Global ozone change. New avenues for drug development. Even a good fish tale.
Those are some of the topics being tackled by Virginia’s top scientists and industrialists. They were toasted last night during a gala at Richmond’s Science Museum. About 250 guests came to honor the state’s 2008 award winners.

Yet, it wasn’t a night for weighty speeches. The evening’s best line came from Jack A. Musick, winner of Virginia’s Life Achievement in Science. He told the audience: “My wife says she can’t believe that I get paid to go fishing.” Musick, a professor of marine science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, has won international acclaim as an expert in the ecology and conservation of sharks and sea turtles.

Virginia’s Outstanding Scientist Awards went to James M. Russell III of Hampton University and Sarah Spiegel, chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Medicine.  Russell’s research is being used to understand changes in global ozone while Spiegel stood out for work on a signaling molecule that influences whether a cell lives or dies. 

In business, Virginia’s Life Achievement in Industry went to Charles H. Foster Jr. of Richmond, chairman emeritus of LandAmerica Financial Group Inc.  He is credited for leading a dramatic turnaround for Lawyers Title in the early 1990s and building it into the Fortune 500 that LandAmerica is today. Following a spin off from Universal Corp., a successful public offering on the New York Stock Exchange and corporate acquisitions, Foster transformed Lawyers Title into one of the largest title insurers in the U.S., with LandAmerica earning annual revenue of more than $3.5 billion. 

Virginia’s Outstanding Industrialist is Randal J. Kirk of Pulaski County. Kirk is senior managing director and CEO of Third Security LLC, an investment management firm he founded in 1999. One of his start ups, New River Pharmaceuticals — a company that was on the path to coming out with a new drug for attention deficit disorder — sold for $2 billion last year. The deal made Kirk a billionaire.  He serves as rector of the Board of Visitors for Radford University, where he earned his undergraduate degree.

Stripped of its money-raising powers, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority is turning to YouTube to publicize the region’s traffic woes.

The authority has started a site on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/group/NVTAPOMC, which encourages Northern Virginians to share how daily congestion affects their lives. The site asks commuters to tape struggles endured during their daily commutes, including traffic jams, crowded buses and packed parking lots at Metro stations.

It also suggests including interviews of friends and family describing how traffic affects their families and quality of life.

The group also is asking commuters to remain safe — telling commuters to avoid videotaping while driving and to not use a tripod in a Metro station. (It’s illegal).

The site asks commuters to share their stories by May 15, hoping to use it to boost their case for more transportation funding before the General Assembly meets this spring. 

Under the 2007 transportation plan, the authority would have been able to raise about $300 million a year for regional projects. The Virginia Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional for an unelected authority to impose taxes.

Steve Case has returned to his roots. He’s building again, pushing for innovation in stodgy industries much as he transformed Internet communications in his earlier life as co-founder and chief executive of America Online.  Joining Case in a couple of ventures is longtime friend and former AOL colleague, Ted Leonsis.

Talk about yin and yang.  I sat down with Case and Leonsis yesterday at the Washington, D. C. office of Revolution LLC, the private investment firm Case started in 2005. Ted is gregarious, impeccably groomed in a dark suit and all smiles because his dark horse NHL hockey team, the Washington Capitals, won the Southeast Division and will play in the Stanley Cup playoffs. He quips that Case once sent his annual review via instant message.  “He said, ‘You’re doing a good job. You can stay another year.’”

In title, Leonsis remains vice chairman, emeritus, of AOL.
Yet, his time there is winding down, seven years after AOL merged with Time Warner, an old-line media company, in a move that was ill-timed and later deemed a business bust. 

Five years have elapsed since Case served as chairman of Time Warner, and he has moved on.  At 49, he looks relaxed in a blue shirt, dark slacks, no tie. He is the more low key and introspective of the two. But there’s nothing low key about his goals: to create new platforms for consumer empowerment in such oligopolistic industries as health care and credit cards. “I thought it would be fun to start over again, back in the garage, if you will,” says Case. To learn more about their new business ventures and why these Northern Virginia residents think NOVA is a good place for startups, check out the June issue. 

The U.S. markets may be in one of the worst financial crisis since the World War era, but the current situation is nothing like the Great Depression, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday.

“We will not experience anything remotely like that,” Bernanke told a sold-out audience at a World Affairs Council of Greater Richmond luncheon at the University of Richmond.

During the 1930s the Fed “took a passive approach,” Bernanke said. “We now know the lessons of that, which is to not allow the financial system to collapse.”

The Federal Reserve certainly has taken a different approach in the current turmoil, cutting the federal funds rate faster than at any time in the last two decades. The Federal Reserve dropped the federal loan rate between banks to 2.25 percent, down from 5.25 percent in September.

And the Fed could receive unprecedented power under a plan the Bush administration proposed last week.

The Fed would oversee the entire makeup of the U.S. financial system, including supervising commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies and hedge funds.

On Thursday, Bernanke addressed more immediate solutions than the ones proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Bernanke said policymakers and regulators must begin working now to prevent another financial crisis. “We do not have the luxury of waiting for markets to stabilize,” he said.

Bernanke suggested that federal and state regulators should create stricter regulations on mortgage lenders and that states should adhere to a uniform licensing program.

He also suggested that increasing transparency, improving risk management, and better coordination of regulators is necessary to stabilize markets.

It looks as if state lawmakers will return to Richmond in May or June to discuss ways to raise new money for transportation.

But arguments likely will reflect the same divisions as the 246-day special session held in 2006. Taxes versus no taxes. Regional versus statewide solutions.

Reports show neither side is budging. Republicans believe redesigning regional plans for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads is the way to go. (The Virginia Supreme Court found the 2007 version unconstitutional.) Democrats think that shifts the state’s job to local governments.

Some Democrats still are pushing for a statewide increase in the gasoline tax — a move vehemently opposed by Republicans.

So, unless someone budges, Virginians in the state’s most congested regions will have little relief.

But if legislators aren’t willing to compromise, maybe they should just stay home. Taxpayers spent $250,000 on a special session that went nowhere in 2006. They can probably think of better ways to spend their money.