Mark Warner - U.S. Senate

In his first address to Virginia’s General Assembly in 2002, Governor Warner promised to be the state’s chief economic development officer. He kept that promise through four years of tireless efforts to expand Virginia’s economy and to bring good jobs to all Virginians. Those efforts had a dual focus: building on Virginia’s dynamic economic strengths and rebuilding the economically distressed areas of the Commonwealth that had fallen victim to the forces of global economic change. Virginians saw great success in both of those efforts.

As a career businessman, Governor Warner was uniquely suited to lead Virginia’s economic development efforts. He understood the needs of business. He was always looking for new solutions to old problems, yet kept a disciplined eye on practicality and the bottom line. He ran for office with the proposition that young people in rural and small town Virginia should be able to find good jobs in their home communities and should not have to move away to find meaningful work, and he used his considerable skills as a salesman to bring these ideas to reality.

Creating Good Jobs Statewide

During Governor Warner’s term – despite a period of national economic downtown, 121,938 new jobs were created in Virginia and 12,182 jobs at risk of being located elsewhere were retained. In sum, Governor Warner took office during a difficult economic period, but by the time he left office, Virginia was outpacing the nation in employment and income growth.

The numbers compared favorably to other parts of the country as well. When the Governor took office in January 2002, Virginia’s unemployment rate of 4.1% was tied for 11th lowest in the country. When he left office in January 2006, Virginia’s unemployment rate of 3% was tied for the 2nd lowest.

Rebuilding Our Rural Economy

Guided by his principle that you shouldn’t have to leave home to get a good job, he also focused on creating new jobs in rural areas, smaller cities and central cities that had been hard hit by global economic change.

When Governor Warner took office, seven jurisdictions in Virginia had double-digit unemployment rates. All were industrial cities or rural counties. By the time he left office, and for the first time in more than a dozen years, not a single locality in Virginia faced double-digit unemployment.

Fundamental changes in the coal, textile and furniture industries hit Southwest and Southside Virginia especially hard during Governor Warner’s term. With a focused effort on diversifying these local economies, the Commonwealth helped attract more than $2 billion in new capital investment in Southwest and Southside Virginia, creating and retaining a combined total of more than 32,000 jobs.

Refocusing the Commonwealth’s Business Recruitment Efforts

Governor Warner recognized that it is often harder to recruit new business to Virginia’s smaller cities and more economically distressed areas than it is to find businesses interested in moving to fast-growing areas like Northern Virginia.

For that reason, he mounted a successful effort to better coordinate the economic development efforts of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the state’s lead employer recruiting arm, with those of local economic development officials in Virginia’s Southside and Southwest areas.

By the end of the Warner Administration, with the exception of several large unique projects, over 82% of the grants from the Governor’s Opportunity Fund – a fund used at the Governor’s discretion to secure a company location or expansion in Virginia – were flowing to non-metropolitan areas and small cities.

Responding to Economic Crises

Governor Warner created the Economic Crisis Strike Force to establish a one-stop shop for workers in communities hit by a sudden economic dislocation, such as the loss of a major employer. These one-stops made it easier for displaced workers to access a wide range of federal, state, and local assistance that was available. In addition, they provided a range of useful information and services to help workers seek out new employment opportunities and pursue retraining for new skills.

One-stops proved extremely successful. The three one-stops established during the Warner administration resulted in more than 1,713 job placements. And unlike most government programs that are created to serve a particular need but then take on a life of their own, these one-stops were closed when the local crisis ended.

Creating Innovative Economic Development Programs

When Governor Warner took office, state government pursued economic development the same way it had for many years, despite the fact that those efforts often were not working in the most distressed economies. Rural Virginia needed innovative ideas, and Governor Warner helped provide them.

In 2004, the Governor unveiled Virginia Works, a multifaceted approach to jumpstart the economy of rural Virginia.

• A Motorsports Initiative was established to attract motorsports teams and businesses that support those teams to Southside Virginia.
• A Community Development Bank was created with $15 million in capital from existing state loan programs to help provide business capital in the distressed areas of the Commonwealth.
• Regional Workforce Consortium Grants directed $2 million to local partnerships that developed innovative programs to train the local workforce in the skills that employers needed now and in the next five years.
• Virginia Works provided funds for the creation of two artisan centers, one near Abingdon and one near Staunton, to showcase and market homegrown arts and crafts.
• New tourism initiatives promoted the unique heritage-based and natural resource attractions of rural Virginia, including the rails-to-trails program in Southside and the Crooked Road Heritage Music Trail in Southwest.

Reviving Our Central Cities

Governor Warner attacked economic development in Virginia’s older central cities with the same fervor as he did in Virginia’s rural areas. In particular, because of the considerable cultural and economic assets of Virginia’s cities, the Governor particularly focused on recruiting large employers who brought high-paying jobs to central cities.

Much as he did with the state’s rural areas, Governor Warner recognized that suburban areas of Virginia were often the default location of choice for prospective businesses. Accordingly, the Governor worked particularly hard to make sure that urban locations were given full consideration by these companies. Many of the largest new employers and new investments announced during the Warner Administration were in Virginia’s older central cities, including:

• Philip Morris Headquarters, production plant improvements, and a research and technology facility – $600 million investment and 950 new high-paying jobs in Richmond.
• Maersk shipping terminal – $450 million investment and 210 high paying jobs in Portsmouth.
• Boehringer Ingelheim pharmaceutical plant expansion – $260 million investment, 165 high-paying jobs in Petersburg.

Enhancing Virginia’s Strengths

A key part of Governor Warner’s economic development strategy for Virginia was to enhance its already considerable economic strengths. He recognized the need for hard work to help sustain the economically distressed parts of the state, but that the continuing success of Virginia’s more dynamic areas was essential to the state’s prosperity.

So Governor Warner focused on key engines of Virginia’s prosperity: the defense and homeland security industries; the Port of Virginia; the information technology, business services and telecommunications industries; the biotechnology and bioscience industries; and the forest products industry.

These efforts included specific initiatives, focused recruitment strategies, and the Governor’s personal participation in the Commonwealth’s recruitment and sales efforts. A highlight of these efforts occurred on November 17, 2004 when Governor Warner announced over 11,100 new jobs on a single day in the defense, homeland security and IT sectors.

Defense and Homeland Security

A great new program launched by Governor Warner was the Virginia Initiative for Modeling and Simulation (VIMSIM). VIMSIM brought together the resources of Virginia’s research universities, 17 private companies who provided modeling and simulation services to the Department of Defense, economic development professionals at the state and local level, and Virginia’s top-notch community college system.

The Governor recognized that modeling and simulation – even including the video game industry – was an expanding economic activity that could provide long term growth and high paying jobs in the Hampton Roads region where it is clustered. An independent economic analysis prepared for Old Dominion University at the end of 2007 determined that modeling and simulation provided almost 4,500 high-wage jobs (an increase of 25% over three years) and an economic impact worth $365 million (an increase of 41% over three years) to the region.

The Port of Virginia

The Warner Administration initiative also worked to strengthen Virginia’s port facilities and business. This initiative included the successful effort to recruit the huge new AP Moeller port terminal to Portsmouth. The success of these efforts is reflected in the rapid growth in cargo volume through the Port, increasing from 11.5 million tons of general cargo the year before Governor Warner was inaugurated to almost 16 million tons during his final year in office. In addition, Governor Warner made one of his top priorities the security of the Port of Virginia and the millions of cargo containers that arrive at the Port from all over the world. Governor Warner supported additional funding to purchase new technology and equipment to enhance port security in Virginia.

Growing Biotechnology and Biosciences

Governor Warner also identified biotechnology and biosciences as important areas of growth for the Virginia economy. During the Warner administration, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced the creation of their gigantic $500 million Janelia Farms research campus in Loudoun County to focus on cutting-edge life science research. Philip Morris announced a $300 million research and technology facility in Richmond, Barr Labs expanded in Bedford, Merck made additional investments in Elkton, Wyeth built new expanded facilities in Henrico, and Boerhringer Ingelheim invested millions into new pharmaceutical production facilities in Petersburg.

Building a Better Workforce

When Governor Warner took office, Virginia’s workforce development efforts were scattered across a number of agencies and administered by a large and cumbersome Virginia Workforce Council. As a result, the state’s workforce development efforts became bogged down in bureaucratic wrangling and too often failed to focus on the needs of employers. So the Governor appointed a special advisor for workforce development to provide coordination among the divergent programs.

In 2004 the Governor created the Career Readiness Certificate as a meaningful skills credential for Virginia high school students and workers. The certificate helps employers determine who has specific real world skills to succeed on the job. During the 2004-2005 school year, 5,487 Virginia students earned industry certification or state licensure. The program’s success caught the attention of other states, and several states in the region adopted CRC programs that could be carried across state lines.

Promoting Affordable Housing

Governor Warner recognized that access to financing is the key to affordable housing. To that end, he helped to create the Commonwealth Housing Fund, a new source of financing for housing low and moderate income Virginians. The Governor also directed state agencies to create innovative partnerships to help increase affordable housing opportunities. As a result, DHCD directed $750,000 to a new partnership with Habitat for Humanity, providing down payment and closing cost assistance to more than 100 families, and jump-starting the program’s 1,000 home goal.

Governor Warner demonstrated his commitment in other ways, too. He made it a priority to attend the annual Governor’s Housing Conference, which recognizes and celebrates the most successful, innovative and effective efforts to meet Virginia’s diverse housing needs.

In 2003, the Warner Administration launched Project Genesis – a faith-based, community education initiative designed to increase homeownership opportunities for African-Americans. The program enrolled 1,700 participants in the Richmond area alone. The Governor also oversaw creation of the Virginia Fair Housing Board to help reduce housing discrimination and unfair housing practices in Virginia.

Governor Warner also was a strong advocate for full funding for the Community Development Block Grant Program, a federal program that Virginia uses to fund approximately $10 million annually in affordable housing projects in smaller, underserved communities. His leadership helped stop efforts in Washington to substantially reduce the CDBG program.