News & Features
Virginia Economic Review
Our quarterly publication, Virginia Economic Review, provides an insider look at Virginia’s economy, its diverse array of world-class companies, its amazing talent, and its stunning natural beauty, as well as insights from national thought leaders.
Filter by:
The Backbone of AI
Imagine an apartment building. The lobby entrance, residential door, and parking deck are all accessed and opened via a phone app. The resident takes their laptop to the pool and it automatically connects with Wi-Fi.
'I Can’t Imagine Ever Living Without This'
Artificial Intelligence may seem like a new technology, but CarMax has been using it for years. The Goochland County-based company is the country’s largest seller of used cars.
The Value of Data
Lance Harcrow is chief operating officer at Estes Forwarding Worldwide (EFW), a subsidiary of Estes Express Lines and a leading domestic and international freight forwarder headquartered in Chesterfield County.
Rethinking the Supply Chain From Dock to Door
Dr. Myra Blanco is chief growth officer at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) and CEO of the university’s Dock to Door Coalition, a partnership of nearly 100 organizations across industry, education, and government that works to develop an integrated approach to modern freight transportation by solving critical supply chain issues.
Amazon Invests in Technology and People
Ashleigh de la Torre is vice president of public policy at Amazon, where she leads the company’s transportation and sustainability initiatives, supporting its operations, logistics, and delivery businesses across land, air, and sea.
Amazon Invests in Technology and People
Ashleigh de la Torre is vice president of public policy at Amazon, where she leads the company’s transportation and sustainability initiatives, supporting its operations, logistics, and delivery businesses across land, air, and sea.
Tools of the Trade
When Dutch secondary packaging solutions provider BluePrint Automation decided to open a U.S. location in 1987, the company chose a site in Chesterfield County near Richmond, due in part to the regional talent market and multiple nearby ports that could facilitate importing.
STIHL Inc., Virginia Beach
03.18.2024
A Win-Win Situation
When Ryan Buzzy was a child, his passion was to take radios apart to see how they worked. At 25, he’s not a kid anymore, but his passion for seeing how things work never changed.
03.18.2024
Best Practices for Minimizing the Impact of Federal Visa Roadblocks
Foreign companies looking to invest in Virginia go through the same considerations as their domestic counterparts — site evaluation and selection, workforce availability, and logistical issues, to name a few.
12.08.2023
Nuclear’s Role in the Future of Clean Energy: A Conversation With April Wade
April Wade is executive director of the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium (VNEC), which represents stakeholders invested in research and development, workforce development, innovation, and advocacy for the nuclear energy industry.
12.08.2023
Betting on Energy Innovation: A Conversation With Will Payne
Will Payne is managing partner of economic development firm Coalfield Strategies, the director of InvestSWVA, a public-private partnership aimed at attracting companies to the western portion of Virginia, and an adviser to the Energy DELTA Lab research and development facility in Wise County.
West Piedmont Higher Education Center, Martinsville
Energy DELTA Lab rendering
12.08.2023
A Hub for Energy Research in Southwest Virginia
His hair and mustache grayed, 74-year-old Mike Quillen is no longer flexible enough to regularly walk the mines of Southwest Virginia, where he started a career that saw him build a company that became the sixth-largest coal supplier in the world — although he does plan to be underground for his 75th birthday.
12.08.2023
State of Acceleration
After passage of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) three years ago got the ball rolling toward a cleaner, more productive energy future, the Commonwealth of Virginia’s 2022 Energy Plan has the Commonwealth poised to meet significant needs in the future.
09.26.2023
The Big Q: Industry Titans Drive Interest in Quantum Computing Possibilities
In 1981, computing giant IBM collaborated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Laboratory for Computer Science for a conference, “The Physics of Computation.”
09.26.2023
Quantum’s Technological and Human Future
Dr. Sophia Economou is a professor of physics at Virginia Tech and the director of the university’s Center for Quantum Information Science and Engineering. Her research focuses on theoretical quantum information science, including quantum computing with numerous types of qubits.
09.26.2023
Testing the Potential of Quantum Networking
La Vida Cooper is the communications and navigation line of business manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the deputy program manager for strategic initiatives within the exploration and space communications projects division at Goddard, and the executive director of the Washington Metropolitan Quantum Network Research Consortium (DC-QNet), a joint initiative among six federal agencies and two affiliates to operate a quantum network testbed.
Northern Virginia Community College
09.26.2023
Building Certainty Into Virginia’s Quantum Workforce Pipeline
The quantum age is rapidly approaching. So rapidly, in fact, that any approach to developing a workforce must account for the changes happening at the speed of light as quantum science shifts from theoretical to practical application.



