Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Council for Economic Opportunity Meeting, Tuesday, October 20, 2026

Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 26m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/4304
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-26. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:04] Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for being here this morning. We're going to start our CEO committee meeting, and I'm Dan Stork, Mount Vernon District Representative, but the chair of the CEO, and we have a number of comments I need to make to get us started.

[00:00:20] First and foremost, we have notes from our last meeting on June 16th. If anybody had any changes or thoughts or comments that they wanted to make sure that we included, let me know. If not, we'll move on. Today's meeting topics are, frankly, how do we make Virginia, and maybe more importantly for us, how do we make Northern Virginia and Fairfax County the best region and really the best state in the country to do business and take care of folks?

[00:00:52] That collective vision and partnership is really what the conversation is about today. We are very fortunate to have our Secretary of Commerce and Trade, Carrie Chinery, here with us, and she has to depart at 1030. So we have a hard stop with that. So we're going to formally introduce her in just a bit. In the meantime, you're going to get to hear a little bit later from Drew Sunderland, director of the Tyson's Community Alliance, who will discuss place-based economic development, something we've been talking a lot about on the board and a lot about in our communities. Additionally, there are, with each of your places, you see a list

[00:01:30] of our CEO participants. Those are folks who have been involved with our committee for some time or have joined us recently and we have a couple new people today. I'll mention in just a second, I want to thank everybody, especially over the last several months, we've sent some information out to all of you and to our board members and asking for other topics that we should consider or really have as part of our future meetings.

[00:02:00] As you all know, we have not only board members, board supervisor members, we have private sector members, businesses, as well as some of our key community education and health care institutions. And those are a key part of how do we bring folks together and how do we make sure that we continue to grow and develop as a region.

[00:02:19] In fact, our January 27th meeting, our county economic development team will engage with this council on the goals and key pillars of a county economic development framework. So our next meeting after this really will be digging deeper into something that we've been working on really more number of years, but especially the last couple years as the CEO group has gotten together and identified how we can do better. So take a look at the information at your seat. It gives you a little bit of idea of what we're looking forward to and we're going to continue to be

[00:02:54] working on. You're also going to see some of our highlighted projects that we have identified and worked on previously, the last couple of years with this group. It's our AI Economy Action Plan, as well as our Economic Competitive Task Force. And also for all of us in Northern Virginia, we know our core issue, our Housing Task Force, and how do we make a difference and how do we really increase the amount of housing that we have available to our residents.

[00:03:22] So, again, your feedback, engagement are crucial to making this committee, making this organization we started a couple years ago, really viable and valuable and, frankly, action-oriented. So that's the core of what we hope to see out of all this.

[00:03:39] So I'm going to now go around the table and ask members to introduce themselves. I'm going to start with our first two members very briefly. Just want to introduce and thank them for being part of us today. Kathleen Featheringham with Maximus is here. Kathleen, I'm sorry. Thank you very much. As well as I know we have George Thomas, our new Fairfax County Economic Development Authority leader.

[00:03:59] So thank you both. And with that, I'm going to start with County Executive Hill to start around the room to introduce yourself. And then if we can go around to his right, we're going to end up with Chairman McKay, who can then introduce the secretary.

[00:04:16] Good morning, everyone. Brian Hill, County Executive, Fairfax County. Good morning. George Thomas, Fairfax County EDA. Our Carrier, BF Sol Company, Hospitality Group. Susan Irwin, CEO of Tyson's Community Alliance.

[00:04:35] Lauren Baconsmith, Chief People Officer, Enabled Intelligence. Jimmy Beerman, Drainsville District Supervisor. Anthony Chang, founder of Silverline Equities, office investor and advisor in the region. Andres Jimenez, Mason District Supervisor.

[00:04:55] Cheryl Minaj, President of TANX. Rodney Lusk, Frank County District Supervisor. Michelle Reed, Fairfax County Public School Superintendent. Dahlia Palchik, Providence District Supervisor. Kathleen Featheringham, Senior Vice President of AI at Maximus.

[00:05:15] Hi, I'm Rachna Sizemore-Heiser, Braddock District Supervisor. Good morning, Robbie Moser, CEO of Clark. Walter Alcorn, Hunter Mills, Supervisor. Ann Kress, President of Northern Virginia Community College. Pat Harity, Springfield District Supervisor.

[00:05:30] Good morning, Stephen Jones, CEO of NOVA. Kathy Smith, Sully District Supervisor. Good morning, Rebecca Mowdry. I'm the Director of the Fairfax County Department of Economic Initiatives. And morning again, Dan Stark, Mount Vernon District Supervisor and Chair of the Committee. And Jeff McKay, Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

[00:05:49] And I want to introduce our guests. This is an exciting morning. It's not every day that we get the Commerce Secretary to come visit us in Fairfax County, hear what concerns we have, and hear what she's up to. As I greeted her a few minutes ago, reminded all of us that we're on one team here, the state, the county, the private sector, the EDA, all working towards one goal, which is to grow our economy here in Fairfax County and in Northern Virginia. And it is great that we're here together, assembled as that one team. And so I do want to thank the Secretary for joining us. I have

[00:06:25] a short couple pinpoints I want to put on the table about her background. But when I first met her in Richmond some months ago, I was very impressed on day one that she knows exactly what she's doing. She understands these issues, but most importantly, she wants to hear from us, hear from people in the private sector, local governments as to what works here.

[00:06:48] The state is big. It's very diverse. Its economic prospects are very diverse, and every part of the state's a little bit different. So the fact that you're getting out, visiting these other parts of the state, and hearing firsthand from the movers in our economy, I think is very impressive, and we're grateful for that.

[00:07:06] Secretary Chinnery has had decades of service in economic development. She's a native of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, and I'll say when I'm not here, that's the part of the state I want to be in. But she is a native of the Shenandoah Valley.

[00:07:22] She has been working in economic development, public policy, government relations, and strategic communications. In this role, current role, she oversees 10 agencies and authorities in Virginia. I think most people don't realize that. It's not just an economic development arm, but there's a lot of agencies underneath that that she oversees.

[00:07:42] Prior to her appointment as Secretary of Commerce and Trade, Secretary Chiena refounded and led the Valley Pike Partners and served as the executive director of the Shenandoah Valley Partnership. We're thrilled to have her here with us today. I mentioned her, this is a very casual group, a good conversation for us to have, and we want to keep it casual.

[00:08:03] and share ideas for ways that we can continue to grow our economy here in Fairfax County. So with that, I am going to introduce Secretary Kerry Cheenery to share a few thoughts with us. Welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:08:20] Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Rebecca. And thank you, everybody, who made this possible for me to join you. So thanks to Jeff for the invitation. We joke that when we started the administration in the cold, cold days of January, We were in temporary space in downtown Richmond, known as the VDOT Annex for anybody who spent time there.

[00:08:43] And so there's a joke about whether or not you had a meeting with us if you were Annex or PHB. PHB is our term for the Patrick Henry Building. And so Jeff and Brian and Amir were definitely Annex meetings. So they were quick to come sit down with us, and we were so delighted and appreciative of that time.

[00:09:03] So I enjoyed the opportunity to continue the relationship since then, spend some time with George, spend some time with many of your colleagues that are considered our economic development partners. So it's an honor to serve as your Commerce and Trade Secretary and serve Governor Spanberger in this role.

[00:09:23] As Jeff mentioned, I've been doing work in this space for a long time from a couple different angles. And one of the things that I'm most excited about in this role now is how we kind of leverage all of the economic development partners who have been thinking about opportunities and concerns at the local level, as you are at the regional level, as we tend to also do, and now at the state level, and how we confront a lot of changing dynamics that are going on right now.

[00:09:51] So I wanted to give you kind of a high-level overview of our secretariat and our work and then open it up for questions and discussions. As Jeff mentioned, we have 10 agencies and authorities that are focused on everything from small business to business recruitment, tourism, entrepreneurship, community development, energy.

[00:10:12] And it's just a smattering of partners who are really critical in economic and community development. They all fit together in a way that ultimately makes sense, even though it looks like such a large secretariat. And in that, I get to work with six really dedicated team members every day in our office.

[00:10:32] One of them is with us, Ashley Scott, my communications and policy advisor. And in the role of the secretariat, we're spending a lot of time thinking about how our agencies work together to make your work easier. So if we're leveraging everyone in-house in commerce and trade, then we're going to be uplifting the work that you're doing and making it more efficient and effective for every region of the state.

[00:10:58] So that is culturally a big push of mine. And that's as simple as making sure that my agency heads are meeting together regularly and also as complex as making sure that I'm bringing all of them together to opportunities around the state or speaking engagements around the state. So that when we talk about the work that we're doing in commerce and trade, you can put a face and a name and an agency and a program and an action with that work.

[00:11:22] So in the areas where we've been focused in the administration, it's really on three things in commerce and trade. It's economic development, it's housing, and it's energy. And those have been the pillars that we've been focused on since day one under Governor Spanberger's leadership.

[00:11:39] And so many of you participated in the kickoff of our strategic economic development plan. Delighted to hear you're going to be doing something similar here among this group. But we had the opportunity to start that back in May with an executive order the governor signed and made an intention to have every cabinet member be a steering committee of her comprehensive economic development plan.

[00:12:04] And that's been important and symbolic to say that the work that we're all doing now is not unique to just business development. It's not unique to just recruitment efforts across the state. We have to think differently about all of the additional factors that go into community and economic development, whether it's child care or housing or health care or transportation infrastructure, all the things that you all are working on and thinking about every day and placemaking that you're going to hear about later.

[00:12:34] what makes a place special and what makes it unique for companies to grow and thrive and so we went around the state we did nine input sessions and what we heard in in northern virginia we had we had our session at george mason is a lot of what you're already focused on here today it's federal workforce transition and what that looks like for the changing economy here artificial intelligence and the innovation economy how do we find the good in all of that innovation startups and entrepreneurship continue to be a pillar and a focus for us and redevelopment revitalization and housing so those are four main themes that came out of the

[00:13:12] listing session here but they're also not unique to you that's a lot of what we heard across every region in Virginia and so as we kind of finalize this plan you'll hear more about it before the end of the year and so much of it is us trying to say okay what's going to work for Fairfax County might not work in another part of the state not necessarily the challenge is different but the answer is going to be different so I want to spend some time with you to answer questions and you know focus on any of the topics that are that are top of mind for you we can answer about a lot of different initiatives we're doing across secretariat and across agencies but my big message

[00:13:51] to you today is that we can't do this work alone the strength of you being at this table for you taking time to contribute here, whether you're an elected or appointed official, a private sector leader, a community leader, an education partner, so much of what the success of Virginia is dependent on is people showing up in their communities and people being active participants in the future of their economy. You're already doing that, and I'm delighted to learn more about it, and I appreciate the opportunity to spend time with you. Well, thank you. Thank you, Madam

[00:14:27] Secretary and appreciate very much your comments opening comments. I am sure that this group will have many questions and their own comments to share with you and and as is our tradition we start with our our business and community leaders and then we provide an opportunity for Board of Supervisors members to also ask their questions. So with that, I'm going to open it up for Q&A with folks in and I'm happy to take a hand somewhere and and to get us started. Supervisor Stork, I'm gonna cheat for one moment because I do want to put two things on the table because I know we're short on time,

[00:15:04] and I just want to make sure these are – so first of all, what the secretary just shared, as everyone around this table knows, is in direct alignment with what our own strategies here are. And she's leaving early to go celebrate a housing accomplishment in northern Virginia, which is not in Fairfax but close to Fairfax and benefits all of us.

[00:15:24] And so that's how important that is. But I do want to put – They're second to you because we've already done – we've already had one together. We did one here. That's right. We did Telestar. We did Telestar already. Exactly right. And in that light, I do want to just put two priorities down, I think, areas that we want to continue to partner with you on. And the first one, and we've talked about this, and you actually at the Virginia Association of Counties acknowledge this in your comments, but we could use some help with the Virginia Business Ready Sites Program.

[00:15:53] There is great money that the state puts on the table to make greenfield development, economic development happened, but as we all know here, a lot of our economic development is taking older buildings and doing the revitalization that you talked about earlier. And so any flexibility we could have in making sure that infill and redevelopment sites in the future could be candidates for that state funding that, of course, we would match locally is one of the things that we want to continue to work on, that urban redevelopment and readiness fund. The second one

[00:16:28] is everyone I think here is familiar with Executive Order 22, which you mentioned, which creates the AI Task Force in Virginia Data Center Accountability Framework. And around this table and certainly around Northern Virginia, we have some subject matter experts in the area of data centers and AI. And so we would just hope that we would be tapped into as necessary or as needed to continue to provide input to the state in those very important things to our economy here. We know they're both very sticky, but we also know that there are subject matter experts all over Northern Virginia that want to be helpful in looking at that

[00:17:08] framework. And so I just want to park those two things there as two big takeaways I know that would help Fairfax County and hopefully help you. And so with that, my cheating is over and we'll go back to hearing from our private and public sector partners first. Thank you, Dan.

[00:17:24] Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Dr. Kress. Sure, absolutely. Thank you so much, and I did have the opportunity to attend the session at Mason, so thank you. Thank you for bringing the community together around that topic. I just really wanted to underscore, sort of going along with the chairman's comments, the impact of AI, for example, on the economy is really going to call for reskilling, upskilling of the workforce, individuals who are dislocated, and as you know, Virginia's community colleges have the great fast-forward program.

[00:17:56] What we see at NOVA is that individuals who go through these industry-recognized credentials will yield wage gains of about 60%, which is significant. But a lot of those certifications involve AI, other skills. So just putting that on the table as a tool in the Commonwealth's toolbox that it can really leverage and also expand, because we do see those dislocations and that need for reskilling, upskilling, cross-skilling, continuing in those fast-forward really rapid recycle programs are incredibly important. So many thanks to the Commonwealth for investing

[00:18:33] in those programs and in the Commonwealth residents who take part in them. How involved are you all with Virginia Works and some of the displaced worker actions that they're doing? Very, very involved. So we've been partnering with them from the very beginning when we launched Nova Next a couple years ago as a rapid response. They were the first at the table to partner with us. We've been partnering with them on the job fairs that they've been holding. We also have been offering some coaching and some career counseling through

[00:19:07] those as well as connecting potential students to programs at Nova. Appreciate that. Yes. Good morning. Thanks for coming today and very inspiring to kind of hear the body of work that y'all are focused on. So much of economic development, as we know, is oftentimes pursuing entities to come here. And what I've been spending a lot of time on is pursuing investors to put their dollars here

[00:19:40] and curious what the Commonwealth is doing when it comes to, for instance, tonight I'm flying to Taiwan to meet with investors who are investing in the U.S., specifically in this region, buying office buildings because geopolitically it's a little uncertain right now. So there's a lot of wealth that wants to find safe harbor. And when they look around the world, they can invest anywhere. And they're still seeing the U.S. as the safest harbor to invest in. And knowing that the Commonwealth has multiple offices in Asia, what is the messaging of this administration to

[00:20:18] those investors now? Sure. Great question. So a couple of things there. One, I'll just say, because it's timely, we had the opportunity to come up last night and meet with a company that we originally met on our first European trade mission this summer and kind of continue that dialogue as they're considering their first U.S. location. And we've seen about a 60 percent uptick in FDI and foreign direct investment for Virginia. So it's a significant focus for us in making sure that we're interacting through our international offices and directly through through my office and the governor with companies who are basically saying, I want to be in the U.S.,

[00:20:58] I just don't know where. I'm going to commit to the U.S., and then I'm going to decide where. And so we're having some of those conversations as early as we can, and with a team not only through VDP, but also through our partners with the Port of Virginia, who are really strong economic and community development partners as well, and some of that foreign investment opportunities. So as far as kind of the traditional business recruitment side, continuing to do a lot there. I'm going to go back to Richmond later today. We're going to host a Japanese delegation tonight. I'm really interested actually in energy assets in Virginia. We had a French trade

[00:21:36] delegation last week, and we continue to meet with ambassadors who are visiting Virginia as often as we can. And one of the things that's always tricky for our office, you know, we're not going to publicize a lot of that activity obviously but so it's important that that the business community know that work is happening and know and know that it is ongoing but you are likely not to see that on a public schedule um of of our office and so um but that's you know heads down work on continuing to to build relationships there to your point on on um i

[00:22:13] would what i'm hearing as more startup investment entrepreneurial investment in in virginia One of the things that I've recently participated in was a startup showcase with VCU, and it was a model for companies kind of pitching to a room of investors, and it launched for us an idea to pull in, and one of the strategies in our economic development plan is going to be some kind of state-level Shark Tank, you know, Shark Tank model where we can really support startups and entrepreneurs from the state umbrella and make sure that we're bringing

[00:22:50] together investors. And the third piece of that is we recently met with a company who is trying to bring together some of the philanthropic arms of companies to then use those to invest in startups and invest in entrepreneurs. And we want to find out, again, ways where we can highlight and leverage some of that work, whether it's through DHCD or the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, or even our Small Business and Supplier Diversity Agency, and how we try to stake a claim for Virginia that we are interested in providing the support and the ecosystem necessary for that.

[00:23:28] That's not always traditional VC money, so absolutely focus areas for us. I think I hit all of your points, but happy to take more. Helpful. Thank you. Again, as a multigenerational serial entrepreneur, I particularly appreciate all those points, And I know that our community, our board, has very much supported that with our Fairfax Founders Fund, Accelerate Breakfast.

[00:23:51] I mean, a number of other things that we know can help support and hopefully leverage and partner with the state to do that better. Thank you so much for sharing, and I can't wait to hear more details when all of this comes out. So we have a business here in Northern Virginia, and we're in the tech, AI, you know, government contracting space.

[00:24:10] And I think a lot of companies here are in that space. And we're seeing the shift in what kids are studying. And they're studying computer science in college. And they're not able to find a job because things are just moving so fast. How can we support the state and you guys support us in kind of bringing things up to speed to how fast quickly or how quickly technology is moving and help the workmanship so people are not all scared of AI or scared of losing jobs?

[00:24:38] Or how do we partner together, kind of change that narrative and help implement AI in a way that we can support you all with our businesses and our expertise, and then you all can support us and help really the workforce and the people that are currently in? Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of things going on there.

[00:24:55] One of our kind of premier focus areas that we're proud of is continued recognition as a top state for talent. And this has been an aspirational goal of the governor to maintain and continue to enhance. And so there are, there's always been a lot of workforce partners, always, there's always been a lot of different people involved in organizations and programs involved with workforce development.

[00:25:20] And where I think the conversation is shifting now is more on a talent conversation that is, we're being really intentional and somewhat vocal in our office about my partners and the Secretary of Labor's office and saying, a lot of your work is focused on the worker.

[00:25:37] and that is critical. Our work is focused on the employer, also critical. And so how do we make sure that it is streamlined and that we're having a conversation at the same time, even when our audiences feel slightly different? So how can we be the best state for business and the best state for workers? We think we can, but it takes having private sector input. It takes calming some fear about changing economy and changing dynamics.

[00:26:06] And one of the things that we've really been building up is the talent office within the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. And so a lot of their work is focused on upskilling, reskilling, but again, through the employer lens, saying what's working for you from a technology standpoint that can be replicated with a community college partner, with a higher ed partner, with a technical center.

[00:26:32] And then the other side of that from the employee side is what is working for me that I'm able to implement in my own business or in my own company, et cetera. So some of it is changing the conversation about the audience, I think, because in a lot of cases being concerned about AI as a black box is where the fear lives.

[00:26:56] And when you can break down into, but is this affecting my job? Most of what we hear from employers and be interested to hear from you is you're not actually seeing significant layoffs or significant any headcount reduction. You're seeing a shift in the way that an employee is working.

[00:27:14] So it's like any AI model. The output you get is only as good as the question you ask, right? So how can you think differently about the skills needed at the employee level, which is really a different conversation than I'm laying off a workforce, I'm changing what my workforce does.

[00:27:39] If I may follow up on that. I don't know if my mic is on. I was asking Dr. Reed because it's someone who used to serve on our school board. What I don't hear is the K-12, right? because we've had these conversations here, we have to start younger, and we have to catch up, I think, with some of what our other states are doing. So I know that's technically under the education department, but I'm curious how your agency is able to tap into that and realize that we have to shift, because private sector is able to do that, private schools are able to do that, and we really, really have to get ahead of that more quickly, especially, I would say,

[00:28:16] middle school and up yeah so any any lack of mention of our education partners wasn't intentional we spend a lot of time with dr smith our secretary of education and thinking about the the k-12 continuum and one of the things that launched earlier this year that the governor announced a couple opportunities in this space was a k-12 business partnership which is modeled after the virginia business higher ed consortium and the idea that bringing together companies to speak to the same skills that they're looking for out of a community college or a four-year

[00:28:50] institution? How is that being modeled from a business perspective in K-12? So this is something that the Secretary of Education has really been point on in our office and leading and trying to find the whether you're exposing kids to different careers or different pathways, but also thinking differently about uplifting some of the programs that are already going on within the local school system. And I'm sure Dr. Reed would have lots of examples for us of things that we could uplift or replicate across the state. Another area here, again, more on the higher ed side is Internships

[00:29:28] Virginia. The governor launched in February. He's been really successful in paid internships. Again, a partnership with multiple universities across the state and employers who are thinking differently about the talent pipeline and workforce pipeline and exposing kids to different careers earlier, to your point.

[00:29:49] I appreciate that. I would recommend we look at modernizing our SOL curriculum. Sure. Because I don't think we can go far enough without doing that. Yeah, fair enough. Others? Thank you.

[00:30:05] I'm happy to talk on behalf of tourism, hotels, and how that supports the fabric of community. Certainly placemaking, which we'll hear about a little bit later, is an example of the type of thing that an individual business can't do on its own.

[00:30:26] That's where the collective working together is hugely important. So whether that comes through the state agency that reports through up to you or through our local convention of visitors organizations like Visit Fairfax, et cetera, how important that is because it makes a real ROI difference.

[00:30:48] As the chairman has heard me say many a time, hotels tend to be very tax-helpful to a community and to the Commonwealth in terms of both retail taxes all the way through lodging and then the real estate, personal property tax, all of that.

[00:31:05] Forget tax for a minute, but that is an ROI that actually is hugely important. So I'm an advocate consistently for ways of working together to promote both tourism and hospitality. It has a real quality of life impact, provides a tremendous amount of transition-type jobs of people growing through a career that I think is hugely important.

[00:31:34] And it's basically in every jurisdiction in the state, whether it's the beach or all the way up here, where we benefit from both business travel, leisure travel, and having entities which help promote that because we as individual hotel owners and operators can't really do that.

[00:31:54] It has to be a collective effort. And I do want to put a pitch in that there is opportunities for infrastructure, whether it's for supportive of sports tourism or conferences, conventions, that those infrastructure investments also can't be made solely by the private sector, or you'd have them, right?

[00:32:17] It's just too much capital in a very high-cost business. So that advocacy is really all about how do we work together strongly, how do we have very focused plans to do that, and then leverage that partnership, really, that can't be done any other way but business and both elected and appointed working effectively together.

[00:32:46] So a couple things there. Thank you for that. In April, we launched the first ever statewide tourism plan. So oddly enough, the Virginia Tourism Corporation had never really set out a strategic plan, and it's broken down by region.

[00:33:02] So there is a Northern Virginia tourism plan and focus from that process. And we've also, as of last week, announced some marketing leveraging funds, matching funds from the state, in addition to some tourism grants that we've been announcing in different regions.

[00:33:22] But another opportunity that we've been talking about is the kind of the dispersing of regional representatives in Virginia through state agencies. And so the Tourism Corporation has traditionally had a regional tourism manager based in different parts of the state.

[00:33:41] They're living and working in the regions where they are, and there has not been one for Northern Virginia or Hampton Roads. And so we have a proposal right now to change that and we're hopeful that with our partners in the legislature, we can make that happen.

[00:33:59] So that's one area where we see a lot of opportunity in this region to make sure that we're focusing on laying out and implementing or announcing a statewide tourism plan. But what does it mean on the ground for you? That's music to my ears, representing the Mount Vernon District and obviously George's house and George Mason and the National Museum of the U.S. Army and Workhouse.

[00:34:22] I mean, that's really long overdue and very much appreciate hearing that. And to that end, Supervisor Stork, always an open invitation if we can be influential and making sure our General Assembly members know what the needs are and what the opportunities are.

[00:34:40] We're not shy about doing that. I learned a long time ago that, you know, we can presume people know certain things. What you just said about Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, I would guess a lot of our other elected officials don't even know that. And so if we can be there with you advocating for that in partnership, we are ready to do that.

[00:35:00] Great. That's great. And trust, I've made my case very clear to your friend, Secretary Sickles. Good. Good. Thank you. Other private sector, if not, I know I saw a couple of board members. Madam Secretary, thank you for joining us and thank you for what you're doing on behalf of the Commonwealth. You know, in the asset delivery space is no different than tourism, no different than any of these others. What we continue to see with our customers across the country, they are going to the jurisdiction that can move the fastest. And we're not notorious for moving

[00:35:37] quick. And I would just encourage us to continue. It's got to be thoughtful. It's got to be deliberate. We have to do it. But I would just encourage you with the bigger vision across the Commonwealth, multiple administrations now, people that came to the state and it just took longer to ramp up workforce, ramp up permitting, ramp up design, ramp up entitlements. And I think in the world of AI and everybody wants everything quickly, they're making choices. And I think that's even happening with our workforce staying in the Commonwealth versus leaving the Commonwealth to go other places so however we as industry can provide feedback to you and your team to help

[00:36:13] think about streamlining again not cutting corners not looking to do anything that wouldn't be consistent with the rules but how do we just do it faster i would just give that as encouragement to you and your team as you continue to welcome the japanese delegation time is very expensive these days yeah yeah absolutely i appreciate that feedback and go Hokies you um i uh one of the things that we've been talking about, particularly to Chairman McKay's point about EO22, is that we had a good conversation during that process about permit review and expedited permitting program. And one of the ways that that is set up in Virginia is to coalesce a lot of different

[00:36:52] partners from different secretariats, different agencies, to lay out, as you well know, what are the permitting steps that are going to happen here? And a lot of the conversation was, this actually isn't necessarily faster. It should be, but it is more coordinated to say, who's everybody that needs to be in this line? And the conversation we had was, why isn't it this way for every business? It shouldn't be set aside for projects of a certain size. One of the ways that we're trying to think about how to increase effectiveness in that way is a DEQ model that you may or may

[00:37:28] not be familiar with, is you can go on and check your DEQ permit anytime, and it's much more transparent than it used to be. And it is an AI tool that's allowing them to do that, to show where you are in the permit process. And believe it or not, that actually leads to faster delivery on those pieces because it is really visible and accessible to see where something is in the process. And so that's something that we have been talking about replicating with other agencies and trying to find ways to get a better handle on if I'm coming into a community,

[00:38:03] even if I'm expanding, of course, whatever that permit structure looks like, and then how do I track all of it in real time. So not only does it feel faster, but it feels more transparent to everybody. Thank you, Mr. Moser.

[00:38:19] Dr. Jones, did you have a... Yeah, just to add quickly to those comments, the predictability is the other big thing, And the governor's committed several times to not, you know, quote, reneging on deals. But that is, I think, a very important positive step that we've seen from the administration. Yeah. Thank you for that.

[00:38:36] Thank you. Supervisor Leska's hand up. I know I have a couple of other supervisors. Thank you very much. I appreciate your comments about entrepreneurship and really the startup ecosystem. One of the things I learned, I worked at the Economic Development Authority for 21 years and got to oversee our capital attraction program.

[00:38:56] And in that program, we realize the importance of helping those earlier stage companies get the financing. Because I think what we'll see in the investment across the spectrum is that a lot of that investment is coming in the later stage.

[00:39:12] So even the venture capital dollars are later. So if we want to help a startup company get founded and positioned to get that later stage investment, we've got to do more up front. So I was just curious in terms of the work that we are going to do specifically in that angel investment category to help position those companies to be the next Blackboard, the next you name it, ScienceLogic, Appian.

[00:39:43] And those companies, as you look at their growth, the amount of jobs and the amount of capital investment that they've made to our community and to the Commonwealth has been significant. But if those companies can't get out of the box, if they can't get started, we'll never get to the place where they're making that significant investment in jobs and capital investment.

[00:40:04] So thank you for that. And a couple of things there. So kind of going back to the cultural example of making sure that we're super collaborators within commerce and trade, one of the first things that we've done is try to unlock some SSBCI funding a lot faster than it was happening.

[00:40:20] And that required a partnership with the Virginia Small Business Financing Authority, which sits under the Small Business Supplier Diversity Agency, and oddly enough, the Department of Housing and Community Development. And so making sure that those partners were aligned and how those funds were getting deployed is something that we've been really focused on thus far in the administration.

[00:40:44] The Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation has a lot of tools for entrepreneurs, but we could do more there and more to leverage them for sure. So that's been a central part of our focus as well. And then also thinking about kind of how we support entrepreneurs across the state in different areas.

[00:41:07] So sometimes it's not money. Sometimes it is technical assistance. Sometimes it is office space. Sometimes it's access to resources for workforce or talent or, you know, other administrative opportunities that are needed.

[00:41:24] I tell everybody, as long as I spent helping people with their businesses, I learned a whole lot more when I had to start my own. And so, you know, there's an absolutely feel for those who are trying to navigate the unknown in a lot of cases when it comes to startups and entrepreneurs.

[00:41:46] So there's a lot to be done in this space on funding, but there's also a lot to be done on technical assistance. Yeah, thank you. I had next, Supervisor Seismar Heiser. Thank you, and thank you, Madam Secretary, for the time, for coming here and talking to us and for everyone in the room for sharing their expertise and their thoughts.

[00:42:05] I had a couple thoughts sort of piggybacking on what my colleague was saying here, but I love the idea of starting sort of a Shark Tank competition at the state, some of the work you're doing around helping entrepreneurs, but I think one of the gaps that I'm seeing, you know, I represent George Mason, which is doing a lot of great work around innovation and entrepreneur.

[00:42:23] They have their own Patriot Pitch competition. We have an Accelerate Breakfast series. I think what a gap I see is sort of that coordination of these efforts. It almost feels like a bottom-up approach as opposed to a top-down strategic approach of what are the future-focused industries that are either AI, you know, taking advantage of AI, AI-adjacent, or AI-proof.

[00:42:49] What is Virginia well set up for when we're looking at those industries? What do we already have here as sort of our basis of strengths, basis of industry? I would put out defense tech, space tech, cyber, intelligence, geospatial, intelligence, all of these areas that we already have a strong core, right?

[00:43:09] How do you, and then this is in northern Virginia. I mean, I'm sure you look at Hampton Roads. It's slightly different. They may have some of the same defense tech feature proof agency, maybe it's industries, health care, health tech. How do we then leverage what our strengths already are, and how does the state help create that strategic direction So then we know, all right, here are the pieces we actually need to have to get to this point.

[00:43:34] That's the piece that I feel like maybe could be helpful from the state. What is the point we're trying to get to, or maybe the multiple points or possibilities of paths? What do we need to get there from start, you know, angel investment versus venture capital versus VC investments versus these are the industries we're trying to court.

[00:43:52] These are the areas of the state that should be known for these industries. And how do we build that from a five-year, 10-year, 20-year plan? That, I think, could be really helpful from the state. And then partnering with us here, saying, Fairfax County, you've got a strong base here in cyber and in an innovation economy, given George Mason.

[00:44:09] Here's what we can do to help you build that. And I'm not saying this is what Fairfax does and this is what Hampton Roads does. But that sort of framework would be helpful to help take all these pieces that's happening, great stuff that's happening, and coordinate it. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:44:27] I appreciate that. So a couple things. we've spent a lot of time focused on aerospace and defense and the in aviation and the opportunity there i partly see as also just supporting what we have right so there's a good conversation we've had around this table about you know not every not every bit of what we're doing is is business recruitment a lot of it is is existing business support and retention and the importance of highlighting the strong concentration that we have in these areas across the state so coming out of the first trade mission this summer, the governor said, I really want to find a way

[00:45:03] to bring together, you know, we've got four of the top five aerospace and defense companies headquartered in Virginia. We've also got a lot of startups around the state who would love to be subs to those companies, who would love to, you know, support their supply chain long-term.

[00:45:19] What can we do to pull together each of them and the support systems that are needed? And so right now we're working with VDP on basically pulling together a summit, for lack of a better word, to try to pull together some of the existing expertise that we have. This is just an aerospace example for you, but aerospace and defense, to your point, in other areas. And one example, and Jeff's favorite part of the state, in the valley, I'm joking, is a small aviation mechanic

[00:45:54] a company that is trying to get FAA certification. And we said, well, we know some people in Virginia that could probably help you think through FAA certification and the steps needed. And so just that basic example of what's our role in connecting resources for this startup company, but also supporting a supply chain of significant existing employers. And so what I see is opportunity to replicate that across other industries. As you're talking, you're not saying bio and life sciences, but that's coming to mind for me as something that is also important for us

[00:46:30] to be coordinating. We've got five bio hubs across Virginia, and I have been telling all of our university partners and all of our life and biopharma partners, life sciences and biopharma partners, I've got to be able to have a crisper soundbite about what Virginia is doing in this space. And that has been my charge to them to say, I want to help you get more funding for these efforts. I want to help you build up capacity within your regions, but we can't go to the legislature. We can't look at our own budgets and say, I need a brand new initiative when we have so

[00:47:04] many of these existing efforts going on across the state. So I think that also is strategic direction that's needed. And the idea of we appreciate and recognize a lot of important ground-up efforts. They are important to be from the ground up. But as we're setting a vision, if I'm in front of a potential life sciences company, how do I tell them quickly what's going on in Virginia? It's not a quick answer right now. And that doesn't mean there's not real expertise there. There is.

[00:47:33] And that is a real opportunity for Virginia going forward. But it is pretty disconnected right now. I know I have Supervisor Beerman, but I also have a couple of community and business leaders that have not asked questions. So we have probably five more minutes after this.

[00:47:48] So if you haven't said anything, we'd welcome your thoughts to close the meeting on Supervisor Beerman. So you may have touched on this in your response to Mr. Moser, but I wanted to tee it up a little bit differently. Can you give us an update on what you think the most important key deliverables on Executive Order 3, which was about permitting and streamlining housing and asked you to work with Secretary Bulova and Secretary Donahue at VDOT and Natural Resources, what you thought the best things to come out of that effort were?

[00:48:22] And then what, going forward, you're going to do to continue moving that effort forward on trying to streamline the processes around building more housing in the state. Absolutely. Thank you for that question. So over the summer, we launched the Commission on Unlocking Housing Production. That was a directive out of EO3, and Secretaries Boliva and Donahue are my co-chairs in that effort.

[00:48:44] And we've broken out the commission into two work groups, and they've already started meeting. and we have our second commission meeting next week or the week after. And so what we've done is moved pretty quickly on the recommendations that we received from agencies.

[00:48:59] We started and said, you look at your agency structure, what you're currently doing in this space, VDOT, DEQ, DCR, DHCD, Virginia Housing, and come back and tell us how you think you can improve permitting, how you can improve communication, streamline those processes.

[00:49:18] And so what the work groups are doing now is evaluating those proposals from the agencies themselves and then using their perspective from industry, community partners, et cetera, to say, well, this is actually my experience on the other side of this. And so I think there's going to be significant opportunity there to say we had recommendations that came out of EO3, but how do we implement them through this commission that will be an ongoing commission throughout the administration?

[00:49:45] So I think you'll see kind of interim step reports as we go forward and also trying to say, what can we do that's just good sense to do right now? You know, within looking at Virginia housing and DHCD alone, one of the things that we've done is tried to kind of marry up their different programs and say, all right, well, if I'm eligible for low income housing tax credit, am I also eligible for historic tax credit?

[00:50:16] And if so, how do I stack those and how do I make sure that the applications for those are moving along at a faster rate or a more connected rate? So lots of good work there. We'd love any input or ideas. Don't hesitate to share those.

[00:50:32] Just real quickly, Supervisor Stork, I do want to compliment the administration's look at this really holistically because I will tell you in I have a builders roundtable that specifically is home builders. in Fairfax County. Secretary Donoghue and others have talked with this group, met with them, have presented their streamlined approach even in dealing with VDOT and ways they can implement and use AI to expedite permitting through VDOT. VDOT is one of the challenges that many of our home builders face. And so I just want to put that out there because

[00:51:09] this is not one secretariat, as you'd mentioned. And while we're waiting on some of the interim recommendations. What I am really excited about is that actions are being taken even while we're waiting for those interim recommendations. Kind of the low-hanging fruit is being grabbed, and we're taking advantage. And I have heard from people in industry that they have already seen some advantages of that. So we're going to continue to support that in any way we can, but we have seen some early progress and really hope that can continue. That's great.

[00:51:43] Hi, I'm Kathleen Feathering from Maximus. So one thing that you mentioned earlier, I would just love to kind of put an emphasis on that as well, was associated with connecting different corporations together. So we are a large corporation, and we have had historical and, like, business process and a number of other areas in federal contracting.

[00:52:04] But, like, as of last night, we just announced that we're acquiring another Fairfax County company, so more in the defense space. so being able to connect and it's not necessarily grouping categories of what groups are so wouldn't necessarily put like oh are they in aerospace or not because there's a lot that they're not only looking for subs but they're also looking for potential acquisitions and expansion of business and obviously some of that can't be just announced to everybody so parts of being able to do the connections there is really important absolutely so one of the things that we're also working on

[00:52:36] with VDP, we have a team that is essentially like a regional BRE team that also does talent development and runs a workforce investment program incentive. And we're shifting some of that work into what we're toying with a name for right now. So we're calling it Aftercare, and it's not a great name because it sounds too healthcare. So anyone wants to contribute to our internal marketing effort. We will take your suggestions. I'm looking at you like, yeah,

[00:53:08] that's not what we're going to call it. But it is the idea of supporting companies after either locations, expansions, acquisitions, which we certainly see a trend for right now, and how we can support them in that effort. And a lot of the work that we've been doing since day one is making sure that a lot of large announcements that have announced for Virginia actually come to fruition and that we are supporting them, whether it's through permitting or whether it's through talent development, infrastructure, utilities, whatever it is.

[00:53:43] You know, a major project that we've been working on since day one, we have a biweekly meeting on just to make sure they're on track for permitting and build out. And so, again, nothing to do with business development from our end, but absolutely will be a strong business development story if they are able to realize their full jobs and capital investment. So all that to say, we are thinking about how to, what does it mean to help a business after they've made a big announcement of any kind? And how can we make sure that that is a core deliverable within the Economic Development Partnership? So you'll see more of a framework

[00:54:20] around that program and a better name. Thank you. I know that Supervisor Herdy had something. We have a couple comments were there any other private sector community member leaders that are here so please we have probably a moment or two but supervisor herity and then we'll close i was going to echo basically the uh the comment on permitting and the need for and what mike roland has built a deq over the last four years is really incredible and that to echo what the chairman said that really needs to be taken and put in place at vdot um to learn from that we've got tens of

[00:54:58] thousands of housing units up here that have gone through the the process the entitlement process that are waiting on the sidelines to be built and that's regulatory requirements and process process requirements so the more we can do to help there just want to echo the focus on sports tourism we've got a pretty strong effort going up here that I think you're going to see and hear more about early next year if not before you know it's quality of life it's It's placemaking, and it's also the revenue aspect.

[00:55:31] So thank you for having that notoriously report. But look forward to working with you up here, certainly on those things. Absolutely. And on the regulatory piece, that is so important to us because what I hear about why so many of those unbuilt units are out there is because of interest rates and tariffs and cost of construction.

[00:55:51] And so we can't control those things, but we can control the regulatory environment. And so especially when it's tough for these projects to get going for things that are outside of our control, we have to focus a lot more on what is within our control and streamline that. And again, we can't do any of this without you.

[00:56:11] And so we appreciate the strong focus here and partnership here. So much of what we're able to do at the state level is hand off a project, a program, an initiative to a strong local partner. And so we're delighted to have this relationship and this open dialogue.

[00:56:28] I have one quick call to action I meant to mention earlier. To your point about kind of the startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem, we have been struggling with one of the consistent points of feedback we got on our listening tour was disappointment that the state no longer has an angel tax credit.

[00:56:47] One of the equally consistent points of input that we've gotten is from a legislature that is really not keen on tax credits right now. And so I've started this conversation with some partners in the legislature, and we'd love for each of you to be thinking about this and provide feedback whenever, however, of how can we get to that same end with a different means?

[00:57:11] And if the effect of that is so significant for the startup and entrepreneurial community, what's another mechanism that we could all collectively think about to repurpose that incentive in some way? That's something I would love for us to tackle together.

[00:57:27] Thank you. And I'm going to turn to Rebecca Modric. She had a couple of comments you wanted to make. Just really quick. I understand you're okay on time. So I was checking with you. Great. Do what Ashley tells me to do. Just one more minute. So yes, we would be happy to partner with you on that. And I actually just wanted to jump back a little bit to the kind of innovation economy, but also the redevelopment piece.

[00:57:50] very exciting to hear that you're looking at opportunities to kind of marry together either programs or financing so that can be better stacked. One of the things we're really excited about is new or upcoming opportunity zones and learning more about how we can stack tax credits.

[00:58:10] And we actually have a tax opportunity in some of our revitalization areas. So we see a lot of opportunity to blend those together, but it's complicated. So if you have learnings that you can share with us, we would love to share that with our development community as well and look at opportunities. And the other piece, yeah, very exciting to hear about an opportunity for like a statewide shark tank. We have a lot of experience in this. One of our supervisors mentioned we have an Accelerate series. We partner with George Mason University. And you really touched on

[00:58:42] The success of those we have definitely found is not necessarily in the event or the activity, but the infrastructure around it. So thank you for those comments. And there are many great programs that exist in Virginia that we very much rely on in this area, including, like, the Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program, ICAP.

[00:59:05] So important to get these companies kind of up to the level where they are ready to pitch or are ready for venture capital. And some of those programs are spread across a couple of different departments that you oversee, which can be a little bit confusing.

[00:59:22] But continuing those programs is just paramount because those are what allow our companies to grow and remain. And we know that it's easier to keep and grow a company than try to attract a new one. So thank you for all of that. And we are definitely here to partner with you, especially on this tax credit question.

[00:59:40] Well, and we didn't even mention, but you have a significant opportunity with Klonum or George Mason right now. So that'll be a huge thing to leverage and work on together as well. Three big things for us. I should have mentioned that you hit on all of them. The Virginia Business Ready Sites Program recent round of awards is about to come out in the next couple weeks.

[01:00:02] And we are talking about how to, to the chairman's point earlier, how to, you know, enhance that program going forward and think about different uses for it. A lot of that is tied to siting for energy projects as well.

[01:00:18] So we're having a conversation about energy projects. We're also having a conversation about how that ties in with the Business Ready Sites program funding. Opportunity zones are due at the end of this month. Those are about to be submitted to our federal partners. and have had a really iterative process with localities and regions on that.

[01:00:39] So looking forward to that. And we're also tracking less for this region, but I think also just going back to the aerospace and defense conversation, if maritime opportunity zones are a real thing or not, is something that we're trying to figure out as a state opportunity for Virginia going forward.

[01:00:58] We'll also be responding as a state to the U.S. Space Academy, RFI. And that is a significant opportunity for asset mapping for us. And that goes back to the conversation earlier about really making us, really raising our hand and saying we're really good in this.

[01:01:17] We really have a lot of expertise in these industries in this area. And it's important that we not sit on the sidelines for an opportunity like that. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed this. I appreciate the open dialogue with you. I hope you'll all reach out and not hesitate to give us feedback. We're always asking for awareness, advice, and action. So we look forward to those three things from you.

[01:01:43] Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Chinari. We all appreciate your being here and taking the time to talk with us. Thank you. thank you thank you all right while we're saying our goodbyes um i will go ahead and introduce our next topic and our next speaker so um very excited to do this because this is a topic that is crucial to our collective economic success and we're talking about the investment in our places in our commercial areas um and i suspect that many of the business leaders in this room would share

[01:02:21] that um today companies are not choosing a market they are choosing a place they are choosing a place where talent that they need wants to live, a place that is connected, that is vibrant, and is affordable. This reality very much changed the economic development practice. So we have shifted from largely looking to attract companies, a little bit of what we talked about previously, to very much focusing on investing in our most important assets. And certainly in Fairfax County,

[01:02:55] our most important assets include our people and our places. We call it here, we call it place-led economic development. Essentially, when we invested our places, it attracts talent, it attracts industry, and that benefits all of us. The county has very much been a leader in this shift. In 2019, Fairfax County established the Department of Economic Initiatives, which I am proud to lead to very much put this approach into practice.

[01:03:25] A few ways that we are doing that-- you'll actually see on your-- we have a project update in front of you that talks about some of our collective efforts and the connection between economic competitiveness and housing.

[01:03:40] We all have a role to play. And it's very important that we are focused on housing production that keeps and attracts talent at every level and across every industry and I was very excited to hear the Secretary's remarks on the state participating and leading in that as well.

[01:03:56] Another area we're putting approach into practice is we are building up our place and real estate development team to connect the whole placemaking network. That includes activations and public art partners, including Visit Fairfax and Arts Fairfax, our local chambers and our business support organizations that are charged with and leading the support of our business and our commercial areas.

[01:04:21] And one of our clearest proof points of this is Tyson's. In 2022, Fairfax County partnered with Tyson's Leader to launch the Tyson's Community Alliance. Tyson's continues to be, this term gets thrown a lot, but it is accurate in this case, continues to be an economic engine for the county, for the region, and really for the entire state. And so investment there should pay, and it does pay dividends to all of us. And what we're learning from TCA gives us a model that we can adapt to commercial corridors across the county. Corridors that are unique,

[01:04:59] have unique history, and unique communities, and unique assets to build on. So in a moment, Drew Sunderland will share the impact of the TCA's work. But first, to our business leaders, I would ask that as Drew is presenting, if you could just keep in mind kind of questions or feedback. And one question to consider is, what would make your business location a stronger draw for the people that you're trying to hire and keep? And if you could change or create or promote or activate one thing near your business, what would it be? We'd love to hear that from you.

[01:05:36] After Drew's remarks, we'd like to start again the conversation with the business community. And with that, I'm pleased to introduce Drew Sunderland, the President and CEO of the Tyson's Community Alliance. Thank you so much, Rebecca, and thanks to the Board of Supervisors for having me today.

[01:05:53] As Rebecca said, I am the relatively new CEO here at Tyson's Community Alliance. However, I'm not new to the Tyson stakeholder community. have been working in that coordinative capacity for 12 years, which really is actually a testament to the long-term vision of Tyson's requiring an implementation entity in order to achieve its maximal success. And that is a testament to many people in the room, certainly Supervisor Alcor and my friend Mark here, who date all the way back to the Tyson's Coordination Committee. So

[01:06:29] So it is a longstanding understanding that that type of platform is necessary to achieve success, and it is an honor to serve as the head of the TCA to lead that forward now. Again, I mean, the decades of planning has been there and the vision.

[01:06:46] TCA is focused now on turning that vision into tangible results. So let's start there. When I stepped into the role, I wanted to demonstrate how experience could be an economic development strategy.

[01:07:02] After all, we're here to try to attract people to place. That's what we all want, right? We want consumers. We want them to come, and they want them to come back. So we had the opportunity to focus on two major event initiatives this summer. One was a summer music festival, and two was a initiative, Copa Tyson's initiative, where we partnered with major players in Tyson's destinations and also businesses to create world-class watch parties.

[01:07:34] The premise was if we create an excellent experience, people will come, and then people will come back. The success of these initiatives was pretty remarkable. In the course of seven weeks, with our one team and also our partnership network with our public and private sector partners, Visit Fairfax on the public side was instrumental in helping us with sponsorships and promotion, as well as our major players at Capital One, Star Hill.

[01:08:02] We actually have the general manager of Star Hill joining us today, Brian Meridian at the borough, and then also Mace Rich at Tyson's Corner Center. We did, again, the 11 events across the span of those seven weeks, and we generated some real impact.

[01:08:21] Across the days of our events, those 11 days, we generated $4.78 million in consumer spending. Just to give you an idea, the baseline spend for a visitor in Tyson's is seven. So the premise that you provide, I mean, sorry, baseline spending is $20.

[01:08:39] So the premise is if you bring people to an event, you keep them there for a couple of hours. They spend money while they're at the event. Maybe they get a meal before or after. Maybe they wander into the mall after you've attracted them. Get them to place and then let the place capture them.

[01:08:55] In the course of those events, we also generated significant money for the county. We were activating restaurants where there's meals tax, sales tax revenues. We generated on those 11 days at least $68,000 of tax revenue for the county.

[01:09:16] On the earned media side, we also had a significant impact there. We were able to leverage media hits with our partners. We also just generated a lot because we had 31,000 people across these events showing up.

[01:09:32] It was great content for the media to come and cover. Additionally, we really demonstrated Tyson's as a broad venue for regional draw. I mean, 56% of the people that attended our events were from outside of Fairfax County. So how did we do it?

[01:09:53] Well, we were positioned to take advantage. The opportunity to host these events, coordinate with our partners, really represented a convergence of all of our various platforms and areas of focus. It was our four capabilities largely stated here as data and research.

[01:10:13] So starting with that, we were able to understand our consumer audience, know that Tyson's is a very diverse, very international audience. That's perfect content for soccer, right? That's a perfect cohort for soccer. The infrastructure.

[01:10:28] We've invested a lot of time and energy expanding our wayfinding and signage, making the Tyson's brand more visible in the environment while also making it easier for people to get around. Our partnerships. We have a robust board, public and private. We also, through doing events, have lots of relationships with vendors. We're able to cut costs through volume deals with vendors. Those savings are passed on to our private sector members. And then on the place brand standpoint, we're able to tell a collective story rather than just a watch party here,

[01:11:04] watch party there, so on and so forth, we're able to talk about a regional initiative, Copa Tysons, Copa Tysons at Star Hill, Copa Tysons at PenFed Plaza, so on and so forth. That creates great content, which gets absorbed by the media and generates significant engagement.

[01:11:21] So the convergence of all these things is what ultimately was able to lead to the high attendance numbers, the spending, and then people coming back. So why does place matter? So from an approach, place is an excellent opportunity for collaboration and economic development because it impacts everyone.

[01:11:46] If you activate a place, you bring direct value to the county, of course. You bring value to employers because if you create a place people want to be, that makes it easier for you to attract and retain employees. Developers, the more people want to come, the more people want to work, live, play, the more investment you make in the market to provide those opportunities.

[01:12:09] retail and hospitality, holding events at places where people can either stay, go to restaurants, generates business for them. And then for residents and visitors, people want vibrant places. So you're serving individuals while also helping the economy. On just the investment in place as a general model, TCA is certainly not the only example. There are many organizations like us.

[01:12:36] Uh, you have business improvement districts, uh, certainly in the region, you have, uh, place management organizations locally, regionally, international. The overall industry standard for the value of investing in place is that basically for every dollar you put in, you generate three.

[01:12:53] Going back to the results from our, uh, experience Tyson's initiatives, we demonstrated a seven X impact. So in terms of our approach, like I said, we, we, we really leaned in on the place experience, model this summer, but we also were working on the place enhancement. So the two work in concert with each other. Place experience is the engine. It's driving people there through events, through partnerships, through promoting things that our partners are doing that we're not even necessarily

[01:13:29] a partner in, but we promote them through our calendar. On the place enhancement side, that's what allows you to elevate the ceiling of the place. So that's where our work in the wayfinding and signage, in our transportation infrastructure, make steady investments in place that make it more hospitable.

[01:13:55] And together, those two components are what drive destination. And destination is really the rising tide that raises all ships. If we create a destination, that means We're bringing people to place, and they're coming back.

[01:14:12] So a quick overview of the numbers again. We've talked about a lot of these. But this is only possible through the convergence of our work and the collaborative platform that allows even the biggest players-- and we've got some big ones in Tysons-- things that they can't do by themselves can only be generated through that collective platform.

[01:14:35] These metrics, it's important to understand, actually only capture the immediate impact. Again, these are the numbers that were generated the day of our events. What this doesn't measure is a phenomenon that we saw play out certainly at Star Hill, where we would do an activation.

[01:14:54] Actually, June 19th, we did the US-Australia match. It was the most visited day of all time at the perch in Star Hill, and also broke Star Hill's single day sales record by a large margin. I received a text the next night from our friend Brian over there that showed a picture of the Mexico match where Star Hill was completely packed. And he simply said, the Copa effect. We were able to generate repeat visitors that didn't just come for the World Cup. They're continuing to come to Star Hill. He is now opening up early

[01:15:31] on Saturday mornings to cater to the soccer audience, we're generating new business that stays while also establishing a brand in Tyson's. So this speaks to that. I mean, this really demonstrates that we're trying to generate the impact, but also it's that lasting momentum that really is what matters.

[01:15:54] I can tell you about the direct ROI, but that indirect ROI is really what we're going for in the long term. So from strategy to impact, I've focused a lot on these big initiatives from over the summer, but I wanted to give a cross-section of what we do on a daily basis. I mean, yes, we have our big annual events. We have our focus on soccer through Copa Tyson's. We have our big music festival in the summer, but then we also do smaller events throughout the course of the year that are more community-focused, like our Tyson's Mixed Market. And then as a primary platform available to all of our stakeholders, our event calendar and our promotions that we do on social

[01:16:32] media make sure that the great things that our partners are doing are getting out and reaching the audience. We also have a very sophisticated data and market research capacity. We have our Tyson's Data Hub, which is available on our website. We also produce quarterly market reports that are really intended to inform our stakeholders and make sure we're getting our message out there to local, regional, national, and international audiences that Tyson's is a place for investment. And then on the infrastructure side, spoke a little bit about that. We've done

[01:17:07] a recent crosswalk extension, and we've also continued to do our signage and wayfinding expansion. So carrying it forward. The beauty of what we do here and a lot of what we do in Tyson's is we're pioneering things that work in Tyson's that also can be scaled throughout the county. We have gone through the growing pains so that you don't have to. Our model can work at scale through a very similar approach. Have that measurable results and that focus on activating

[01:17:41] place. Have programming that speaks to your consumer audience and make sure that you have the platform for collaboration among stakeholders. What we're doing moving forward is keeping that momentum going. We have the beauty of soccer is that there's always something big in the summer to activate around. We have the Women's World Cup this summer, and we're already coordinating with our stakeholders to put together our programming for that. We have the music festival returning, and we also are continuing our work expanding our wayfinding

[01:18:17] and signage network. I think, in short, what we want to demonstrate here is that what we had what we saw over this past six months was not lightning in a in a bottle was lightning in a model and we we and we and we intend to keep that shining bright I thank you all very much for your time today and open to answer any questions and everyone again thank you drew David Schneider I'm a lawyer with Holland and Knight but I have the privilege of serving as the board chair of the Tyson's Community Alliance and this entity was thought up when Tyson's was

[01:18:54] thought up in the fact of the comprehensive plan when Tyson's was amended knew this is a large area a big goal it needs an implementation entity that first entity was the Tyson's partnership I had the privilege of serving as the first chair of the emerging leaders at the time under Titans of Industry like past president Mark Carrier here but now I have the privilege of rising the ranks over the past 12 years and serving as board chair, implementing this vision. And I think one thing that makes this really unique is we have the privilege of being able to focus exclusively on Tyson's with the key stakeholders of Tyson's. From the county, from

[01:19:34] the public sector, from the residents to the private sector, we all sit in a room and decide what is it that we actually need using data to inform it. The county is phenomenal. We have lots of resources, but DOT is focused on the entire county.

[01:19:49] EDA is focused on the entire county. For us to truly have the boots on the ground, again, it's the privilege for us to just focus on within this border what is needed, because it's not a one-size-fits-all. What's going to work in other districts is not going to be what works in Tyson's, but we've learned where the stove is hot.

[01:20:07] We've learned how to pivot. We have a playbook that we feel on certain things. We were the first ones with the wayfinding signage, not to minimize it, but there's a provision in the zoning ordinance that says a non-profit entity in partnership with the board can put signage without needing a sign permit if it's approved by the board.

[01:20:25] So we're not taking away developers' monument signs by putting in a wayfinding sign, and little things like that have been instrumental. So just thank you to the county for its investment. We understand our charge is viewing this from the private sector lens. you're giving us X, you need to see the return. And so we understand that that is our specific charge. And so hopefully this presentation and Drew showed that, you know, we understand the charge. We are now data-led in being able to then quantify so that, you know, placemaking is great, but how do you quantify the soul of a place? So then that next step of how do we actually give

[01:21:00] you real numbers to justify the county's investment in this place? So thank you all. David, thank you so much for that. And Supervisor Sork, if I can just say something really quickly. The TCA has revamped itself to where we can now be somewhat predictive, and if we give them a dollar, they're going to give us seven back. And if that happens, then we are able to do other things throughout our county. I believe that we could do a lot of what we're doing in Tyson's and other areas to uplift our community. And Supervisor Stork, you and I have

[01:21:36] talked about it, Supervisor Smith, Supervisor Jimenez, Supervisor Alcorn, I believe, and everybody, I believe if we can create a concept of how we do business investment districts in Fairfax County to support and supplement what we do as a government to ensure that our residents and or our visitors have a place to come and thrive, Supervisor Harrety stated sports tourism. That is an investment district. And then what Drew has done with his algorithms as well as the math can showcase how we can do other things throughout our county. And

[01:22:15] as I said to Supervisor Smith last night, Sully is always on my mind. Wait, wait, wait. I thought that's what you told me. No, I said money-earning Mount Vernon. Oh. We have time for just a couple questions. I'm going to ask you probably sector folks and in terms of the board we will be having another we will be having a presentation on this so we're members we will be talking about this again but if there's any community leaders private sector folks who would like to comment we'd welcome your questions or comments hi Kathleen feathering and from Maximus so we're we're actually our headquarters is in Tyson's and the company I mentioned earlier that require also Tyson so it's

[01:22:55] agile defense one of the things that I love what you've talked about and stuff of bringing the community events but one thing I would suggest is how can you to expand that to professional development. So I lead AI. I am hiring AI people, all the things. We are not a company that requires people to be in the office. So we are also competing with I can work from home. So what are the reasons why would I come? Our people tend to come for connection and professional development. So things like maybe tech events where people can learn from each other, other types of professional development events and bring it together of where it is and that, hey, you're going to build your community, you're going to be able to learn, the pace

[01:23:34] of change of the technology changes means there's always a topic. Like there's 52 topics of AI at any given time that people can be able to build that network and community because that's one of the areas where the community events are great and they like those, but how do they actually further their career?

[01:23:52] That's a great point and absolutely an area for collaboration. giving that compelling draw to get them here and then the content programming to focus exactly on the professional diet. I think that's great. Thank you. Yes, sir. Drew, thank you for coming in and thank you for the collaboration over the many years at Tyson's. One of our most significant investments is across the street from the borough and that COPA Tyson's event at the borough was tremendous for our tenants and companies at that property where Bank of America is the anchor.

[01:24:29] Going forward, I think more of these community events, you think it's about sports tourism. A lot of the people we know go to New York, go to other places for 5Ks, for bike rides, for half marathons. And I tell everyone in the country and in the world, Tyson's is the equivalent CBD of Denver.

[01:24:48] And we have just as much office as downtown Denver. And that's top 10 in the country. So how do we continue to flesh out that brand? And we really appreciate having TCA as that brand ambassador to continue to push that. So keep going.

[01:25:04] Thank you. Actually, I wanted to add, one of the things that we're now collaborating with Visit Fairfax on is when we have these big regional sports tournaments, we'll often get emails from them saying, hey, we've got a couple hundred kids that are looking for something to do in Tyson's.

[01:25:20] And, you know, we'll work with local partners, including Star Hill, to see if there's a watch party that we can help set up to provide something to do for all these folks that are coming into Fairfax County. Thank you all. And I think it's crucial that we bring the schools into this, too, because young people are really what creates some of that dynamism.

[01:25:38] So I know we need to move on. And there'll be an opportunity for folks to talk further if they like. We need to start another committee meeting. But if you'd like to talk further, you can talk in the hallway or talk over in room eight. We've set that aside. I want to thank Secretary Chinnery and Bruce Sutherland for you all and your presentations today, as well as we will be having a summary of this information that we'll be sending out to everyone shortly.

[01:26:04] We recognize that the key points, insights, opportunities that were identified here for both human and economic development, in many ways that are aligned, are a crucial part of what we do to build the network and support each other. So I thank you all very much.

[01:26:20] Our next meeting is Tuesday, January 26, 2027 at 930. Until then, we are adjourned.

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