Virginia Economic Review

Advantageously positioned between Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Greater Fredericksburg is a growing hub for aerospace, defense, advanced technology, and national security innovation.

A Conversation With Greg Simer

Next-generation defense tech companies are accumulating investment and making moves across Virginia

National Innovation Quarter connects people and speeds deployment of emerging technology

Federal partners, NASA facilities, and top-notch workforce attract commercial space companies to Virginia

A Conversation With Greg Campbell and Scott Denny

Central Virginia, a dynamic region anchored by the city of Charlottesville and its surrounding counties, provides outstanding access to Washington, D.C., and other major East Coast population centers.

In a time of increasing geopolitical conflicts, a robust aerospace and defense industry is increasingly important, and Virginia is at the forefront of American innovation in these fields.

For international defense contractors looking to establish or expand their business in the U.S., there’s an initial pressing question: where to locate the company’s American headquarters?

Why do defense companies choose Virginia to be their home base? Why do they grow and expand into the Commonwealth? And why do they stay despite constant courting from the other 49 states? Let’s start with the obvious reason.

Within the Hypersonics Research Complex at the University of Virginia (UVA), 17 faculty members from four departments test propulsion and materials concepts and help advance hypersonic flight technology.

Virginia has long been known as a leader in air transport technology from its work testing and deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The Commonwealth is working to integrate other promising technology into its skies to enhance transportation of people and crucial goods.

The U.S. Navy’s Submarine Industrial Base (SIB) Program Office has been tasked with working toward delivery of one Columbia-class submarine and two Virginia-class submarines each year.

It all started 18 years ago with three military veterans sitting around a modest dining room table in Williamsburg, trying to figure out what to do next. Each one had extensive military experience, a dream, and not much more. So, they started to sketch those dreams on their paper napkins.

Business is booming in the U.S. aerospace and defense industry, which generated economic output of $500 billion in 2025, according to Aerospace Industries Association data.

Langley Research Center in Hampton is the oldest of NASA’s field centers. Comprising nearly 200 facilities, it employs nearly 3,400 civil servants and contractors, and its researchers have been responsible for major advances in aeronautics and space flight.

BWX Technologies, Inc., started out as a boiler manufacturer.

Since Drake Extrusion opened a plant in Southern Virginia to make polypropylene fibers and yarns 31 years ago, the company weathered the collapse of the region’s traditional industry and global downturns and never laid off a worker.