FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kalen Hunter, Program Director GO Virginia Region One
Email: khunter@uvawise.edu
Phone: 276-870-7731
(Wise, VA) June 24, 2020 – The GO Virginia State Board approved the Economic Resilience and Recovery funding for GENEDGE’s Re-tooling Virginia Manufacturers for Strategic Industries statewide competitive application on Tuesday, June 23, 2020.
Re-tooling Virginia’s Manufacturers for Strategic Industries, approved at $2,950,000 in response to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, will expand the capabilities of existing suppliers to develop sustainable ongoing revenues in the areas of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other medical chains. This project will also assist participating manufacturers to diversify their market and product offerings in response to federal initiatives that support re-shoring, critical and strategic sectors intentionally reducing sourcing risk and initiatives to bolster the Department of Defense supply chains.
This project is the first GO Virginia statewide competitive project that has the support of all nine GO Virginia Regions. Each Regional Council reviewed and approved the application to ensure the alignment of each region’s Growth and Diversification Plans.
GENEDGE is partnering with GO Virginia Regional Councils, Virginia Economic Development Partnership, National Institute of Standards Technology, Manufacturing Extension Partnership, Virginia Manufacturers Association, Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, colleges, universities, economic developers, and other regional and statewide partners.
Through the two-year life of the project, GENEDGE anticipates serving 50 businesses, creating or retaining 500 jobs, having $81,250,000 in new or retained revenues, and having $10 million in capital investments.
Bill Donohue, GENEDGE’s President and Executive Director, said that the COVID-19 pandemic brought home the importance of having a reliable, US. -based supply of critical products for health care as well as other strategic industries.
“The majority of PPE [personal protective equipment] is made in China,” Donohue explained. “As worldwide demand surged, we saw that countries without an internal supply were at risk of severe shortages. As a result, GENEDGE has two broad goals for this program: reduce our state’s risk of shortages in critical supplies, such as PPE, and use advanced manufacturing technologies to bring quality jobs back to Virginia, not only in medical PPE but in other industrial sectors where re-shoring supply chain components are advantageous. GENEDGE is very pleased to have the support of the regional and state GO Virginia boards.”
According to Mike Quillen, Chair of the GO Virginia Region One Council, “With advanced manufacturing being a target industry in Region One, the Regional Council felt this project could have a positive impact on the manufacturers within our region. We feel that scaling up clusters and re-shoring specific markets will be beneficial not only to Region One but to every region across the Commonwealth. We are excited about the opportunity to serve as the lead region on this project, and we look forward to helping move our manufacturing industry forward.”
ABOUT GENEDGE
GENEDGE is Virginia’s best public resource to help manufacturing and industry innovate, compete, and grow. We deliver consulting-based expertise and technology transfer to over 200 companies each year. Our team helps clients expand, diversify, improve top & bottom-line results, create jobs, and sustain employment. We are part of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership National Network™, which provides access to industry-wide services and proven, results-based solutions. GENEDGE affiliates include the Manufacturing Technology Center (MTC) in Wytheville and a premier network of over 50 partners and service providers.
For more information about GENEDGE, visit https://genedge.org/.
ABOUT GO VIRGINIA REGION ONE
The Virginia Initiative for Growth and Opportunity (GO Virginia) is a bipartisan, business-led economic development initiative that is changing the way Virginia’s diverse regions collaborate on economic and workforce development activities. The GO Virginia initiative is to promote the creation of high wage careers, private-sector job growth, and diversification across the Commonwealth through incentivized regional collaboration.
GO Virginia Region One represents thirteen counties and three cities in Southwest Virginia; including the counties of Bland, Buchanan, Carroll, Dickenson, Grayson, Lee, Russell, Scott, Smyth, Tazewell, Washington, Wise, and Wythe, and the Cities of Bristol, Galax, and Norton.
For more information about GO Virginia Region One, visit https://www.goswva.org/.