Small Town, Big Ideas

Blacksburg: Low Cost, Lots of Jobs

According to this article on MSN, Blacksburg is one of the top 10 "places where the cost of living and unemployment are low and the number of jobs is growing steadily." Blacksburg is #8 on the list.

Here is an excerpt on Blacksburg and the surrounding areas:

Blacksburg, Christiansburg and Radford, Va.
This tri-city area, located in a cluster of small towns, is best known as the home of Virginia Polytechnic Institute (better known as Virginia Tech).

Blacksburg is the largest of the three communities and combines a small-town feel and college amenities with a beautiful setting in the Appalachian and Blue Ridge mountains. A pleasant climate and proximity to nearby Roanoke, with its excellent arts, commerce and health care, are perks. The wooded area lacks some big-city hustle and amenities, and is isolated from air service. But it has a low cost of living, with a median home price of only $197,800 and great outdoor recreation opportunities to boot.

This is great to see.

We are surely doing our best to contribute to the increase in jobs.

Marisa Offers Grads Job Tips

There is almost nothing I love more than coming into work, opening the newspaper (aka getting a Google alert via email) and seeing a positive article in the paper with someone from our company as the main source. Especially an article that I didn't even know was brewing!

The Roanoke Times article is about recruiting and Marisa is the main source. If you're in the job market, check it out.

Hokies Love Virginia Tech

Today I watched the convocation at Virginia Tech from the football field in Lane Stadium with several Webmailers. It was such a surreal experience, especially watching the presidential motorcade zoom through the corporate research center, watching President Bush speak from Cassell Coliseum, and hearing the "Let's Go Hokies!" chant after all the speakers finished up. Like I said yesterday, I do believe that our tight knit community and prideful university will come together and get beyond this unbelievable tragedy. We may even come out stronger than ever. I think we're already starting to see that with the optimism in all of the media interviews, the convocation earlier today, and the candlelight vigil that was held on the drill field earlier this evening. Hokies love Virginia Tech and Blacksburg—there is no doubt about that.

I'd like to thank everyone who has reached out and contacted all of us down here to make sure we're all okay. As many of you know, our company is filled with Hokies—founders, full-time employees (graduates and almost-graduates), and lots of part-timers that are still enrolled. Everyone at Webmail is in fact okay although it seems that almost everyone at least knows someone that was directly affected.

A couple of donation funds have been established to help the families of the victims in the Virginia Tech shootings. The Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund and the United in Caring Fund for Victims of the VA Tech Tragedy have both been set up and are both run by great organizations.

Hokie Hope: Orange and Maroon on Friday

A Hokie Nation, Devastated

Today has been absolutely unreal. My deepest sympathies go out to the friends and family of those involved in the Virginia Tech shootings.

It's amazing to witness something of this proportion happening right here in Blacksburg. But I do believe that our tight knit community and prideful university will come together and get beyond this unbelievable mess.

Today is obviously not a good representation of Virginia Tech or the Blacksburg community. I hope this senseless tragedy does not come to define either one.

Local Company Sells for $2.6B

I just read that New River Pharmaceuticals sold to Shire for $2.6 billion. That's a pretty big deal for a company in such a small town!

Congratulations to everyone involved over there. This should be great news for their employees, shareholders, and the New River Valley business community.

My Retail Roanoke (.com)

MyRetailRoanoke.com launched today. It's a site setup to attract big-name merchants to Southwest Virginia. You can sign up and vote for who you'd like to see locate in our area and hopefully some of them will get the message. I'd like to see a Banana Republic and a Chili's down this way (in Blacksburg though, more so than Roanoke) so I can spend all of my money on clothes, beer, and chips and salsa (as if I don't already).

Thanks for the tip, Stuart.

Scary Day in Blacksburg

It's been one heck of a day here in Blacksburg. In case you somehow haven't heard, there is a manhunt going on right down the street from our offices in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center (CRC). They're looking for a prison escapee who's been on the run, and who has killed at least two people from what I've heard, since yesterday. They've shut down the Virginia Tech campus (on the first day of class!) and you can't get in or out of the CRC at the moment. It feels like the time the "beltway sniper" was rolling around Northern Virginia killing people (we were located in Northern Virginia at the time). Hopefully they will get this guy before he hurts anyone else.

The Best Places to Work in Southwest Virginia

I'm proud to announce that we have been named the best high tech place to work in Southwest Virginia by the Blue Ridge Business Journal (we were really named the second best place to work overall, but the winner is an insurance company, making us the winner in the high tech category!). This is an awesome award and one we’re VERY honored to receive.

One of our core objectives at Webmail is to hire great people and provide them with an incredible place to work. We’ve got a long way to go... but so far, so good.

Local Baby Needs Help

A bunch of area bloggers are banding together to try to spread the word about a little baby around here that needs help. Ian, the little baby, was born with Biliary Atresia and is in need of a life-saving transplant. People in the community are holding several fundraisers (with the help of COTA) to help offset the $100,000 cost of the transplant.

I think fundraisers are great and if you want to pitch in, let me know and I’m sure I can point you in the right direction. Learn more about Ian here and more importantly, donate here.