Virginia Economic Review

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.

Brent Ward likes challenging projects. As a co-founder of design firm Riggs Ward, his job is to help bring stories to life, through displays of artifacts, graphics, soundscapes, and interactive digital media.

For more than 300 years, Virginia’s universities have helped produce generations of political leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, and business executives who shaped the economy in the Commonwealth and beyond.

Alexandria is known for Old Town’s historic shops and homes that are as inviting as they are immaculately preserved.

Virginia has a long history as a site where revolutions can take root. In recent decades, that revolutionary spirit has attracted entrepreneurs and startups who see Virginia as a place where new ideas grow into powerful energy disruptors.

It’s not exaggerating to say that Virginia has been part of the internet since day one. The Commonwealth’s proximity to the federal government in Washington, D.C., makes it a natural place to deploy new technology. In Northern Virginia, network connectivity traces its roots to the U.S.

In the months leading up to July 1776, the Second Continental Congress entrusted a Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, to draft the formal document declaring the colonies’ independence from Great Britain. The 13 British colonies in mainland North America had disparate interests and cultures.

Christy Coleman is the executive director of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, an educational Virginia state agency that offers programs and resources about early American history through its living history museums, Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown.

Food and beverage and pharmaceutical companies rely on Virginia’s cold chain infrastructure to succeed.

While most waterproofing products do their job entirely on the outside of a surface, Alchemco, Inc.’s products work from the inside out. The company has used VEDP’s International Trade services to pursue a similar inside-out path for its growth.

Joe Dunlap is the founder of BlueJ Advisors, a supply chain consulting firm for owners, operators, and investors. Previously, he spent nearly a decade at CBRE, where he oversaw the company’s supply chain practice, and has decades of supply chain experience with Accenture, FORTNA, Dematic, and UPS.

Stephen Edwards has served as the CEO and executive director of The Port of Virginia since 2021.

It’s not the first time Washington Dulles International Airport, having served record numbers of passengers the past two years, has eyed an expansion of its operations, infrastructure, and ultimately, air cargo volume. But this time, circumstances are different.

Sam Northington doesn’t want any military veteran to struggle like his dad did. After 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, his father retired as a master sergeant and went back to college to get his teaching credentials. “That didn’t really fit him. He never really taught,” Northington recalled.

When President Donald Trump announced in June he would “unleash drone dominance,” it’s no surprise that the Commonwealth looked to NASA and its 108-year-old Langley Research Center in Hampton for guidance.

If you imagine timelines as train tracks and key events as moments when tracks converge, this is a pivotal time for rail in Virginia.

Virginia’s transportation network faces congestion issues that come with population growth, and air travel is no exception.