Photo above: The participants in the Pitches and Pints event hosted by Start-Up Tri-Cities May 4: Luke Champouillon, Paul Champion, Michael Rice, Ben Collins, grand prize winner John Cowan, Kingsport Mayor John Clark, who presented the check to Cowan, Charles Kunene and James Eaton. Photo by Scott Robertson By Scott Robertson Aspiring entrepreneurs presented ideas, gathered feedback, and in some cases, took ...

By Jeff Keeling Zero hour is back on the horizon for a state decision on Wellmont Health System and Mountain States Health Alliance’s proposal to merge. More than four months after an unexpected delay in the process, the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) announced May 22 it had deemed the systems’ application for a “Certificate of Public Advantage” (COPA) complete. TDH announced on its initial deadline f ...

Kingsport’s Silgan Closures has partnered with Northeast State to launch a registered apprenticeship program that provides a paycheck and job training at the same time. Four Silgan employees will participate in the four-year program, receiving classroom instruction from the College’s Regional Center for Advanced Manufacturing (RCAM) and on-the-job training from Silgan.  At the end of the program, the worker ...

Photo above: Ron Ramsey poses in front of the newly opened center, May 20. A new meeting facility available to businesses and organizations began operations last month, bearing a familiar name. Before a crowd of nearly 300 people, the Ron Ramsey Agriculture Center near the Tri-Cities airport officially opened its doors May 20. “For many years, I served not only the people of Sullivan County, but also the ci ...

Stephen Moret outlines his economic agenda for Southwest Virginia at the SWVA Economic Forum, May 10. Photos by Tim Cox Photo/Graphics By Scott Robertson Stephen Moret brought a simple message to the SWVA Economic Forum at UVa-Wise May 10: Southwest Virginia no longer ends at Roanoke in the minds of the Commonwealth’s economic development partnership. Moret, who was named the VEDP’s CEO last November, outli ...

Photo above: Ryan Short receives his white coat at the Lincoln Theatre ceremony May 22. Photo courtesy Emory & Henry College By Scott Robertson Thirty first-year students donned white coats for the first time to inaugurate a one-of-a-kind program at Emory & Henry May 22. The Department of Physician Assistant Studies’ first class will center its studies at the Marion, Va., campus once owned by Mounta ...

Photo above: Officials with Frontier Secure, the Wise County IDA and the Virginia Coalfields Economic Development Authority pose with a $5.6 million check last June in Wise. Photo by Tim Cox Photo/Graphics By Scott Robertson Sykes Enterprises acquisition of Frontier Secure, formerly a division of Frontier Communications, will not affect the repayment of the $5.6 million Virginia Coalfield Economic Developme ...

Photo above: The Micronic Technologies team The second in a series of articles by the United Way of Southwest Virginia Necessity is the mother of invention, and fewer needs are greater than the need for clean water. That need inspired Karen Sorber and her husband Kelly Rock to start Micronic Technologies in 2008. Sorber said, “In 2007, a year prior to marrying my husband, I was in Peru on a humanitarian vis ...

By Scott Robertson I noticed something unusual during Memorial Day lunch. On the TV in the corner of the restaurant, ESPN was running a “breaking news” crawl in the holiday baseball game, and giving credit to another media outlet for the story. There were a couple of things unusual about that. First, ESPN is infamous in media circles for stealing other people’s stories and attributing the news to “sources.” ...

Officials with Frontier Secure, VCEDA and the Wise County IDA pose with a $5.6 million check, June 29, 2016. Thursday, May 25, 4:30 p.m. – The anticipated sale of Frontier Communications’ subsidiary Frontier Secure to Sykes Enterprises will not affect the repayment of a $5.6 million Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority loan that had paved the way for Frontier Secure to open its Wise, Va., facil ...