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Keeping workers at home
Will a changing
economy and a proposed university help Southside retain
its best and brightest?
by
John Hale
Virginia Business
March 2005
After
college graduation from William & Mary, Justin Hendrix
found few opportunities to return to Virginia’s
Southside to work. At college, he picked up degrees
in English and philosophy and in 2000 headed for New
York City to a job in public relations with The Economist
magazine.
After growing up near tobacco fields and once-thriving
textile mills in rural Chatham, the Big Apple might
as well have been a foreign country. Hendrix and two
roommates lived in a large apartment in a Hasidic Jewish
community in Brooklyn. Within walking distance was a
mixing bowl of Italian, Russian, Polish and Indian communities.
“It was the first time in my life I was walking
down the street and someone asked me if I spoke English
in America,” Hendrix recalls.
Then his father was diagnosed with cancer. The desire
to be near family during a time of need drew Hendrix
back home. He gave up his New York job, taking at least
a 20 percent pay cut to assume a post with Danville’s
Institute for Advanced Learning and Research as the
manager of training and conference program development.
The institute serves as a catalyst for economic development
by attracting advanced technology and top-notch talent
to Southside Virginia. “For me, I had always intended
to come back this way. … I remember the Danville
of my youth and it was an exciting place. I know it’s
had its economic challenges, but I’m really excited
to be part of it regaining its former glory,”
says Hendrix.
Revamping Southside’s regional economy after huge
job losses in bedrock industries such as textile and
furniture manufacturing remains one of the area’s
greatest challenges. But economic development initiatives
— including some that play on Southside’s
existing strengths such as motorsports — along
with new efforts are helping the area make the transition
to a more diversified economy. The hope is that the
changes will not only create jobs to keep the area’s
next generation of workers at home, but also entice
college-educated people who have left — such as
Hendrix — to return.
The institute, built mostly with funds from the state’s
tobacco commission, is expected to serve as a transition
centerpiece with research shifting the area away from
manufacturing and tobacco into polymer production and
high-value horticulture.
Besides motorsports, which capitalizes on the area’s
strong NASCAR ties, there’s a new nanotechnology
manufacturing facility and and announcements from other
new employers. Yorktowne Cabinetry Inc.of Pennsylvania
plans to invest $19 million, opening its first Virginia
manufacturing plant in the area’s Cane Creek Centre,
a project expected to create 540 new jobs over five
years. There’s also a proposal and $50 million
in challenge funding for a new Southside university.
Unfortunately, low educational achievement is the heritage
of Southside. The percentage of the adult population
in the region with bachelor’s degrees falls well
below 20 percent while the state average for college
graduates hovers near 30 percent. Ronald B. Bunch, Danville’s
economic development director, wants to create a database
with the names and e-mail addresses of high achievers
who leave the area. If he can quantify the people, who
would return to their hometown if they had a reasonable
hope of getting an adequate job, he could use that information
to recruit companies on the higher end of the technology
spectrum. So far, his plan remains in the talking phase.
“Companies typically look at the incumbent labor
pool unless you can quantify and qualify the people
who would come back. I could market that. It’s
about human resources,” says Bunch.
Bunch’s plans could be aided by Martinsville’s
efforts to start a four-year college in a city suffering
through the highest unemployment rate in the state for
most of the past three years. For 2004, the rate was
9.8 percent for the Henry-Patrick-Martinsville area,
not as high as the double digits of some previous years,
but well above Virginia’s overall state unemployment
rate of 3 percent.
In an attempt to change the educational culture of Southside,
a Martinsville-based foundation has raised $50 million
in matching funds and is offering a choice of a building
or a 100-acre tract of land to establish a college.
The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV)
doesn’t seem to be convinced that a new college
is needed. However, it did note in a recent report that
“percentages of working-age adults without a high
school diploma are quite high, up to 47 percent in some
localities, and the levels of college attainment are
correspondingly low — much lower than the rest
of the state.” Still, it recommended that a needs
assessment be done before the proposal could move forward,
particularly since Virginia is already $400 million
behind in funding for state-supported colleges and universities.
Some legislators are already on record as preferring
a collaborative arrangement, similar to the University
of Virginia’s college in Wise in Southwest Virginia,
rather than starting a new college, which could take
years to gain academic accreditation. Yet others, from
both sides of the aisle, are lending support, including
both presumptive gubernatorial candidates, Democrat
Tim Kaine and Republican Jerry Kilgore.
The school is also at the top of Democratic Del. Ward
Armstrong’s agenda. Armstrong, who represents
western Henry County and Patrick County, grew up in
Henry County and has maintained a law practice in Martinsville.
His hometown of Bassett holds the title as the world’s
largest furniture manufacturing community. Before factory
automation and cheap overseas markets decimated U.S.
furniture and textile manufacturers, these industries
employed thousands of town workers “A post-high
school education was never thought of to be necessary,
especially in the factory setting,” Armstrong
says. “You don’t need a degree in applied
physics to work in a textile mill.”
Only two dozen members of Armstrong’s 1974 high
school graduating class of 145 went to college. Yet,
despite the low priority placed on higher education,
Armstrong notes that a large number of prominent Virginia
politicians — Albertis S. Harrison Jr., A.L Philpott,
William M. Tuck and Thomas B. Stanley — were Southside
natives. His daughters attended the area’s local
public schools, and Armstrong said he is satisfied with
the quality of the education. His oldest daughter graduates
from Bassett High School in May and has been accepted
to attend the University of Virginia in the fall.
His hope is that approval for a Southside college, the
completion of U.S. 58 and its connection into I-77,
and the commencement of construction of Interstate 73
as a north-south connector will develop opportunities
for his daughter. “I think for us to make a full
transition, we’re looking at a minimum of 10 years,
more likely a full generation, and that’s if we
stay hard at it.”
Bipartisan support — Republican state Sen. Charles
Hawkins reminds everyone that he has been fighting for
a college for Southside for many years — provides
optimism that The Harvest Foundation’s challenge
to the state to set up New College in Martinsville has
legs. “Whenever you have a situation that each
party is trying to outdo the other to support a project,
that’s usually a pretty good position,”
Armstrong says.
The Harvest Foundation was formed when Memorial Hospital
of Martinsville and Henry County was sold to Province
Healthcare in May 2002. Turning a not-for-profit hospital
into a for-profit institution required a charitable
entity to oversee the money. At the end of 2003, the
foundation had assets of $191.1 million, and it pledged
$50 million of that money to accelerate the establishment
of a university in Southside. Martinsville businessman
George Lester offered the former Tultex factory to house
New College. Also on the table is an offer from Henry
County businessman Bill Adkins for a tract of undeveloped
land between Martinsville and Danville that could be
used for the school.
One traditional business fueling the Southside economy
that has potential for growth is motorsports. Since
1988, the Martinsville Speedway has added 44,500 seats.
The track now accommodates 70,000 with the potential
to reach 100,000 in the next few years. In Halifax County,
Virginia International Raceway Park partnered with the
Institute for Advanced Learning & Research to host
two programs dealing with unmanned systems testing and
performance engineering.
Two area community colleges have created their own ties
to the auto racing industry. Danville Community College
offers an associate’s degree in motorsports management
while Patrick Henry Community College’s program
allows students to design, build and race stock cars.
Top students also have the opportunity to become interns
at Arrington Engines in Martinsville where they build
and test engines used in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck
Racing Series. The Patrick Henry program has attracted
attention from students as far away as New York and
California.
In April 2004, HT Motorsports announced it would relocate
operations from Harrisburg, N.C., and join the Arrington-Patrick
Henry partnership to construct the Virginia Motorsports
Technology Center where the HT Motorsports’ truck
team will be housed. The 75 jobs created pay an average
of $16 an hour, a dramatic increase over the typical
manufacturing wages in Martinsville.
Another feather in the area’s cap was the arrival
of MZM Inc., a Department of Defense contractor that
recently opened an office in Martinsville. MZM will
employ 150 people in the information technology field
for the defense and intelligence communities. Those
employees will earn salaries averaging more than double
the prevailing wage in Martinsville. The company originally
estimated that it would have to hire 80 percent of its
work force from out of the area. But that number has
changed, with 80 percent of the hires expected to come
from the local population. The irony’s that the
local hires weren’t necessarily living in the
area at the time they accepted employment. Like Hendrix,
they want a chance to return to the comforts and benefits
of home after moving away to satisfy their career goals.
“Some of the most talented people I know are from
here. …They are artists. They are writers. They
are architects. …” says Hendrix. “The
tough thing for those people is they want to come home,
but they don’t have the means to. … What
I’m doing here [at the institute] is helping those
people come back home.”
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