Under the rubble.

On a hill overlooking the modern town are the ruins of the original Conza. It is a unique place, even by Italian standards, where every development project turns up centuries of history. In Conza, the ruins of 41 years ago coexist with an ancient Roman city, Compsa, which had been hidden under houses, cellars, and streets until bulldozers dug to remove rubble after the quake. As an archaeological site it has layers—including all the eras between ancient and modern—but the experience of being there seems to flatten centuries of history so they all appear to exist in the same place at the same moment.

A lot of people think being an entrepreneur is just about coming up with a great idea. (In the tech industry, they often think it’s about having a great idea and being a great programmer.) But taking your idea from zero to IPO involves so many more tasks than simply building out the concept you’ve thought up.

Most advanced manufacturing jobs now require at least one year of formal education and continuing on-the-job training. This is an appropriate initiation point for the design of training and upskilling programs around component manufacturing in the wind energy sector. More than 200 companies within the footprint of our colleges could participate in the manufacture of wind turbine components – which means their existing employees will need upskilling and they will need new workers entering the pipeline. Experts forecast that maximum demand for manufacturers, with skilled workers, will be here by 2024. It’s time for us to make world-class education in this field happen.

“Instead of asking for help, we’re flipping the narrative and focusing on relationships and working with industries and companies on their terms, and building a business strategy that begins with a conversation about the region’s capabilities and what we bring to the table,“ InvestSWVA’s Will Payne said. InvestSWVA builds relationships and public-private partnerships for potential investments across the southwest Virginia region.

“The expansions didn’t result from going to the bank,” Michael explains. “Every office opened because we saved enough money to open it. That is not the typical way white businesses grow. They will go to a bank or a private equity firm and boom! You will all of a sudden see their footprint expand. Unfortunately, that was not going to work for this business.”