This week in economic development news in Southwest Virginia and beyond: Fiber broadband is coming to Vinton and portions of Roanoke and Salem. The project has a $3.4 million price tag and will provide an advantage to nearly 650 commercial properties in Vinton. For more information, see The Roanoke Times’ full story, “Officials propose to…
Meet the OED: Doris Waddell
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Position: Program Support Technician How long have you worked at the OED? 12 years Before the OED, I was: at Virginia Tech, University Development, Capital Where are you from? Christiansburg, VA What’s your favorite memory from the office? It would have to be when John was promoted to Director, and working with John, whom I greatly admire.…
Meet the OED: Adam Mawyer
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In the first of our Meet the Office of Economic Development series, we sat down with grad student Adam Mawyer to get his thoughts on economic development, time travel, and the one food he’d be happy to eat for the rest of his life.
OED Weekly Roundup: Week of March 21, 2016
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This week in economic development news in Southwest Virginia and beyond: Virginia Tech and Carilion are looking to further strengthen their relationship and their international reputation by creating a medical hub in Roanoke and continuing to invest in medical science research at Tech as a whole. The goal is to elevate Tech’s focus in medical…
OED Weekly Roundup: Week of March 14, 2016
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This week in economic development news in Southwest Virginia and beyond: In especially exciting news out of Botetourt County, around $246.5 million and over 500 new jobs are coming to the Roanoke region by 2021, thanks to the Greenfield industrial park’s newest acquisition: Eldor Corp. The company produces auto parts globally, and its plans for…
OED connects stakeholders with VT’s food research resources on campus
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Timothy Long, director of the Macromolecules and Interfaces Institute (MII), posed a question to the group of economic developers eating lunch before him last Friday: what is a package? Turns out, there’s no simple answer. The group found it could be a gift, a protector, a container for selling products, or a control delivery system. It…
OED Weekly Roundup: Week of March 7, 2016
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This week in economic development news in Southwest Virginia and beyond: In an effort to help local entrepreneurs, Virginia Tech’s Catalyst Program landed almost $500,000 in funding from a U.S. Department of Commerce grant. The money will go toward supporting entrepreneur’s from idea to market, focusing in on three specific areas: seeking promising technologies, minimizing…
OED Weekly Roundup: Week of Feb. 29, 2016
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This week in economic development news in Southwest Virginia and beyond: On Monday, Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced the town of Boones Mill, Virginia would be receiving $600,000 from the state Industrial Revitalization Fund. The money will go toward converting a vacant property into an industrial park – a project Town Manager Matt Lawless was thrilled…
From the Writer’s Desk: My first few weeks at the OED
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Musings from the VT Office of Economic Development’s newest staffer and sole technical writer Coming into the Office of Economic Development as a technical writer with no background in economic development means I have had a bit of learning to do since starting on Feb. 12. The biggest challenge so far has simply been…
OED Weekly Roundup: Week of Feb. 22, 2016
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This week in economic development news in Southwest Virginia and beyond: NuSpark, a free office space for entrepreneurs and startups located in the North End building in Blacksburg, closed its doors after two years of operation and several successful company launches. The space, funded by the Virginia Tech Foundation, is set to be repurposed, but…