Youngkin announces $5.4M in Growth and Opportunity Virginia grants

Gov. Glenn Youngkin has announced $5,482,330 in Growth and Opportunity for Virginia grant awards for two projects focused on creating a critical talent pipeline to support the emerging advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing industry and expanding middle-mile broadband infrastructure to increase access and service quality to existing industry, as well as key economic development sites.

“Industry-responsive workforce development programs will play a critical role in jumpstarting our economy, as will increasing the marketability of sites through improved infrastructure, like broadband,” Youngkin said. “These projects will provide invaluable support to our goals of opening Virginia for business, reinvigorating job growth and delivering on our Day One promises.”

The GO Virginia board includes key members of the governor’s cabinet, leadership from the business community and the General Assembly, including Secretary of Commerce and Trade Caren Merrick and Secretary of Finance Steve Cummings.

Newly appointed House of Delegates members include Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert, Del. Terry Kilgore, House Majority Leader, Del. Barry Knight, chair of the House Committee on Appropriations, and Del. Terry Austin.

“GO Virginia plays an important role in developing the next generation of leaders and innovators across the Commonwealth,” Merrick said. “These projects showcase a collaborative approach by bringing regional partners together to expand and attract businesses and provide quality job opportunities to Virginians.”

“These recent efforts of the GO Virginia program demonstrate the critical nature of strategic thinking in these regions and how addressing near-term economic and infrastructure needs can create long-term economic growth opportunities,” said State Sen. Frank Ruff, a GO Virginia board member. “These two projects represent how regions can come together to combine public, private and federal resources to ultimately produce a tremendously positive impact on communities in these particular regions and around the Commonwealth.”

Since the program’s inception in 2017, GO Virginia has funded 209 projects and awarded approximately $81 million to support regional economic development efforts. To learn more about the GO Virginia program, visit dhcd.virginia.gov/gova.

2022 Awards

MBC Middle Mile Fiber Expansion Project | $5,000,000

Region 3: Counties of Prince Edward, Lunenburg and Mecklenburg

Region 4: Counties of Dinwiddie, Prince George and Sussex, and the city of Petersburg

Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Inc. will build six middle-mile broadband infrastructure segments that will provide critical broadband connectivity and diversity in nine localities. The effort will extend middle mile open-access fiber optic infrastructure to critical business and industrial parks in GO Virginia Regions 3 and 4, increasing marketability, reducing future infrastructure extension costs and providing a robust fiber connection that will enable private-sector telecom carriers to support business and industry on strategic economic development sites.

Building a Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Talent Pipeline | $482,330

Region 4: Counties of Chesterfield, Dinwiddie and Prince George, and the city of Petersburg

John Tyler Community College (JTCC), which is becoming Brightpoint Community College, has developed the Building a Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Talent Pipeline (BPMTP) project to offer career-training programs and credentials to emerging advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing technicians. The project will address regional interest in growing a diverse pharmaceutical manufacturing talent pipeline, offer programs and credentials that meet the emerging global pharmaceutical manufacturing sector’s immediate workforce demands and grow a diverse regional pipeline of skilled, advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing technicians.