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A 10-year evaluation of Virginia’s Gateway Region has found that the economic development group is among the best in the nation.

Sustained Impact of Boston, Massachusetts, an independent evaluator fully funded by the Cameron Foundation recently completed the study. The in-depth study was conducted to thoroughly examine the VGR’s practices and procedures and construct a benchmark of the organization’s effects on economic development compared to other economic development groups across the nation.

The study stated that the VGR had “undergone dramatic transformation over the past decade” effectively becoming a global outreach vehicle for the region. The International Economic Development Council, the largest global non-profit membership organization of its kind based out of Washington, D.C., has developed the most widely accepted standard of best practice guidelines for the industry. The Sustained Impact study determined that the VGR has utilized many of these practices.

Governor Terry McAuliffe announced Monday that, through the New Economy Workforce Credentials Grant program, Virginia’s Community Colleges provided workforce training that enabled 2,173 Virginians to secure industry-recognized credentials, licenses, and certifications needed for high-demand careers, in the first year of the grant program. Governor McAuliffe awarded the 2,172nd and 2,173rd credentials at an event commemorating this achievement this afternoon.

This milestone nearly triples the number of people who were credentialed last year, bringing the total to 4,268 Virginians. More than half of the credential earners, 2,173, took advantage of the New Economy Workforce Credentials Grant program. Training for the remaining 2,095 credentials was funded by employers, federal grants, or other private sources.

Fort Lee will be hosting a series of events today and tomorrow to celebrate its birth 100 years ago.

The majority of events will occur on Monday, including a Centennial Celebration at 11 a.m. at Williams Stadium. The event, which is free and open to the public, will feature the Black Daggers parachute demonstration team, Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps and the final mile of a 100-mile run through local communities.

But while the celebration is now, the history of Fort Lee stretches back a century. In 1917, in order to prepare soldiers for World War I, the Army turned what was largely vacant land into Camp Lee. It was one of just 32 camps that was build to train soldiers for World War I.

After months of anticipation, the Boathouse at City Point will open to the public Saturday night, with all hands on deck.

“The Hopewell community created this restaurant with our partnership,” said Paige Healy of the HOUSEpitality Family Restaurant Group, the company that owns and operates the four regional Boathouse restaurants.

First floated two years ago, the idea of opening the Boathouse at City Point didn’t gather significant steam until last summer, when the city of Hopewell brokered a multipart deal with its Economic Development Authority, owner of the former Navigator’s Den restaurant Haralambos Papanicolaou and Boathouse originator Kevin Healy.

Southern ports are experiencing a record foreign trade boom thanks in part to an expanded Panama Canal that permits Asian cargo ships to reach them more easily.

Georgia Ports Authority and the Port of Virginia, which include the nation’s fourth and fifth largest ranked by volume, respectively, each moved the most cargo they have ever handled in May. The two ports posted more than 10 percent year-over-year volume growth for the month.

A new era of international trade is underway on the U.S. East Coast, and the Port of Virginia is well-positioned to cement its position as the mid-Atlantic’s true global gateway.

In early May, the port welcomed the COSCO Development, the largest containership to ever come to the East Coast. A few weeks later an even larger vessel, the OOCL France, eclipsed the COSCO Development’s record. And so the big ship era at the Port of Virginia is underway.

These two ships are the first of a new generation of ultra-large container vessels to come to the East Coast. These mammoth ships are fitting symbols of the important role that international commerce and trade play in the Virginia and the national economy.

Millennials are moving to America’s cities — and not just the biggest ones. While places like New York City and Los Angeles remain millennial magnets, research from the Urban Land Institute shows that smaller cities, from Virginia Beach, Va., to Riverside, Calif., are actually seeing the most relative growth in their population of 25-to-34-year-olds.

Virginia Beach’s uptick in millennials — a 16% increase from 2010 to 2015 in the metro area — is no surprise to Bryan Stephens, president of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, which includes Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Newport News. Several years ago, Stephens’ department asked local millennials what would make the region a more attractive place to live, work and raise a family. In response to the survey’s results, the city has focused on extending a Norfolk light rail, which launched in 2011, as well as developing new restaurants and revamping city centers. “All of that has been deliberately evolved over the past few years,” Stephens says. (Virginia Beach has also earned a reputation for being an attractive home for retirees too.)

In these post-recessionary times, with many hoping to see a U.S. manufacturing rebirth, the moment is right to retool recruitment and retention practices for your factory floor.

How do you attract mechanically inclined millennials to your machine maintenance crew?

What is the best way to replace retiring equipment operators and technicians whose skills your company has depended on for years?

How do you make certain rank-and-file workers are motivated to stick around for the long term and that their skills remain up to date?

Many in the bedding industry are asking themselves these questions. They have come to find that in an improving economy, poaching experienced staff from the competition isn’t sustainable. For employers, and for the mattress industry as a whole, to prosper and grow, its talent pool must grow, too.

The Port of Virginia is preparing to receive “big ships” potentially weekly after the largest container ship yet arrived at the Virginia International Gateway terminal in Portsmouth on Monday.

“This is what we have been preparing for: the talk is over, the big ships are here,” Virginia Port Authority Executive Director and CEO John F. Reinhart said.

Early Monday morning, the 1,200-foot-long and 158-foot-wide COSCO Development arrived at Virginia International Gateway. For comparison, the ship is 100 feet longer than the new Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and can carry the equivalent of 13,092 containers that are 20 feet long. That beats the port’s record ship to call last year by a capacity of 3,000 20-foot equivalent units, or TEUs.

To the kids at Ettrick Elementary School, the gifts from online retail giant Amazon.com look like pure fun, but to Amazon and school officials, they’re powerful learning tools.

Executives and employees from Amazon’s Chesterfield County fulfillment center joined students, school officials and local dignitaries Friday to announce a donation of $7,500 worth of items to help equip a new learning laboratory at the school that will focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.