It's WINDSday | October 25, 2023

Celebrating the Power of Wind, Clean Energy and a Green Environment

That’s Ann Ismail, second from left, beside three of the charter eight students in the state’s first high school Renewable Energy Lab, located at Virginia Beach’s Advanced Technology Center.

Ann is their teacher and what a find she was. A native of Sudan who worked in renewable energy (RE) in Abu Dhabi, she and her engineer husband and their four children relocated to Virginia Beach in 2013. In 2022, she was tutoring math students at Green Run High School when she saw the posting for the RE Lab position at the ATC and immediately applied and was hired.

Lyle Purser and Nicolas Cuevas

Zeller Mancuello shows off simulator

Today she is guiding students like senior Zeller Mancuello whose passion is biofuels. “I will earn key industry certifications here.” So will senior Nicolas Cuevas, below with 2023 ATC grad Kyle Purser. “The ATC is such a great place for this program to be,” says Kyle, now studying engineering at ODU.

Melissa Hazelwood, Ferguson; Jim Mears, BayPort Credit Union; Don Robertson, Acting VB School Supt.; Gary Artybridge, Newport News Shipbuilding

Perhaps that’s why three Peninsula based companies – Newport News Shipbuilding, Ferguson Enterprises and BayPort Credit Union – are major corporate investors in the Beach effort. “We have branches on both sides of the water,” said BayPort CEO Jim Mears, “so this is an investment in the entire region, teaching skills to keep more young people here.”

At the ATC, the motto is “Next is What We Do.” Clearly learning to harness the sun, wind and other natural sources of electricity and building distribution systems fits.

Click here to see everything on the course menu.

Being that Halloween is next Tuesday, we figured some pumpkin education was in order. And what better place to learn than at 45-year-old Chapman’s at the VB Farmer’s Market, where Ken and Judy and now son Ben mind the store.

Neither VA or NC (where most of these are grown) are major producers compared to Pennsylvania, Ohio, California or Texas (where pumpkin is the official state squash). A single Libby’s plant in Marion IL produces 85% of the processed pumpkin in the US.

As for the ones mostly for show, Chapman’s has whatever you want.  “Those are of course jack-o-lanterns,” says Ken, pointing to the familiar orange orbs. “That’s a Jarrahdale,” indicating the blue grey variety, “that’s a Cinderella, which are the brightest ones on the lot.” And the pumpkin of many colors? “That’s a blood shot eye,” says Ken, “because it looks like your pupils after a long night of drinking.”

From Superfreaks to Long Island Cheese (medium-sized tan type resembling a cheese wheel), there is a pumpkin here to fit any size stoop or table. And they last, through Thanksgiving and beyond. So if you’re looking for the right one for your home or office, stop at the shop with the WINDSday sticker. And take home some honey, jam, seashells and flowers while you’re at it, which are Chapman attractions 24/7/365.

As we reported last WINDSday, the first eight of 176 monopiles for Dominion’s CVOW project were on their way from Germany to Virginia. Well last Thursday, they arrived. Two tugs from WINDSday's friend McAllister Towing, the Rosemary and Alicia, handled the mooring. On Friday we will be on the pier at PMT for a closer look. Stay tuned.

Look up lumping, and you won’t likely find a definition that fits this story.

See here in Hampton Roads, about four million shipping containers arrive each year, many loaded to the gills with boxes.

Unloading and prepping them for consumers is called lumping, and in Hampton Roads, entrepreneur Ryan Thomas may be the Lumper in Chief. In warehouses across the region, Ryan’s team removes product from trucks, places it on pallets, and wraps the loads for transport to Amazon, CVS, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Lowe’s, TJ Max and other leading retailers. “We have handled parts of solar panels, so we are into renewable energy,” says Ryan, who has more than a hundred working full or part time on any given day.

“It’s really poetry in motion in these warehouses,” he marvels as his expert forklift drivers wheel about the floor. “And they work safely but also quickly.” That’s because they’re paid by the container, not the hour. “We unload 33% faster than an average temp,” says Thomas, a Portsmouth native who has an office in the city’s Bloom co-working space. 

Need a job? Click here for more information. Even if you’re an ex-felon, Ryan Thomas (second from right in photo) will consider you to be one of his poets…or lumpers.  

Ryan Thomas, second from right, with co-workers

The official coffee of the Detroit Tigers is Biggby’s, maybe no surprise since the company started in Lansing in 1995. Today it has 360 cafes nationwide. One is in Virginia, across from the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. 

Cathy Peters, a First Colonial High grad, and husband Mitch, a Lansing native and Air Force vet, were looking for a business to call their own.

“We always liked Biggby coffee, so we got our own franchise,” says Cathy.

Daughter Kaitlyn was home from VT when we visited, working behind the counter, mixing Lansing-roasted and grinded beans with a host of flavors and serving them with bagels, sandwiches, pastries and such.

This bistro was formerly a bank, with the vault now serving as a storage room. Open 6-6, don’t be surprised if more Biggby’s are in the area soon. 140 stores are in development with a corporate goal of 500 by the end of 2024. Welcome them to our java loving region the next time you’re heading to City Hall in Virginia Beach.

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