It's WINDSday | November 29, 2023

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

Dyan was a 4th grade teacher in Michigan when she decided to have her students compose letters to someone in the military. Her principal suggested her son Jason Witt, a Navy helicopter pilot. That idea turned into a love story. Today Mr. and Mrs. Witt live in Larchmont, are parents of a 14-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter, and neither is teaching or flying. 

“At first I wanted him to become a commercial airline pilot,” says Dyan. But Jason “was ready for a job where I could be close to home.” He found one, within minutes of their Norfolk house. The old Taste restaurant and headquarters on Hampton Boulevard was vacant, COVID partially to blame. No longer. The couple sunk a small fortune into a complete renovation, creating the most spectacular location of Waters Edge Winery, a national operation that allows its local owners to source their own grapes, from leading regions like France, Italy, Germany, Chile and California, and create their own ambiance and varietals.

Not a winemaker when he took the plunge, Jason is now, thanks to Waters Edge and his own intense dedication (“just like in the Navy, you follow the checklist.”) The high energy Dyan is a full partner in this venture as are their kids, part time hostess Ava and busser Brady. 

“This has been great for our family,” says Mrs. Witt, “considering that Jason was gone 428 days on deployments back in 2020-21.” Waters Edge Norfolk has a talented chef, Fazion McGee, and a tasty menu (CLICK HERE), available both indoors and, in good weather, out.

From fermenting the crushed grapes to corking and hand labeling, all wine is handcrafted on site. There’s a retail market here too with 13,000 bottles of reds and whites plus sangrias with catchy titles like “Lime in the Coconut” that the couple blended.

“We’ll produce a WINDSday wine,” says Jason. Do it, and there will be a WINDSday party in the future for this outstanding addition to Norfolk’s, and the region’s, lunch, dinner and weekend brunch scene.

Nahla Saleh, Manager of Workforce Development, and Sonja Briggs, Workforce Development Specialist at Portsmouth@Work

That’s Nahla Saleh, Manager of Workforce Development, standing with Sonja Briggs, Workforce Development Specialist at Portsmouth@Work, essentially the city’s own workforce development agency.

“We will fund 100% for training to eligible Portsmouth employees to help advance or upscale them in their current role,” says Saleh who notes that only Hampton and Norfolk have similar programs. But only Portsmouth has Nahla, a first generation Yemeni-American by birth who met her Navy husband in Chicago, their hometown, and taught public school for a year there before switching careers. “He’s been assigned to Hampton Roads for 15 years, and now I’ve been here eight.”

Nahla and Sonja love prepping job seekers for the interview process and making them aware of positions in such fields as health care and offshore wind (OSW), whether they are in Portsmouth or elsewhere in Hampton Roads. (A+ for regionalism.) 

As it says on their website www.portsmouthatwork.com, “We assist unemployed and underemployed Portsmouth residents while building the pipeline of future workers.”

John Stean, Virginia Beach Resident

We met these dynamos at a recent expo staged in partnership with Dominion Energy. “I’m very interested in offshore wind,” said Long Island native and now VA Beach resident John Stean. “Renewable energy is the future. I need to know more.”

And at this event, he could, thanks also to reps like Ayanna Osouna, who emigrated here from Trinidad and is now an enthusiastic business services coordinator for the Hampton Roads Workforce Council. (www.theworkforcecouncil.org)

Portsmouth@Work hosts 3-5 programs like this yearly. Get qualified, and Nahla will make sure your next employer has funds to train you.  

Ayanna Osouna, Business Services Coordinator for Hampton Roads Workforce Council

In his 21 years in the Navy, Bobby Frost touched five continents including the one his last name suggests, Antarctica.

“I was a chief boatswain’s mate, assigned to work with cranes,” he recalls. “For six straight years, we transported and unloaded research and other equipment for the National Science Foundation. It was called Operation Deep Freeze.”

That taught the Chesterfield County native to “know and trust your equipment,” a lesson he took with him to his current position, imparting height and water safety instruction to budding offshore wind trainees at the Maritime Institute in Norfolk.

“We use MI’s classrooms but practice climbing on a tower outside Centura College,” says Frost. Demand is rising as the industry arrives both off the coast of Virginia Beach and elsewhere along the east coast. “Students learn to take care of the turbines but also each other.”

That’s critical because the Navy or Coast Guard are rarely nearby when someone is injured or suffers a heart attack and must be extracted from a few hundred feet in the air. “We teach how to lift someone up to a helicopter as well as down to a boat.”

Want to learn from the best? Check out the courses at our two WINDSday Partners, The

Maritime Institute and Centura College. They’ll keep you safe.

Kylie Zhu and Family in Front of the Melted Snowman Light Installation

Last week we told you about Kylie Zhu who designed the newest holiday lights display at the Beach. Called Melted Snowman, it’s on the lawn behind the Oceanfront Inn at 29th Street. Go to www.Beacheventsvb.com for tickets to drive the Boardwalk nightly through New Year’s Eve.

CLICK HERE for an intriguing one in Newport News, courtesy of the Stern family, “50,000 lights with 21 years of experience lit from December 2 - December 26, 5:30pm-10:00pm. Supporting Thrive Peninsula Foodbank.”

Photo courtesy of Stern Family Holiday Light Show Facebook Page

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