in advanced mechanics, and a new childcare center on campus for students will help Martinsville in it's transition to the new economy.

Can the hipsters save us?

One of the enduring themes of our trip was that of place-based development. One of our trip leaders describes this as “improving quality of life for folks where they are”. The directors of research centers, incubators, and businesses we are meeting with talk about it as “making Virginia a great place to live first and to work second”. A town planner described the competing challenges of development and gentrification as determining whether “the hipsters are going to save us”.

This challenge is the central research concern of economists like Elizabeth Currid, Ed Glaser and Richard Florida. Our trip demonstrated that many of the same arguments that are made about arts and culture as a driving force in the economic development of large cities also apply in smaller centers. In her book about place-based creative economies, The Warhol Economy, Elizabeth Currid argues forcefully that government policy plays an essential role in attracting or repelling cultural producers. Thoughtful policy-making (whether zoning, permitting or tax credits) can build vibrant and dynamic cultural zones. The first step is recognising that art and culture generate real growth and jobs. The role of governments, as Currid argues, is to do everything they can to leverage culture: as a tourist attraction, an amenity and as a job and wealth generator.

Against that backdrop, my three “place-based” lessons from the trip are:

1.  Physical place matters

The most successful community development strategies leverage the existing physical, cultural and human assets of a location. We were lucky enough to hear from Pete Eschelman about using Roanoke’s physical environs to design America’s toughest marathon (sidenote: it continues to amaze me that people will pay good money to be exhausted, hungry and in need of a shower. Most of my friendship with Nate Betcher has involved recognising how very little we have in common).

We also visited the gorgeous mixed-use warehouse district of Danville, which puts converted buildings in many major cities to shame. Finally, we were privileged to share in the story of the development of FloydFest and the growth of Floyd as one of the destination locations for those passionate about the American music scene.

2. Meaning-making matters

Arts and culture help people and communities make sense of themselves and their place in the world. They are means to feel heard, and included. Events like FloydFest put communities on the map, and give them a positive story to tell the world.

3. Community superheroes matter, but they aren’t enough

On our travels, we were grateful to be welcomed into the homes and workplaces of many social entrepreneurs – people at the very heart of a town or city’s revitalisation. It would be easy to characterise these powerful indviduals as the single catalyst for change in moribund economic landscapes. But the reality, of course, is more complex. Each of these individuals acknowledged that their own success was linked to community support, dedicated and responsive government officials and a manageable regulatory environment.

The arts and cultures of our cities and towns matter. They tell us who we are and whisper about what we might become. They enrich our communities in every sense. Currid again: "Creative industries require a different type of policy-making that cultivates the social world in which art and culture thrive." Some of the communities of Southside it appears, are well on the way.

"It's about the person."

It's not easy to write about the region where you grew up. This past week I thought frequently of the Yiddish parable that Professor Marshall Ganz used frequently in our community organizing class - "Who discovered water? We don't know, but it certainly was not the fish." When you have grown up shaped by a region, it's a challenge to uncover the deep currents running under that region - an even greater challenge to determine how best to channel them.

Growing up in Salem, Virginia in the early 2000s, my friends and I had always heard that the cities, towns, and counties to our Southeast were on the brink of crisis. Just beyond the Roanoke Valley and through the rolling hills at the foot of the Appalachian mountains, we knew there were silent giants in the mists of Bassett and Martinsville - smokestacks of factories that had shut down long ago, sending thousands of workers away with children to feed and no clear road to a new job. Years later, when I worked in Governor Kaine's Constituent Services Office at the start of the Great Recession, we heard far too many stories of expiring unemployment benefits and proud breadwinners having to ask for help. Far too many of these calls came from Southside.

The stories were tragic, vivid, and anyone who wants to understand the region has to know them. We were fortunate on our trip to hear the incredible reporting and research of Roanoke Times reporter Beth Macy, working on her upcoming book on one of these manufacturing giants, Bassett Furniture and the people in the town of the same name. I also managed to drag with me from town to town a copy of Dale Maharidge's and Michael Williamson's amazing book Someplace Like America: Tales From the New Great Depression. Like Macy, Maharidge and Williamson brought to life vignettes of the human tragedy of the economic transformation of the past three decades. Tragedy isn't the full story of course, but we shouldn't pretend to understand economic transitions without bearing witness to the stories of those lost in transit - those, like the title of Maharidge's previous work, who found themselves left out of the new economy and stuck on a road to nowhere.

How do you rebuild an entire region? That was the question on my mind from the moment this trip started, and the answer came at a lunch at Patrick Henry Community College on Thursday. Student Body President Melvin Johnson is a former truck driver from Baltimore who, having driven through countless regions, chose to park once and for all in Southern Virginia. In the course of telling us his powerful, personal story, he told us, "Growth isn't about a place; it's about a person." In other words, revitalization of these communities had to focus on the people themselves, on investing in human capital. As we heard many times, the region did not want to incentivize another factory to set roots into town that would simply leave once those incentives disappeared. Melvin had captured perfectly the policy response to the shifting American economy and the decline of the American manufacturing sector. Invest in your people.

The trip laid out a beautiful range of examples for Melvin's summary. I'll briefly touch on four:

First - education. One of my fellow classmates, Alejandro, made a powerful point. In every single meeting, whether professional or political - every leader focused on the importance of investing in education. Martinsville, and its partner in development, the Harvest Foundation, have invested millions of dollars in the New College Institute so that Martinsville residents can get a bachelor's degree, master's degree, or certificate without leaving the area. In neighboring Danville, they built a gleaming monument to advanced study known as the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research. Measured by investment, education has become a huge focus of local leadership.

Second - lowering the barriers for entrepreneurship. Whether in Virginia Tech's KnowledgeWorks or Danville's small business incubator (currently at full capacity), or Martinsville's incubator (currently at 85% capacity), local governments in partnership with educational institutions are investing in hubs of entrepreneurial spirit - where new businesses can get off the ground and potentially swap ideas and inspiration.

Third - protecting home-grown businesses. We saw this most vividly in Floyd, where our attempt to get pizza from a chain was politely corrected - because it was a chain. Whether by rebuffing the expansion of chains, or by boosting local businesses, the belief that each dollar spent in a local store as opposed to a chain (a higher multiplier effect for the Econs out there) was widespread and widely accepted.

Finally - the retraining of the former manufacturing workforce. At Melvin's school, Patrick Henry Community College, the average age is 27 (I won't disclose Melvin's age without his consent, but suffice it to say he's above average in many respects). The schools in this region are overwhelmingly open for former plant and factory workers looking to retrain. And with federal programs like Trade Adjustment Assistance through the Department of Labor, many of those workers can receive federal assistance to get the skills they need for today's job market in Southside.

The investment in human capital was astounding and powerful, but it certainly isn't perfect. There are far too many older workers caught at the worst moment in this transition. They find themselves too old for retraining, and too young or too poor to retire. And the Virginia social safety net has some particularly wide holes - to be eligible for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, an adult without children cannot make more than $8,940 in an entire year. And the jobs in this new economy lack the stability and security that was a staple of this region in the heyday of American manufacturing. While investing in the next generation of Southwest Virginia entrepreneurs, the Commonwealth should make sure it takes care of the previous generation and builds a secure net to catch those entrepreneurs who take the jump and fall short.

Leanna, one of the leaders behind Martinsville's New College Institute, talked about the nontraditional approaches this area of Virginia is taking as it rebuilds. "If we just thought in the box of what an economist thought we should be," Leanna told us, "We just wouldn't be here." Instead, this part of Virginia has chosen to invest resources in its people - spending money on education, incubating small businesses, protecting home-grown entrepreneurs, and retraining workers for the jobs ahead. It's a truly democratic form of economic revitalization. Leaders are spending money not to recruit some larger manufacturing firm, but to give each and every citizen a powerful education and the skills to attract new jobs or even create their own. Though the smokestacks of Southern Virginia have gone quiet, the classrooms and office hallways are livelier than ever.

----
A quick note of thanks - to Hy and Dan for organizing an incredible experience, and to every single person who packed into that fifteen-passenger van with me all week. There's no better way to "discover the water" of your own home than a guided tour with some brilliant, insightful, and hilarious friends.

Update

Well, we successfully rambled through the Roanoke Valley, New River Valley, and Southside Regions of Virginia.  Our trip was jam-packed with great experiences and awesome learning experiences; to those we met along the way, thank you for your generosity in sharing your time and your perspectives.

Just a quick update -- though our trip is complete, our reflections are only just beginning.  In the coming days, we'll be posting thoughts here as they come to us.

More than just a Speedway; more than the stats would suggest

On Thursday we were in Martinsville, a city in southside Virginia with the highest unemployment rate in the Commonwealth.  As of March 2013, the unemployment rate was 14.4%; it has been north of 10% for the past five years.

Martinsville and the surrounding county of Henry were among the areas hardest hit by the offshoring of manufacturing in the 1990s and 2000s, with textiles leaving first and furniture manufacturing following shortly thereafter.  Since the passage of NAFTA in 1993, approximately 18,000 people have lost their jobs.  In a community of roughly 75,000, you can imagine the broader societal impact.

However, if you dig a bit deeper you begin to uncover a reawakening in the area.  Though the unemployment rate remains very high, it has fallen four percentage points in the last year.  Most of this was driven by the expansion of existing businesses in the area, but also the addition of new, more entrepreneurial ventures.

The spirit of entrepreneurship was prevalent in our meetings with Mayor Kim Adkins, who is starting a small business herself, and other community leaders.  Mayor Adkins in particular highlighted the recent efforts to change the culture around new business development in the region.  She specifically highlighted the strength of broadband in the area, as well as the new businesses that have opened recently in the area.

Our afternoon panel included City Manager Leon Towarnicki, Director of Community Development Wayne Knox, Community Zoning Officer Susan McCulloch, Kathy Rogers, Executive Director of  Piedmont Arts, and Leanna Blevins from the New College Institute.

Wayne kicked off the meeting by telling us that Martinsville is "more than just a speedway;" indeed, our discussion highlighted the increased role of regionalism, a greater focus on the community's existing assets, and improvements in education and workforce development. [for reference, Martinsville Speedway hosts two NASCAR races each year, nearly doubling the city and surrounding counties in terms of population].

The three big takeaways from this meeting were really the increased role of "thinking regionally;" an increased focus on developing the community's existing assets; and a renewed focus on education and workforce development.  The work across the region to promote collaboration (for a future post, no doubt) is really impressive, and the work that's taking place in Martinsville, particularly at the New College Institute, was promising.

The latter of these was closely linked to our first meeting in Martinsville, with Patrick Henry Community College.  Here, we met several local leaders, including Dr. Angeline Godwin, PHCC's President, Rhonda Hodges, Dean of Workforce Development, Melvin, the Student Body President, and Jeff Kohler of GENEDGE Alliance.

In general, it was encouraging to hear about the work that PHCC is undertaking in an effort to break the cycle of unemployment and poverty.  Dr. Godwin in particular provided a compelling narrative on changing the mindset of the current and future generations, so that they too don't fall behind their peers.

Not only our hosts, they gave us a tour!  Rhonda Hodges highlighting Martinsville.

Throughout all of our meetings, a spirit of resolute optimism was clear.  Whether it was the renewed focus on workforce development and education via the New College Institute and the efforts at PHCC; or the entrepreneurial spirit of the city government, it was obvious that Martinsville is moving beyond its past.

Efficient farming

I spent most of my early childhood in a village in South-East Romania. As soon as I learned how to walk, I had to follow my grandparents to the field where they worked using saps and rakes. Soon after I learned how to milk a cow. I always assumed that this is the way farming is done all over the world. Little did I know that in the developed world this kind of farming is a thing of the past. During our LSS Trip to Virginia I had the opportunity to talk to an American farmer and dairy producer. He showed us the technology he uses to milk his cows. I was blown away! With two employees he is able to run a farm with 140 cows. This would not be possible without modern technology. What was even more striking though was  that he said this kind of technology has been around from before he was born. His father had been using automatic milking technology from 1925. I wanted to call my grandma and tell her. When they say Romania is 50 years behind America, they are being polite. If in the 1990s we lacked technology that had been in America since the 1920s, it means the technological gap is much grater than 50 years.

The Burden On Our Community Colleges

We're on our way to Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville today, and I stumbled across an interesting article on community colleges on the ride there. Perfect timing for some thought-provoking questions.

Of the Obama Administration's goal of 8 million post-secondary graduates by 2020, 5 million of those are expected to come from the country's community colleges. And community colleges, compared to other four year institutions, are taking in a growing share of students from low-income communities.

Is this too much to ask of our community colleges in a time of declining state support for higher education? A new report from the Century Foundation takes a comprehensive view of the system as it is and the challenges ahead. The report comes to a difficult conclusion (of course with some solutions and proposals in there as well):

Today, community colleges are in great danger of becoming indelibly separate and unequal institutions in the higher education landscape.

More on the report here: http://nyti.ms/14Sw0Hm

Photos from Visiting a Dairy Farm

We listen to how federal and state policy affect Virginia's farming families.

Sebastian stands before a field of barley, which is often used to protect against soil erosion.

Stoica checks out the cows by their feeding station.

Many feral cats run free over the property.

We get to see milking taking place.

Stoica eagerly learns about agricultural practices in the United States.

The average age of farmers keeps increasing in Virginia, and the number of farms is shrinking.

The future of farming in Virginia is uncertain, as more and more families leave the industry.

Multitudes

"F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, 'Yeah, this should definitely be in 3D.'

No, what he said was, '[T]he test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.'" - Jon Lovett, 5/21/2013

As our van bounded along the Virginia countryside from Blacksburg to Floyd, I found myself glued to my phone's screen on this hilarious and insightful commencement speech by Jon Lovett, a former speechwriter for the President. (this is where I distract you from this post with a link to a much more memorable piece of writing - http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/life-lessons-in-fighting-the-culture-of-bullshit/276030/).

Lovett's choice of Fitzgerald's quote has stuck with me these past few days, most poignantly as we've transitioned from the gleaming downtown offices of the Carilion's Research Park to the rolling green hills off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Because the quote applies to an individual mind as much as it does an individual state or region. 

As we often do as graduate students, I'm somewhat stretching the quote to fit my purposes. None of the vastly different communities we have seen on this trip - the new, youthful downtown of Roanoke, the business incubators by Virginia Tech, the hectic dairy farm in Franklin County - none of these are in direct opposition to one another.

But they are so very different. In their challenges - whether it's attracting new large businesses to the community, or shielding a community from development that endangers its character; and in their solutions - whether it's investing in high tech jobs and businesses or incubating locally-grown shops and stores. 

I haven't gotten to the point where I can reconcile all of these distinctions, and maybe I shouldn't. But Fitzgerald's quote is a good reminder that there is a vibrant, sometimes contradictory, variety out there - that every conversation we gather our chairs around will have its own flavor of character, challenges, and solutions. 

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

I think it's only appropriate that, as we tour the rambling countrysides of Virginia, I've had Faulkner on the brain. Many of the conversations that we've had here about the future -- whether with healthcare executives in Roanoke or artisans in Floyd -- have been bound up in the recriminations, judgements and grievances of bygone eras. This was perhaps most true in our discussion with Beth Macy about her upcoming book, Factory Man.

Macy tells the story of John Bassett, a third-generation furniture maker, and his efforts to keep the tradition of furniture making alive in Southside. John Bassett's grandfather founded the town of Bassett after the Civil War, and the family continues to dominate the sleepy hamlet of just over one thousand residents today. Bassett was a true company town -- hospitals, schools, housing, and transportation were all bankrolled by the furniture company. Thousands of people came to Bassett in its heyday to work in furniture factories and chase middle-class dreams. The tradition began to die when manufacturing fled for foreign shores in the latter half of the century.

In Macy's telling, the company town of Bassett would not have been possible were it not for the tradition of paternalism established by the region's earliest settlers -- plantation owners who made their money in the tobacco and cotton market long before being replaced by textile and manufacturing barons. In a way, plantations were the first company towns, self-sufficient operations wholly-owned by one family. The cultural mores established then continue to shape towns like Bassett today, and will influence the choices they make in the future. When so much of successful economic development depends on innovation and entrepeneurial spirit, will the family-dominated towns be able to adapt?

America is rich country!

I spent most of my childhood in rural Romania and my teenage years in a small town (pop. 170,000). After 4 days on the road, visiting rural Virginia, I have to say that the United States of America is a developed country! I am simply amazed by the infrastructure that even the poorest and smallest towns have. We just came from Floyd, a town of 900 people. It had two-lane paved roads, a courthouse, and a ring of businesses (coffee shops, restaurants, bars etc.) in its downtown. We are now in Rocky Mount,a town of 4800 in Franklin County. It has a courthouse, a hospital, a highschool, a vast network of paved roads, and many businesses (timber mills, McDonalds, Holiday Inn, an entire shopping center etc.). In Romania, it would be incredible for communities below 5 000 people to have any of the infrastructure and businesses these small American towns. Most commuties of this size in my country have no paved road, no hospital, no high school, nothing. People drive carts pulled by horses and very few have cars. In most, the only way to make a living is to engage in subsistence agriculture on their tiny plots of land, usually less than 5 acres. I have to say that in my 6 years in America, this trip has opened my eyes the most and allowed me to realize the real differences between a developed and developing country.

Pictures!

Here's some quick photos from our journey thus far:

Real Estate and Capital Access Panel in Roanoke

Dinner with Krisha Chachra, Blacksburg Town Council Member

Part of the team outside our B&B in Floyd, Hotel Floyd.  Absolutely gorgeous.

Drinks and apps with the founders of FloydFest, Kris Hodges and Erica Johnson.

Lending a hand in the kitchen...well, everyone but me!

With Lydeana Martin, Director of Economic Planning and Strategy for Floyd County

Inside the Floyd Country Store with Woody Crenshaw in Floyd

Jon getting acquainted with the calves at Cline Brubaker's farm in Callaway

Awesome discussion of milking technology

Wrapping up with Cline -- great times in the County!

Book recommendations...the right question might be "Why Not Moonshine?"

Politics and development in Roanoke

I spent most of my time in the last years asking people to vote for our political group in Colombia. One of the many things we said in the campaigns is that “whether you like it or not, politicians make the most important decisions in society”. We were looking to impulse citizens to engage in the democratic process even if they didn’t vote for us.  At the end, the main reason I came to the MPAID in HKS was to improve my analytical tools to improve my political group’s approach to Colombia’s and Latin American problems and in that way help to increase the level of the political discussion in my region.

During this year, I became aware of what may be obvious for many of you: in some contexts, politics is not that important. This week in Virginia started in Roanoke where we met, among many others, Brian Townsend, Assistant City Manager, Chris Morrill, City Manager and Wayne Bowers, Director of Economic Development. My sense is that Roanoke has advanced in the middle of the difficult times for the U.S in large part because it was managed by these apolitical professionals. These individuals do not need to get out and find votes, are not worried by reelections and do not belong to national wide organizations with interests that may be unrelated to the needs of Virginia (i.e.: political parties). Although it was a superficial and short contact, I think that they have a clear plan where they want to get Roanoke and work to push for that direction. In some parts, I felt that “politics” was just an obstacle to get straight in this development path.

Some open questions related to this short reflection: is the case that in Roanoke, “whether you like it or not, professional managers make the most important decisions”? Is that good? Is it the case that the people we met are particularly good city managers and that explains Roanoke success? How do we rethink the American democracy in this context?

Great Things Happen in Floyd!

Yesterday afternoon we spoke with several leaders of the artistic community in Floyd Virginia. Enjoying appetizers in the Oddfellows Cafe, we heard about the success of Floyd Fest, which is a music festival in the summer that has elevated the town's name among people interested in live entertainment. We also heard about starting a business in the community, from coffee entrepreneurs, and the history of the area. 

What surprised us is the generosity of the people in this community. Not knowing where to eat dinner, we were invited by our speakers to their home, where several other community leaders joined us for dinner. Being interested in the creative economy, which has been so important in this region, I really valued the opportunity to speak with artesian food producers, musicians, writers and craftspeople.

Preparing to eat outside under a great tree.

Many of us joked that we were going to move to Floyd. It reminds us how valuable quality of life and relationships can be, even when it is impossible to monetize these things. I feel very lucky to have enjoyed this opportunity.

Floyd community leaders cooking for us in their beautiful home.

Learning from community leaders about growing a rural community while maintaining a high quality of life.

Real Estate and Economic Development

This trip has provided a great opportunity to see how real estate development can be a force for good in the economic revitalization of a community. During this trip, we learned about the 4Ds of how property can exchange hands (i.e., death, debt, divorce, and distraction), and that when a city is pursuing new projects in its revitalization, it is better to pursue many smaller projects as opposed to investing in one large project. This mitigates overall risk and avoids mistakes such as deciding to install an IMAX Theater with the express purpose of economic development.

"Official" things from the Commonwealth of Virginia

I love state-based things. Not just State Quarters (though those are awesome), or state flags (also awesome) but the paraphernalia that state and local governments claim as their own. The Commonwealth of Virginia has the following official things:

Beverage: milk (frankly, that's a bit lame given that we are talking about the state that gave us Moonshiners).

Mammal: Virginia big-eared bat

Dog: American foxhound

Tartan: Virginia Quadricentennial

Dance: Square dance

Stay tuned for my comparison with our sister-trip in Detroit!

Recapping Roanoke, The Star City

Hey folks - I'm writing from Blacksburg, where we arrived this evening for dinner with Town Councilwoman Krisha Chachra.  Can't say enough about all the great things happening in and around Blacksburg, many of which are funded/developed by Virginia Tech, but others of which are driven entirely by the local, non-university-related residents.  We had a great conversation about how far Blacksburg has come, the town's future, the "Town - Gown" relationship (i.e., the relationship between the town and university), and the political landscape of Blacksburg from a town council member's perspective.  Fascinating stuff with an impressive woman who is doing great things for her home community.

Before we get too far into the week, I wanted to provide a quick recap of our trip thus far.

And before I forget, I also wanted to make a quick plug for the other HKS trip on the road this week -- HKS in Detroit.  Check out their blog http://hksindetroit.weebly.com/blog.html.

We arrived in Roanoke Saturday afternoon and headed to an event with our Roanoke host and Trip Adviser, Ed Walker.  Ed is a local real estate developer, investor and community activist who has been one of the driving forces behind Roanoke's recent revitalization.  He was our gracious host for the weekend, and played a huge role in putting this trip together.

Roanoke, VA -- The Star City.  Hotel Roanoke in the middle, our temporary residence for the weekend, with the Wells Fargo Tower by its side.

Anyway, Ed hosted an event for us Saturday night with many of the leaders across both private and public sectors in Roanoke.  Fantastic evening with great folks, and really set the tone for the week.

Sunday, we got kicked off with a driving tour of Roanoke, narrated by Brian Townsend, Assistant City Manager, and Chris Morrill, City Manager.  They provided a ton of useful insights into what's been happening in Roanoke, and really gave a great perspective.

Get on the bus!  Chris Morrill and Brian Townsend leading the Roanoke Trolley Tour.  

From there, we met with Beth Macy, a local journalist who is currently on leave to finish her book, Factory Man.  The forthcoming book is about the impact of globalization on Southside VA, told mostly through the story of Bassett Furniture.  It will be a must-read when published, as it details the human element of what happened to this part of the country as outsourcing increased and state and federal government programs just weren't enough.  As the grandson of a former furniture factory worker in Bassett, and the son of a former factory worker in Martinsville, it was quite the conversation.  Check our her blog here:  http://intrepidpapergirl.com/.

Sunday afternoon with Beth Macy.

Sunday afternoon we were with Mike Friedlander from the VT Carilion Research Center, a state-of-the-art facility based in Roanoke.  We toured the building, which includes two massive magnets solely devoted to research.  They're doing some unbelievable work there, researching the brain and other neuroscience things I can't even pretend to understand.  But the big thing will be when it becomes fully integrated into the fabric of the Roanoke business community via the entrepreneurial work done by others in the Riverside Plaza area.

One of the giant magnets -- behind the glass, so best picture I could get.  But wow!

Monday we started with Scott Graeff from Luna Innovations and Eddie Amos from Meridian, two technology companies based in Roanoke.  Luna is a publicly-traded company doing fiber-optic work for companies in a number of end markets.  Meridian is a privately-held software company.  It was great to hear these folks' perspective on working and living in a small city, doing work that people would ordinarily do in Silicon Valley or elsewhere.  They both hammered home the point that a small city's viability is in many ways dependent upon its ability to make sure professionals have opportunities to do cool, interesting and engaging work in a place that they also want to live.

We then spent time with Webb Burns, VP of Strategic Development for Carilion Medical, discussing health care reform and the role that Carilion is playing in the Roanoke Valley through both health and wellness programs but also to spur innovation and entrepreneurship in the health and life sciences communities.

Lunch was at Blue 5, a really cool spot across from City Hall in Roanoke.  We were joined by Wayne Bowers, Director of Economic Development for the City of Roanoke, and Pete Eschelman from the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership (http://www.roanoke.org/).  Wayne is relatively new to Roanoke, but brings a wealth of experience and a great perspective as a former City Manager from several cities in the Southeast.  Pete organizes a number of initiatives aimed at marketing the Roanoke Valley region to companies and potential investors across the U.S., highlighting in particular the outdoors and lifestyle aspects of the region.  Really awesome stuff.

Last, and definitely not least, we did a 90 minute panel discussion with folks from Valley Bank, Virginia Community Capital, and the real estate development community.  In a far-ranging discussion, we dug deep into the way in which investing via both traditional and non-traditional means can have an impact on development of an area like Roanoke.  Arguably one of my favorite discussions of a number of fantastic conversations thus far.

Discussing the importance of community-oriented banking and finance.

That's the quick, albeit verbose, recap.  I'm sure others will chime in with their perspectives thus far.  What I'll say is that I've been so happy with the way in which our group has embraced the communities, and by how excited each member of our team is for the opportunities that exist in this area.  Much more to come, for sure.

DRB

Awesome things you didn't know were invented in the Commonwealth of Virginia

After my last "Awesome things about the United States" post, Dave Ullman observed that more than half of my awesome things were food-related. In this post, only 30% of the awesome things are food-related, which is a testament to the many fabulous things about the Commonwealth of Virginia. That said, today I had a slice of peanut butter pie and it is what happiness tastes like. But, the top 10 things you didn't know were from Virginia are:

1. Camouflage clothing was invented at Virginia Tech (where I sit typing right now) by one James H. Crumley

2. Mountain Dew (hat tip: Tippens Kitchen - for the suggestion and also for being a marvelous Virginian!)

3. Macaroni and cheese. Seriously - by none other than Thomas Jefferson

4. Smithfield ham, sometimes called "Virginia ham" can only be produced in the town of Smithfield

5. In-vitro fertilization: Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, a teaching institution of Eastern Virginia Medical School, was the site of the first successful human in-vitro fertilization

6. State government: the Virginia General Assembly is the oldest legislature in the Western Hemisphere

7. Sydney Ellen Wade: my all-time favourite rom-com character, Wade (Annette Bening) is a lobbyist and, eventually, girlfriend of widowed President Andrew Shepherd. Aaron Sorkin made her a very, very passionate advocate of her home Commonwealth

8. Amazing trip participant, passionate public servant and all-round awesome guy, Brian Chiglinsky 

9. Stellar trip co-leader, mini-van driver, son of Rocky Mount and alumnus of Randolph-Macon College, Dan Bowles

10. Exceptional trip co-leader, native of Louisa, UVA grad and wonderful human being, Hy Martin