If two minds are better than one, then leaders from 15 businesses should be a formidable group.

Companies in the Tidewater and Richmond regions have formed the Virginia Business Excellence Consortium – Southeast to share best practices and promote economic growth in the commonwealth.

The group, which includes companies such as Ukrop’s, Capital One and Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding – Newport News, formed to help businesses improve their own processes, operations and employee skills through the advice of their peers.

The idea came from a recent survey commissioned by Virginia’s Philpott Manufacturing Extension Partnership and conducted by Chmura Economics & Analytics. It revealed that many Virginia manufacturers said they could not meet some of their most vital needs, such as business growth and quality management systems, through traditional measures.

The group has 15 founding companies and is self-governed and self-funded. It is open to companies of any size and in any industry. The group expects other consortia to be formed in other regions of Virginia.

It doesn’t have to be lonely at the top.  The Venture Forum of Richmond hopes to roll out a mentoring network next month that would link entrepreneurial CEOs with seasoned executives who have already taken a business from startup to financial success.

The concept of the proposed program is simple, says Chuck McCabe, president and CEO of Peoples Income Tax, Inc. and a member of the forum’s Entrepreneur Advisory Committee. “If you need advice on how to get to the next level, the best person to give that advice is another CEO.”

The forum wants to make it easy for members to find a match. So far, the network is being designed with mid-level CEOs in mind.  For instance, they would need to meet several requirements: be in business for at least a year (and the business couldn’t strictly be a sole proprietor “lifestyle” business), have minimum annual revenue of $100,000, employ at least one other person and be committed to growth by hiring other employees. 

Mentors would be drawn from Central Virginia and would not have to be forum members. They would be asked to provide up to two hours a month of free consultation to a member CEO at no charge. In return, the mentoring CEO could receive up to 2 hours of free counseling from a CEO whose business has already achieved the next highest level in terms of revenues and employees.

Just goes to show that talk can be cheap and valuable. 

Virginia residents have a new, free source for health care information. Today marks the public launch of the Virginia Health Information Project at http://www.vahealth.info. Two years in the making, the Web site is designed to be a one-stop source for reliable, unbiased information.

“More people are turning to the Web for health information but may get overwhelmed if they google something,” says Jeanna Beker, director of The Soho Center, a nonprofit based in Madison County that sponsors the site. “We’ve tried to consider the needs of the broad public to make it easy for people of all ages to get good information.”

So what can you find at the site? A little bit of everything.  Daily updates on health news. A health library. Parents can learn about childhood immunizations while seniors can check out prescription drug plans. The site also provides links and information on 14,000 health-related hotlines, many in English and Spanish.

The site’s initial funding of $51,000 came from the state attorney general’s office as part of a nationwide antitrust suit against distributors of the George Foreman grill.  Salton Inc. agreed to pay $8 million to settle charges of pressuring stores into charging artificially high prices for the grill and to removing competitors’ grills from the shelves. The settlement directed states to use their share of the money to help charities or government agencies improve health care and nutrition. 

Virginia Commonwealth University’s nationally ranked Adcenter has changed its name to the Brandcenter. The new name, say university officials, more accurately reflects the graduate program’s mission to reshape advertising and branding education. Started in 1996, the program has garnered high rankings — No. 1 in the country by Creativity magazine in 2005 and one of the world’s 60 best Design Schools by BusinessWeek in 2007.

The name change is timely with the program’s move into new digs. It’s now located in a Clive-Wilkinson-designed building on VCU’s new Monroe Park addition campus, which opened yesterday. The campus is also home to new buildings housing VCU’s business and engineering programs. For more information about the program, see our online interview with the program’s Executive Director, Rick Boyko, which ran in the November issue.

If India is the new China — in the sense of great economic potential — than Virginia just raised its visibility in the country by hiring a professional marketer.

The Virginia Port Authority (VPA) has signed a short-term, $45,000 contract with England-based PL Shipping & Logistics Ltd. to promote the shipping of Indian cargo through the Hampton Roads port. PL Shipping has 12 offices covering India’s major ports and inland hubs. 

The idea is to bump up an already growing share of trade between India and Virginia.  Since 1994, the average annual growth in trade between the two countries has been 17 percent. In 2006, India ranked No. 6 in total container volume at Virginia’s port, shipping everything from tools to textiles and electronics to U. S. markets.

“If you look at a lot of the cargo forecasts and what the experts say, India is going to be a rival to China. It’s already been a strong player in this port and other ports as well, and we want to be able to capture more cargo and have a presence there,” says Joe Harris, VPA’s media relations manager. The authority will review the contract at year-end and, if all goes well, may renew it.

For more information, see our September cover story.