Virginia Economic Review

Backed by monumental funding deals, a peaking business profile, and a strong entrepreneurial undercurrent, Virginia is building an accessible, collaborative, and truly thriving innovation ecosystem far and wide across the Commonwealth.

John Newby is CEO of Virginia Bio, the nonprofit statewide trade association that serves and promotes the life sciences industry in the Commonwealth.

Tom Barkin is the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Barkin joined the Richmond Fed in January 2018. In his time in Richmond, Barkin has taken an interest in the issues leading to a divide between urban and rural areas in the Fed’s Fifth District.

Luiz DaSilva is executive director of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) and Bradley Professor in Cybersecurity at Virginia Tech. Before coming to Virginia, he served as the director of CONNECT, a telecommunications research center at Trinity College Dublin.

Virginia's Surging Craft Beverage Industry Virginia's first brush with alcoholic beverage production came in 1620, when English settler George Thorpe distilled the first batch of corn whiskey in what would become the United States at the Jamestown settlement near Williamsburg.

Dale Nash is CEO and executive director of Virginia Space, the owner and operator of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), at Wallops Island on Virginia's Eastern Shore.