Hanover County, a suburban/rural community located just north of Richmond, has seen a lot of change over the years. The county has a robust history of a strong agricultural economy, but the county’s industry mix has changed noticeably over time. For instance, Hanover County has witnessed significant growth in the transportation, logistics, and warehousing sector and increasing development of the medical, healthcare, and biotech sectors, as well as greater focus on research and development. In efforts to better understand changing economic conditions and industry dynamics in the county as compared to the greater Richmond region, the Hanover County Department of Economic Development contracted the Virginia Tech Center for Economic and Community Engagement (CECE) to produce an industry cluster analysis.
As part of this process, Hanover County’s Economic Development team—consisting of then-Director Linwood Thomas, Deputy Director Brandon Turner, and Existing Business & Project Manager Ann Glave—worked with CECE to organize a series of focus groups to learn more about current industry conditions, challenges, and opportunities for existing and up-and-coming sectors. Participants included a variety of industry experts, business owners, local leaders, regional organization representatives, and other community stakeholders, with sessions being divided into four key areas: tourism and hospitality; manufacturing and logistics; biotechnology and medical industries; and regional community partners.
CECE faculty member Anna Nagorniuk and graduate assistant Allison Ulaky traveled to Hanover to facilitate the four sessions on February 1st. Each session focused on participants sharing and discussing trends they are witnessing in their respective fields, challenges their organizations are facing, potential opportunities, and steps that Hanover County could take to better support its industries.
“The level of engagement was phenomenal to see—participants were so open with their experiences and insights, and we were able to get a lot of valuable input, including actionable ideas for how Hanover County can better support its businesses across different sectors,” said Nagorniuk.
“Witnessing the participants collaborate in each of the four sessions was motivating, as it showed the high levels of interest in finding ways to improve the local economy and workforce and discuss how that can be done in Hanover County,” Ulaky said.
Overall, there was a great sense of community pride across the four focus groups, with many participants praising the county’s quality of life, excellent school system, and strategic location to the Greater Richmond region.
Local industries did express their challenges with workforce availability and incoming waves of retirement-age employees preparing to leave the labor force—a challenge that is felt across many American communities. Additionally, affordability and availability of housing was a frequently-cited challenge—companies who originally located to the county for the population base now express that many of their workers cannot afford to live where they work. In fact, approximately 75% of people who work in Hanover County commute in from outside the county.
To help mitigate challenges and strengthen and better support the workforce, multiple participants identified the need for greater shared awareness and collaboration between the county’s industry partners, regional organizations, and government to better take advantage of existing assets, such as the Hanover Center for Trades and Technology, a public career and technical education center that provides workforce training for high school students in fields including HVAC, automotive technology, and culinary arts. Many participants expressed a desire for regular convenings and greater communication across the county to stay up to date with each other and better support regional development efforts.
“Hanover County Economic Development was absolutely humbled and thrilled by the support our local business and community leaders provided during the focus group sessions,” states Brandon Turner. “The valuable feedback we received will be critical towards shaping our economic development strategies and plans over the next 18 months.”
The input gathered from focus groups participants will help CECE to contextualize local and regional employment and industry data that was collected during the study. The focus groups also served to generate preliminary recommendations and action steps that the county might take to help grow industries and support existing ones. For example, several participants suggested the creation of a “technology zone” as a way to encourage more tech-oriented businesses to grow the county’s identity as a destination for tech. Once completed, the industry cluster analysis will be presented to the County’s Board of Supervisors and integrated into the foundation for Hanover County’s upcoming Economic Development strategic planning process, which will commence later in 2023.
“CECE conducted several exercises with the focus groups to nurture candid conversations with the various industries. It’s an important step as we move towards a strategic plan,” said Ann Glave. “We value CECE for their leadership and facilitation of the focus groups.”
