I hope you enjoy my latest column, a collection of weekly short news updates and future events to look out for, and arriving to your inbox as part of our NRV newsletter on Mondays.
As your New River Valley reporter, I primarily cover Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Montgomery County and Radford, but aim to expand my reach throughout the rest of a bustling valley.
I aim to inform and meet people where they are at, but the valley is vast. So if you have thoughts on a developing story or ideas on how I can get to know your community better, you can reach me at erick@cardinalnews.org.
Two candidates to run for Blacksburg Town Council vacancies
Councilman Joel Goodhart and newcomer Leslie Harwood are running for the two Blacksburg council seats set for a special election in November.
The candidates will run to fill the unexpired council terms of Michael Sutphin, who was elected mayor last December, and former Councilman Liam Watson, who resigned after being found guilty of election fraud. Both terms will end in December 2027.
“That’s key that we get that right, someone who’s gonna say yes to more housing and more housing types is really important to me,” said Goodhart, who was appointed as an interim council member in January. Access to public transportation is also a main issue he wants to address, saying “we should focus on how do we move people more efficiently, not just getting people to drive everywhere.”
For Harwood, running to increase transparency between town council and their constituents is her main priority.
“One thing people were telling me is that they felt that decisions were being made behind closed doors and that they didn’t understand why things were done,” she said. “The truth behind transparency is that it has to be very open not only after decisions are made, but throughout the process by showing people openly how the decisions are made.”
Harwood and Goodhart are the only two candidates in the race for the two seats as of last week, according to the Montgomery County registrar’s office.
Andrew Kassoff, who was appointed to fill one of the two vacated council seats, said he will not run in the special election due to unforeseen family obligations.
The candidate filing deadline is Aug. 14. The general election is Nov. 3, with early voting starting Sept. 18 and ending on Oct. 31.
Giles County gets almost $4 million to address contamination
Giles County will receive $3.7 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to revitalize a contaminated property that sits on the New River and near the Appalachian Trail.
Ninth District U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, announced the news last month, voicing his support for the Brownfields and Land revitalization program, a federal initiative that provides funding and resources towards the reuse of brownfields — properties that struggled to be reused because of the presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or containment, according to the EPA.
“Redevelopment of brownfield sites in Virginia’s Ninth District are promising projects that account for economic growth potential,” said Griffith in a news release.
The 33-acre brownfield site in Giles was owned by the former Leas & McVitty/New River Tannery, which was first established in the Pearisburg/ Bluff City area in 1894, according to County Administrator Chris McKlarney. The site provided leather hides for many local and national manufacturing companies and, during World War II, all of the leather produced at the Tannery went directly into military use to make millions of pairs of shoes and boots for armed forces personnel.
“Obviously, we are extremely excited at this great opportunity to reclaim a property that has been vacant and unusable for more than 65 years,” said McKlarney.
The tannery was phased out by the 1960s, and in 1972 wooden structures were purposely burned as part of demolitions efforts, McKlarney said. “The site was first considered for redevelopment by the Industrial Development Authority in 1992, but the cost of the cleanup was not feasible.”
Two Virginia Tech grads to lead growing Christiansburg company
A pair of Hokies will lead the growing IV Labs, a Christiansburg-based specialty chemistry company serving manufacturers and laboratories worldwide.
Justin Yalung was recently appointed as chief executive officer. And Brian Alexander was named the company’s president. Both men have been with the company for some time.
IV Labs is the parent company of Inorganic Ventures and PURE Laboratories. Together, the companies offer more than 2,000 stock elemental mixtures and compounds and more than 60,000 unique custom formulations, according to a company news release.
The products are used for production applications, research, testing and calibration across sectors including pharmaceuticals, energy, environmental safety, mining, industrial manufacturing and food and beverage.
“At IV Labs, we consider ourselves the quiet force for manufacturers across industries to deliver consistent, high-quality products with confidence,” said Yalung in the release. “Since joining IV Labs, I’ve been amazed at how our work can have such a far-reaching impact on people’s everyday lives.”
Yalung succeeds Christopher Gaines, who becomes the company’s board chairman. Erik Miller, chief strategy officer, and founder of PURE, moves to vice chair, according to the release.
“IV Labs is at an inflection point — the team, the technology, the timing — it’s all aligned. I’m stepping into this board role knowing that what comes next is going to turn heads, and I couldn’t be more excited to watch it unfold,” Gaines said in the release.
Yalung is the first company leader outside of the founders’ families. Before joining IV Labs, Yalung served as corporate controller for TechLab, Inc. in Blacksburg and held senior finance roles at bioMérieux, IBM’s mergers and acquisitions team in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, and GE Energy in Atlanta. A Virginia Beach native, he earned a finance degree from Virginia Tech and completed Oxford’s Executive Leadership Programme, according to the release.
Alexander, a geochemist, earned a bachelor’s degree in geosciences and an MBA from Virginia Tech, a master’s in geosciences from Penn State University and a Ph.D. from Constructor University in Bremen, Germany (then Jacobs University Bremen), according to the release.
IV Labs, located in the Falling Branch Corporate Park in Christiansburg and Montgomery County, was recruited to the New River Valley from New Jersey in 2009 and has grown from six relocated employees to more than 100 team members across Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
