Virginia Economic Review

The Commonwealth of Virginia has existed as a business venture since its inception in 1607, when the Virginia Company of London formed a joint-stock company to bring profits to shareholders and establish an English colony in the New World.

Virginia’s higher education system, consistently ranked as one of the best in the country, is well established as an elite talent incubator. But the Commonwealth’s universities, both public and private, also serve as a launching pad for startup companies.

Paul's Fan Company in Buchanan County was founded in 1958 as a small machine shop servicing the coal mining industry. It evolved over the years to focus on improved mine ventilation, producing turnkey industrial ventilation solutions for companies.

Tom Walker is the founder and CEO of DroneUp, a provider of drone delivery and flight services that has operated out of Virginia Beach since its founding in 2016.

With the global threat of terrorism on the rise, Virginia technology security services firms are parlaying security concerns into surging revenue growth overseas. Chantilly-based videoNEXT, which provides security and surveillance management software to U.S.

Timothy D. Sands is the 16th president of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, joining the university in June 2014. VEDP’s President and CEO, Stephen Moret, recently spoke with President Sands about exciting new developments at Virginia Tech.

Greg LeRoy is the founder and executive director of Good Jobs First, a national policy resource center promoting corporate and government accountability in economic development. Good Jobs First provides information on best practices in state and local job subsidies.

Amy Liu is vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings and the Adeline M. and Alfred I. Johnson Chair in Urban and Metropolitan Policy.

The year 2006 marked a turning point for the town of Lebanon, for Russell County, and for the Southwest corner of Virginia: CGI, a Canadian company with a strong presence in tech-heavy Northern Virginia, located its first U.S. onshore delivery center in Lebanon.

How Virginia's Plan to Double its Tech-Talent Pipeline by Aligning Resources at All Levels Hits the Bull's-Eye When it comes to building a comprehensive strategy for increasing talent to meet the technology workforce demands of today and tomorrow, there is a nationwide call by employers for talent with skills that include a particular focus on software development, engineering, machine learning, artificial intelligence, user experience design, and user interface design — all competencies with roots in computer science.

In 1969, an ad agency in Richmond developed one of the most enduring tourism marketing slogans of all time — Virginia is for Lovers. In the decades since, the slogan became legendary; not only because it was catchy, but because it was true.

Peter Beck is CEO, CTO, and founder of Rocket Lab, a private space company with commercial launch sites in New Zealand and Wallops Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

The age of autonomous vehicles has arrived. Autonomous shuttles, cars, farm equipment, mining equipment and trucks, on-highway trucks, and construction equipment will be here soon or are already commercially available.

When Amazon announced Northern Virginia as the location for its new headquarters (HQ2), it revealed more than the winning region. It revealed Virginia’s not-so-secret identity: Technology Talent Juggernaut.

Denbigh High School's Aviation Academy is a Top-Flight Launch Pad for Rising Talent Attitude Equals Altitude That’s the philosophy at Denbigh High School’s Aviation Academy in Newport News in Hampton Roads, a nationally recognized STEM site designed to put no limits on how high students can soar.

With Wing, Google Pioneers Drone Delivery in Virginia On a gravel lot just off of Welcome Street in Christiansburg in Montgomery County, an array of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) recharging pads is flanked by office trailers and shipping containers.

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.

On a bright, early morning in the Mojave Desert in November 2021, test pilot Nils Larson will climb into a 97-foot-long airplane resembling something out of “Star Wars.” The nose, from tip to the single-seat cockpit, will be as long as the rest of the aircraft.