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Team Virginia: Springfield Best Home for FBI HQ

Virginia’s political and community leaders made their case Wednesday for moving the FBI’s headquarters from the nation’s capital to Springfield in Fairfax County, stating that the federal government would be wise to follow the steps of Amazon and other big companies that have come to the commonwealth, the Washington Post reported. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, and nearly every other political leader from Northern Virginia — including Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeffrey C. McKay and Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk — held a press conference in Springfield, one of three sites under consideration to replace the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C.

“I want to restate the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors’ unequivocal support for Springfield as the choice location for the FBI headquarters,” said Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeffrey C. McKay. “Our universal backing is based on multiple factors, all of which lead us to definitively state that the Springfield site is head and shoulders above the competition and makes the most sense for residents, taxpayers and FBI employees alike. The extraordinary economic opportunity that this investment would bring to the historically underserved, majority-minority community of Greater Springfield cannot be overstated.”

Officials at the event presented a united case for what Gov. Youngkin declared was “a rock-solid case” for the FBI to move its headquarters here on land the government already owns, Richmond.com noted. Virginia leaders stressed that the federal government would be wise to follow the steps of Amazon and other large employers that have come to the commonwealth, ABC News reported. Speakers also said that the Greater Springfield area of Fairfax County has a majority-minority population and that the region as a whole has a large international community and can respond to the diverse talent needs of the FBI. Sen. Warner said it would behoove the FBI to come to northern Virginia to take advantage of its internationally diverse workforce, according to ABC7 News.

Click here to read more. And see more coverage of the news conference on AP News, coStar, FFXnow, FOX5, Government Executive, InsideNoVa, Patch, Roll Call, Washington Business Journal, Washington Times, WUSA9.

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Unite, Uplift & Celebrate: a Fairfax County Black History Month Celebration

To celebrate Black History Month, the Fairfax County Black History Program Committee, in partnership with Cox Communications, presents an evening celebration of Black history in Fairfax County. This family-friendly event is free and open to the public and will take place on February 17, 2023, at the Fairfax County Government Center. Refreshments and resources tables will be available at 5:30 p.m., and the program begins at 6:30 p.m.

Speakers include Karla Bruce, Chief Equity Officer, Fairfax County; Lynnette Clark, Director, Field Operations, Cox; Sheila Dixon, Executive Director, Northern Virginia Black Chamber of Commerce; Bryan Hill, Fairfax County Executive; Victor Hoskins, President and CEO, Fairfax County Economic Development Authority; Rodney L. Lusk, Franconia District Supervisor, Fairfax County; Jeff McKay, Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

Click here for more information.

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Weekly Business News Digest

Rest in Peace: Ted Lerner, 97, a titan of real estate in Greater Washington who later became the principal owner of the Washington Nationals, died Sunday, February 12.

“Ted Lerner was one of the early visionaries of what we now know as the Tysons of today,” said Victor Hoskins, president and CEO of Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. “When Tysons was still an apple orchard, he understood the potential for population growth and the demand for retail that would follow,” he continued. “He predicted the emergence and value of enclosed malls which were a new concept at the time and helped transform Tysons into a predominant retail cluster in the Mid-Atlantic region.”

Lerner founded his real estate business in 1952, starting it with a $250 loan from his wife, Annette, and grew it to one of the largest and most diversified private developers in the country. Mr. Lerner is credited with the creation of Tysons Corner, now simply called Tysons, with the opening of Tysons Corner Center, one of the country’s first large-scale malls, in 1962. Other developments that bear the Lerner imprint include Tysons II, White Flint, Dulles Town Center, Wheaton Plaza, Landover Mall and developments around Nationals Park. His work has resulted in Beaumeade Corporate Park in Loudoun County, 2000 Tower Oaks Blvd. in Rockville, 400 Army Navy Drive in Arlington and the 12-story Washington Square commercial and retail complex in D.C. Washington Business Journal has more on Mr. Lerner’s life and legacy.

Space Operations Center: Centreville-based Parsons Corporation established the Parsons Space Operations Center (PSOC) to address the demand for a commercial approach to spacecraft operations and ground control, that maximizes affordability while delivering high-quality and responsive solutions, according to Intelligence Community News. The PSOC serves as an integrated facility that unifies spacecraft operations for multiple government and commercial programs, creating efficiency and the sharing of knowledge, which translates to cost, schedule, and resource optimization. “PSOC is providing operational support to government and commercial systems, with the ability to support classified and unclassified operations with a mixture of on-premises, cloud, and hybrid ground architectures,” said Paul Decker, president, Defense and Intelligence sector for Parsons.

Newfound potential: Fairfax County leaders have high hopes for the Springfield area’s future following a study highlighting the potential for mixed-use growth and development, InsideNoVa reported. Unlike other studies, this report also included an implementation plan. Victor Hoskins, president and CEO of Fairfax County’s Economic Development Authority, said they needed direction to move development forward. “They not only identified the demand, they identified ways of pursuing the demand, which is really important,” Hoskins said. He also said the authority considers the area a turnaround environment due to the newfound potential. “The Economic Development Authority obviously was involved in the TSA headquarters, which is not very far away from here, and there is a potential for other tenants like that that can come into the area,” he said.

Construction milestone: Slated to open in Fall 2024, Virginia Tech marked milestone, raises final beam on Innovation Campus building. The Virginia Tech Innovation Campus is in many ways the crown jewel of the state’s $1 billion Tech Talent Investment Program, an ambitious effort by Virginia officials to produce an additional 25,000 computer science graduates at schools in the commonwealth over two decades, according to the Washington Post. And the university is hoping its graduates are more diverse than computer science engineers have traditionally been: Through partnerships with K-12 schools and other efforts, it hopes to attract more women and underrepresented minorities, said Lance Collins, executive director of the Innovation Campus.

Open for business: Cadien Cyber Response, an incident response and complex digital forensics firm, formally launched operations in Tysons on February 6. “Our entire team shares a singular belief — that resolving an incident or digital problem requires flawless execution, incredible confidence, and superior responsiveness,” said engineer-turned-entrepreneur Jason Ingalls, president and chairman of the board. “We stand ready on day one to deliver the level of quality and support decision-makers and their advisors need and deserve to adequately resolve consequential problems in the most timely and effective manner.” CyberWire picked up the release.

Empowering communities across the Asia-Pacific region: Singapore-based Kacific Broadband Satellites Group (Kacific) and Herndon-based ST Engineering iDirect have reaffirmed their long-term technology partnership through deep cooperation on the ground systems infrastructure for Kacific’s fleet of satellites, reported Satellite News. “We are proud to extend our technology partnership with Kacific and enable them to deliver the next generation of broadband satellite connectivity that will continue to empower communities across the Asia-Pacific region,” said John Arnold, Regional Vice President, ST Engineering iDirect.

New levels of flight tracking visibility: Tysons-based Aireon, a provider of space-based automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast services, announced an agreement with Arlington, Va.-headquartered Boeing to provide space-based data to support Boeing’s flight tracking solution, Aerotech News reported. This new collaboration broadens the relationship between Boeing and Aireon. Since 2022, Boeing has integrated Aireon ADS-B data into its Safety Management System analytics tools. “Bringing together two market-leading solutions with Aireon ADS-B data and Boeing’s Fleet Insight enables new levels of flight tracking visibility for operators,” said Don Thoma, Aireon CEO.

Placing resources where most needed: Reston-based Applied Insight said its cloud-focused training center, aiAcademy, will oversee the initiative along with its talent acquisition team and work with AWS, which bases its east coast headquarters in Herndon, to conduct a series of programs to train and certify personnel to help meet national security customers’ cloud migration and optimization requirements, according to ExecutiveBiz. “Our goal is to increase the number of certified cloud professionals who have the appropriate clearances and skills to support National Security missions. This initiative with AWS will accelerate our ability to train and place these resources where they are most needed,” said Eric Beane, chief solutions officer at Applied Insight.

Airborne gateway technology test collaboration: Falls Church area-based Northrop Grumman partnered with the U.S. Navy and BAE Systems, which bases its North American headquarters in the Falls Church area, to test its airborne gateway technology aboard an unmanned aerial system to provide interoperability among disconnected maritime assets, ExecutiveBiz reported. “This demonstration highlighted gateway technology enhancements to Triton that would enable information dominance across distributed maritime assets; including access to the F-35’s robust sensor suite and the E-2D’s battle management capabilities,” said Jane Bishop, vice president and general manager of global surveillance at Northrop.

Breaking new imagery ground: Colorado-based Maxar Technologies, which has locations in Fairfax County, and Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Umbra have partnered to create a new multisource geospatial intelligence offering for both public and private sector use, ExecutiveBiz reported. To develop the integrated product, Umbra will provide dedicated capacity from satellites in its synthetic aperture radar imagery constellation to Maxar’s portfolio of earth intelligence products and services. “Maxar and Umbra are breaking new ground for the geospatial intelligence industry with this multisource offering. Though optical and SAR imagery are highly complementary, collection management across these sources has historically been siloed,” said Dan Jablonsky, president and CEO of Maxar.

New international destination: Canada’s second-largest airline is launching service at Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), with flights directly to Calgary starting this summer, reported Washington Business Journal. WestJet Airlines will officially start its nonstop service between Dulles and Calgary International Airport in western Canada’s Alberta province on June 2. Calgary will become the 60th international destination from IAD, and WestJet will be the airport’s 40th carrier.

Yeah, you can do this, too: The Super Bowl flyover featured Naomi Ngalle, a Navy aviator who grew up in Fairfax County in Springfield, according to Northern Virginia magazine. U.S. Navy Lt.  Ngalle told ABC7 that when she received the phone call asking her to be part of the all-female team making history at Super Bowl, she was ecstatic and jumped at the chance. “There is no higher honor or opportunity to represent and shout out to the little girls at home that ‘Yeah, you can do this, too,’” Lt. Ngalle said.

Hungry yet? McLean-based entrepreneur Myles Powell has grown his line of frozen, “clean” mac and cheese — 8 Myles Mac N’ Cheese — from a handful of stores to more than 1,200 retail locations, including retailers like Whole Foods, Sprouts Farmers Market, Balducci’s, and Target. Powell has raised more than $650,000 to date through angel investors, venture capital investors, and from small investors. WTOP has more.

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Contract Wins

Valiant (Herndon) will continue to help the Defense Logistics Agency distribute food products to U.S. troops worldwide under a $530 million follow-on contract. GovConWire

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February 21 — Transitioning Military, Military Spouse, and Veterans (TMMSV) Community Inaugural Meeting. Established under the umbrella of the Northern Virginia Regional Commission’s (NVRC) Community, Military, and Federal Facility Partnership, and in collaboration with the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, the community alliance aims to connect veterans and military families to our companies across Northern Virginia eager to fill their 100,000+ jobs with this highly skilled, disciplined, motivated, and cleared groups of U.S. patriots. During this inaugural meeting, you’ll hear from the Virginia Department of Veteran Services directly on the benefits of becoming a certified Virginia Values Veterans (V3) company and/or leveraging your certification. You will learn how to become a Virginia SkillBridge-certified company. We’ll provide an overview of the Taskforce members and career networking & hiring events scheduled across our Northern Virginia Military installation with opportunities for our Northern Virginia V3 companies to participate. This meeting will be held in-person and virtually. Click here for more information and to register.

March 7 — Entrepreneurship 101: Starting A Business in Fairfax County. Join our panel of small business experts for an interactive webinar on how to start your business. We will provide you with informative step-by-step information sessions that will cover registering your business, permitting requirements, business feasibility and business plan basics, business certifications, financing options and government resources. In addition, the Entrepreneur Spotlight will feature Omi Bell, Founder of Black Girl Ventures. Click here for more information and to register.

March 31 — Fairfax County Green Business Partners Forum. Smart City Works, in partnership with Fairfax County Green Business Partners, the Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination, and the Fairfax County Department of Economic Initiatives on the Green Business Partners Forum. The goal of this Forum is to inform and inspire local business leaders interested in sustainability and to share to learn from businesses already on their sustainable journey. Click here for more information and to register.