THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230344
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
A Forbes ASAP magazine survey finds Hampton Roads merely ``average'' when it comes to drawing companies into its fold.
ASAP must stand for ``as soon as possible,'' which bosses scrawl across orders. As soon as possible, Forbes should visit us and learn what makes this place great.
The survey scores us low in ``immigration.'' But to find a native you have to throw out a dragnet. Everybody's from somewhere else, including military folks who, after a career on the move, retire here to start anew. ``What would kick up the scores would be the presence of a major university,'' ASAP's editor told our Mylene Mangalindan.
How did ASAP miss Old Dominion, Norfolk State and Regent universities, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Christopher Newport, Virginia Wesleyan, the Armed Forces Staff College, five community colleges? The region has 80,000 students.
Old Dominion University has more engineering students than the University of Virginia and research funds of $50 million. It is NASA's top contractor. ODU's entrepreneurial center aids 100 businesses.
Its technology center helped found 60 firms. Its mechanical and engineering departments rank in the nation's top 20. The oceanography school is among the top five. The education school pioneers with a childhood development center.
Norfolk State is one of the nation's four historically black universities with accredited business schools. It has doctoral degrees in clinical psychology and social work. Its program for the gifted ranks nationally.
EVMS has centers of excellence in the Jones Institute, of worldwide renown, and Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters. Its teachers and graduates lift the region's medical care.
Regent, one of the nation's youngest universities, has a $100 million endowment. Its law school just showed a 20 percent increase in applicants. Last week its negotiating team won the ABA's national competition. The communications college hauls in awards.
At the Norfolk Naval Base complex, Rear Adm. Paul Moses has a 15-year plan (Vision 2010) to make the giant Norfolk Naval Base complex a waste-free dynamo. Hampton Roads hums with 130,000 active duty military personnel. As the Navy's capital, it expands during national draw-downs.
Shipbuilders rim our waters, including the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth for repairing vessels and Newport News Shipbuilding for turning out aircraft carriers.
We are awash in culture: the Chrysler, a major East Coast art museum; an arts center and growing aquarium at Virginia Beach; marine wonders with Nauticus; Portsmouth's Children's Museum, Hampton's Air and Space show; the growing Virginia Zoo.
Let ASAP editor Richard Karlgaard visit. See a carrier, a looming headland; theaters, opera house; miles of white sand; farms with sweet corn, cantaloupes, strawberries, ice cream of 14 percent butterfat. Bring the family. All on me. No pressure. Just fun.
It's Eden! by CNB