Manufacturing profile of New River Valley rifle maker, May 2014

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Bill Alexander spent much of his career designing armor in the United Kingdom and taking part in the steadily escalating arms race of the Cold War.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, Alexander’s focus shifted from tanks to small arms, and in 2001 he started Alexander Arms in Radford with a pilot product that adopted the AR-15 for larger caliber ammunition.

Today, 13 years after opening, Alexander Industries is gearing up for an expansion with a $2.8 million investment into a new, 25,000-square-foot facility in Dublin (Va.) Industrial Park.

Read more about Alexander Industries, its products, history and plans for the future in my manufacturing profile in the May 2014 issue of Roanoke Business Magazine. You can read it online here.

New work: Politics story in Washington Post, 4/26/2014

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I worked as the lead political reporter in the Roanoke Times’ newsroom for more than seven years, but since leaving I really haven’t written a politics story (** well, aside from this Jan. 2014 Roanoke Business story about how western Virginia businesses make political contributions — but it’s more of a business story**).

That changed Saturday when the Washington Post published my story on former Virginia House Speaker Vance Wilkins’ attempt to comeback from political exile. Wilkins helped build a Republican majority in the state house, and in 2000 he became Virginia’s first Republican speaker. He resigned only two years later, one week after the Post published a story that he’d paid a former staffer $100,000 to settle a sexual harassment claim.

He’s quietly worked with a few candidates in Republican primaries but mostly had remained out of site in his Amherst County home. After a string of statewide Republican defeates, Wilkins re-emerged this spring to challenge Wendell Walker, a man who came up working with Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority group in Lynchburg, for 6th District Republican Committee chairman.

The result, as reported yesterday after the convention: Wilkins failed.

Although he outperformed expectations of many Republicans I spoke to, but Wilkins ultimately couldn’t overcome Walker. The defeat means that although Wilkins may continue to be active in Republican politics, he won’t play nearly as central or public a role.

You can find my story in the Washington Post here, and you can find the follow-up (by Martin Weil, not me) here.

New work in Virginia Tech Magazine’s Spring 2014 issue

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Mid-April saw the publication of the spring 2014 issue of Virginia Tech Magazine, which includes my first work there.

I wrote the “How Tech Ticks” feature for the issue. “How Tech Ticks” uses a mix of graphics and text to illustrate research, facilities and other projects. My story looks at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility near the Ripplemead limestone mine in Giles County. It also breaks down a particle physics experiment conducted by Virginia Tech researchers there.

Additionally, Virginia Tech issued a news release announcing my hire there.

Where to find my stories, April 2014

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This month you can find my byline spread across five stories in three publications.

The most high-profile story runs in Delta Sky Magazine. The magazine’s new issue features a special section on the Roanoke and New River Valley region. Delta Sky Mag’s circulation is about 600,000 and the magazines are carried on all U.S. and international flights. I wrote a business profile that is paired with a travel feature by Jenny Kincaid Boone. You can read both stories online here.

Roanoke Business magazine runs three of my stories this month. I covered the Salem Red Sox, the reigning Carolina League champions, and how they use promotions, sponsorships and timing to create revenue. Bottom line: It takes more than a trophy to sell tickets to minor-league baseball games. That story included a sidebar on the Pulaski Mariners, which face similar challenges but in an even more rural atmosphere. Finally, I wrote a story profiling Franklin County, which matches its geographically diverse nature with an equally diverse economy. It looks at growing local companies like Homestead Creamery and international manufacturers like McAirlaids.

Finally, the spring issue of Virginia Tech Magazine, to be published later this month, will include an illustrated story on particle physics experiments conducted at Kimballton Underground Research Facility, a laboratory located in a working limestone mine 1,750 feet beneath a Giles County mountain.

Where to find my stories, March 2014

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This month you can find my work in two different but related publications.

Virginia Business published two of my stories as part of its annual “Big Book” issue. One story looks at Southwest Virginia’s 2013 in economic development — specifically the return of manufacturing and industry. The story includes a list of the region’s largest employers and the biggest economic deals of 2013 in terms of job creation. A second, related story examines the region’s “big deal” — in this case Roanoke County’s successful landing of Ardagh Group, a Luxembourg-based food packaging company that will invest $93.5 million to convert the former Hanover Direct building into a can-manufacturing plant.

Additionally, Roanoke Business published my story for businesses about how to prepare for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. What do you need to know? What’s the employment threshold for providing mandated health insurance? How to part-time workers figure in to that calculation? What can you do now to prepare for future years? I spoke to Roanoke-based attorneys who provided those answers, along with other advice for businesses coping with the law. Find it in the March issue of Roanoke Business, on stands or online here.

New endeavors for 2014

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Fozzie OsbourneThe first few months of 2014 have produced a number of changes here.

Starting on Feb. 10, 2014, I started a new part-time job as assistant editor for Virginia Tech Magazine, a quarterly publication with circulation of about 200,000 that is aimed at alumni and friends of VT.

Disclosure-wise, this means that moving forward I will not be covering any stories directly involving Virginia Tech. Stories with less direct involvement will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. I’ll use this site & blog for disclosures as they come up.

The shift on Feb. 10 also meant the end of my work as a full-time staffer at SustainFloyd. I continued to work several hours per week through Friday, Feb. 28, but any future work for SF will happen only on an ad hoc basis.

This same time period saw other news for my family. We spent the fall and winter acquiring a small herd of dairy goats and starting this month have been milking on a daily basis. My wife started making cheese this week, with the intention of spending 2014 developing recipes and building a base of supporters with the hopes of eventually building the infrastructure required by VDACS to become a small farmstead cheese maker.

You can follow news about our goat herd and this new business, called Thickety Springs Farmstead, on its Facebook page or on my informal Tumblr page (note: The Tumblr account is my personal one and includes additional content as well as the farm-related photos & media).

Finally, the freelance business is slowly growing. I picked up two new clients so far in 2014. Look for more on that here on the blog and on my Twitter stream as those stories are published.

Who Southwest Virginia businesses supported in the 2013 elections

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My newest story for Roanoke Business magazine hit the stands this month. It looks at who businesses in the Roanoke and New River valleys supported during Virginia’s 2013 elections.

While most of the media attention focused on the competitive statewide races, most local businesses went the other way, with most of their dollars going to candidates in the lower-profile General Assembly elections.

Why?

1) Those races tend to be less competitive. Even when there’s a challenger (and in many cases there’s not) it’s usually easy to pick the winner. That makes campaign giving less of a gamble.

2) The stakes are lower and the districts are smaller, meaning that dollars (and potential influence) stretch farther.

3) Most importantly, the General Assembly is where laws and policy are made. The vast majority of bills that come through the legislature get hashed out at the committee level and pass with little or no controversy. Having a sympathetic ear at that level makes sense for businesses who may be affected by said laws and policy.

Final observation: A lot of businesses effectively outsource their campaign research, donating to trade organizations and their political action committees, which then focus their giving to the most influential legislators (often defined by seniority on a relevant committee).

You can read more in my story, either online or in Roanoke Business magazine, which is available on the way out of regional grocery stores or in the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce.

UPDATED: 11th House District Special Election Preview

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Update, Friday, Jan. 10: This race turned out to be a blowout. You can read my quickie analysis (written & posted Wednesday, the day after the election) at Bearing Drift here. End of update.

The unexpected retirement of Del. Onzlee Ware, D-Roanoke, from Virginia’s House of Delegates late last year created a mad scramble to fill his seat.

That district likes entirely within the city of Roanoke and is therefore considered a safe Democratic hold. However, a fractious primary and splinters within the city party make it less so this year.

I brought five years of experience covering Roanoke city politics to this analysis, published Saturday as a guest column on Virginia conservative politics blog Bearing Drift.

The special election for Ware’s old seat takes place on Tuesday.

Favorite Music of 2013

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Caveats:

1) I’m too old and poor to try and hear everything anymore. I enjoyed Kanye West’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” in 2010 but didn’t feel compelled to search out “Yeezus” this year. I buy what I like, and sometimes fate brings me new music that I find I like too.

2) I didn’t even get to hear everything that I do like. Melt Banana is one of my top 25 bands of all time, but I didn’t get around to hear “Fetch” except through an online stream, once. No doubt it would be on this list if I had a chance to dig in further.

3) This is a snapshot of December 2013. Catch me on a different day and I’ll be talking about how ASG is the new Jane’s Addiction but with more southern flair, or how Rotting Christ’s new album does for the orcs what Amon Amarth does for the heroes of “Lord of the Rings.”

So with that:

15. Busta Rhymes & Q-Tip – “The Abstract & the Dragon”

This mixtape came out so late in the year that I haven’t had time to fully absorb it, but I’ve listened enough to knock Steve Martin & Edie Brickell’s duet LP “Love Will Come to You” off the list. This mixtape is a conscious return to the boom-bap styles of “Low End Theory,” which of course helped launch Busta Rhymes as a hop-hop star. I like all the tracks pretty well, and about half are fantastic, which is a pretty good percentage for the first few listens.

14. Action Bronson & Party Supplies – “Blue Chips 2”

The second “Blue Chips” mix from Action Bronson, this time pairing him with Party Supplies, plays just like a good mixtape should: It’s got fun samples and the rhymes feel appropriately loose and spontaneous. Action Bronson maintains his usual wit while continuing to develop his own style, i.e. he doesn’t sound like Ghostface any more.

13. Run the Jewels – “Run the Jewels”

I guess this was intended as a quick toss-off collaboration between Killer Mike and El-P. Certainly it doesn’t run nearly as deep in terms of themes as Killer Mike’s awesome “R.A.P. Music” last year. That makes it all the more fun in some ways, as the two rappers blast through loud soundscapes, rhyming about verbal violence the whole way.

12. Inter Arma – “Sky Burial”

Inter Arma hails from Richmond, a city whose metal scene I’d stack against any in the U.S. Inter Arma continues to showcase the malleability of black metal, mixing it here to great effect with post-rock’s epic builds.

11. Lee Ranaldo & The Dust – “Last Night on Earth”

Sonic Youth has broken up, but it continues through the splinter projects of its various members. I’ve always thought Ranaldo was the most underrated member of the band, but while his SY contributions have been the most songwriterly of the group, his previous solo work has been mostly driven by guitar feedback. That changed here with an album devised in part as a tribute to the Grateful Dead. Strong songs, well played that advance Ranaldo’s career arc while throwing plenty of red meat to Sonic Youth fans as well.

10. Dillinger Escape Plan – “One of Us Is the Killer”

DEP is the spiritual and audio successor to Faith No More, and “One of Us Is the Killer” continues to make that clear. Vocalist Greg Puciato almost sounds a little *too much* like Mike Patton at times, but that’s appropriate for a band and a record that veers as much as this one does. There are plenty of breakneck mathcore songs, but they’re broken up by dips into other styles and genres so that it doesn’t get repetitive or boring.

9. Phosphorescent – “Muchacho”

Ambient alt-country in the vein of Emmylou Harris’s “Spyboy” period and collaborations with Daniel Lanois. In this case, however, Matthew Houck did pretty much everything himself — though he notably admitted Brian Eno as an influence.

8. Carcass – “Surgical Steel”

Fantastic return to form from the grindcore/death-metal legends. Even without Michael Amott (Arch Enemy) they essentially wrapped together their first four classic albums (minus “Swansong,” which isn’t so bad if you take it as a great death’n’roll record) with a heavy focus on “Heartwork.” Here’s to another 10 years.

7. Portal – “Vexovoid”

Crazy on-the-edge death metal that will sound bizarre and scary to folks who aren’t into death metal or even those who are if they skew to the traditional stuff. That’s a good bit of the reason why I like it: It’s different and kind of fun, and if you listen enough the patterns start to reveal themselves, and you start to look at music and life a little differently.

6. Kylesa – “Ultraviolet”

Kylesa, on the other hand, is following its fellow Georgia bands by evolving away from sludge into something else. The great thing about this Georgia sludge movement, though, is that that “something else” is different for Mastodon, Baroness & now Kylesa. When I first streamed “Ultraviolet” I got a little bored, but it quickly settled in under my skin and has become one of my favorite front-to-back listens this year.

5. Black Twig Pickers – “Rough Carpenters”

The Black Twig Pickers have lit up Southwest Virginia’s old-time scene with a series of albums, live performances and side projects over the last few years, to the point where they’ve landed a place on Thrill Jockey and left a national mark as well. “Rough Carpenters” ups the ante by adding second fiddler Sally Anne Morgan. It’s their strongest album to date and bodes well for the future.

4. Chance the Rapper – “Acid Rap”

Chance the Rapper seems to bypass trends and movements, and as a result this mixtape is a stylistic thing unto itself. In a lot of ways it reminds me of last year’s “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City” from Kendrick Lamar, not so much in style as in the fact it so perfectly sketches out an individual and the city, lives and world around him. Witty, funny, sad and soulful, this was not just my favorite hip-hop debut this year, but my favorite hip-hop record overall.

3. William Onyeabor – “Who Is William Onyeabor?”

Rarely has the joy of discovery struck me more deeply than did finding the music of William Onyeabor this year. I’d heard his “Better Change Your Mind” on Nigeria 70, of course, but hearing an isolated track on a compilation doesn’t hit quite as hard as a full-album immersion. Onyeabor’s music ran far ahead of its time, to the point where it still sounds timeless and futuristic all at once. Compare him to Sun Ra or George Clinton or Thelonious Monk; similar to Chance the Rapper, Onyeabor’s music lives in a universe of its own.

2. Cough/Windhand – “Reflection of the Negative”

For a good chunk of the year, this was my favorite record. It set the stage for Windhand’s double LP “Soma,” which made a lot of other top-10 lists, but this was the superior effort for me. Windhand’s two songs here would sit among the stronger tunes on “Soma,” too, but in this context they’re paired with the 18-minute “Athame,” a beast of a dirge from Cough. Two great tastes that doom great together. I found myself returning to this well early and often.

1. SubRosa – “More Constant Than the Gods”

Only doom can displace doom, and as much as “Reflection of the Negative” stuck in my craw, it couldn’t help but be jarred loose by the soaring violins and dirgey riffs of SubRosa’s “More Constant Than the Gods” when it came out in September. SubRosa’s last album, “No Help for the Mighty Ones,” came as a revelation to me in 2011 and it’s remained a fixture in my playlists. “More Constant” tops it with better songwriting, a better array of stylistic diversity and tunes that got firmly lodged beneath the skin and on a loop in my head.

Best album from 2012 discovered this year: Royal Thunder “CVI”

Metal-influenced rock anchored by a powerhouse female singer who’s not afraid to belt out her songs. In some ways Royal Thunder feels like the modern-day version of Heart, but that’s saddling them with unfair expectations. I first heard Royal Thunder through the Requiem Metal Podcast’s “Best of 2012” episodes before sampling them through the free, 3-song acoustic “CVI:A.” By the time I got around to checking out the full album, the pump was primed and it hit me right.

Best concert: Dave Rawlings Machine in Asheville, Nov. 22 at the Grey Eagle, Asheville, NC

Dave Rawlings Machine, from left: John Paul Jones, Dave Rawlings, Gillian Welch, Paul Kowert & Willie Watson

Dave Rawlings Machine, from left: John Paul Jones, Dave Rawlings, Gillian Welch, Paul Kowert & Willie Watson

My wife & I went to this show in Asheville with the expectation of seeing Dave Rawlings, Gillian Welch and some songs from “A Friend of a Friend,” Rawlings’ great 2009 album. We did get that — but we also got unexpected appearances from current & former members of the Punch Brothers and Old Crow Medicine Show. We got a version of the Great American Songbook — the show opened with “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and included “Dear Landlord > Candyman > Dear Landlord,” “Queen Jane Approximately,” “The Weight,” “I Hear Them All > This Land Is Your Land” and more.

And we got to unexpectedly see a living legend, in unannounced guest John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin. Jones played mandolin and wasn’t formally acknowledged until near the end of the second set. I can see why he wasn’t announced — I can’t imagine this show had it been full of Zep fans screaming for their favorite tunes, when the only Zep cover the Dave Rawlings Machine played was “Going to California.”

Instead, we were treated to a night of well-played songs, including a JPJ mandolin solo on Welch’s “Wayside/Back In Time” that I’ll remember for quite some time. There’s a fuller review of the tour-opening Knoxville show here, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a live album from this tour at some point.

Sprawling community profile of Roanoke Valley and NRV in Virginia Business

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Ignacio Saez is an assistant professor at Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. Photo courtesy Virginia Tech

Earlier this year I took an assignment to write a community profile of the Roanoke Valley and New River Valley for Virginia Business magazine.

That story, which includes looks at the region’s manufacturing, tech sector, tourism, local food, craft brewing, retail, real estate and more, has now been published. It’s online here at the Virginia Business website, or you can find it in the print edition this month.