Rear Adm. Nora Tyson will assume command of Carrier Strike Group Two in a ceremony onboard the USS George H.W. Bush on Thursday (July 29).

Her new assignment was announced in January, and it marked the first time that a woman has been assigned command of a carrier strike group. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead made the announcement and will be in attendance.

Carrier Strike Group Two is to be embarked on board the Bush, the Navy's newest carrier, which is homeported at Naval Station Norfolk.

Tyson is a native of Memphis, Tenn. She earned her wings as a naval flight officer in 1983.

Included on her resume is a stint commanding the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan, leading the Navy's disaster relief efforts on the U.S. Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and deploying twice to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Posted by Hugh Lessig on Hampton Roads Recon, the military blog at the Daily Press

From Patricia Rublein, Executive Director of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Hampton Roads. The Cultural Alliance of Greater Hampton Roads has been an advocate for strong arts and cultural communities since 1983. The Cultural Alliance welcomes membership from all arts and cultural institutions and individuals. To learn more about the work of the Alliance, contact Pat at 757.889.9479 or visit www.culturalli.org.

Get the current issue of Hampton Roads Bravo! your resource for arts and culture in Hampton Roads, the region with more choices per capita than any market in the country.

Arts Districts = Creative Communities
They go beyond art expression….

Communities across Virginia are picking up on an important trend. With the realization that the arts are a catalyst for tourism and an economic attraction for new businesses and residents, more and more cities and towns are using the industry to revive their economies.

Economic development departments are looking at a variety of ways to revisit the cultural fabric of their localities, in order to create what are often called “Creative Communities.” The arts, in fact, usually provide the backbone for such projects, but the creative energy of the entire community is needed to succeed. Such broad involvement was clearly in evidence in Roanoke, Alexandria and Norfolk’s Ghent. And other examples are moving forward in Phoebus (in Hampton) and Williamsburg....

Leadership skills start young

On October 2, hundreds of girls from all over southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina will fill the Mariners' Museum in Newport News for the annual Girl Scout Jamboree. Through programs set up by NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, the Mariners' Museum, NASA and the Girl Scout Council of Colonial Coast, girls in grades K through 12 will sail away on an adventure of discovery by exploring labs, touching artifacts and reliving personal accounts.

This year, the Girl Scout Jamboree kicks off more than just a new membership year - it celebrates a new era in Girl Scouting. On July 6, Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) released a new brand initiative and marketing campaign, aimed to modernize the 98-year-old organization.

“About one out of every 10 girls participates in Girl Scouting and that’s a tremendous number. But that also means we have a great opportunity to grow even after almost 100 years. We have literally revamped our entire organization to appeal to that 90 percent of girls who aren’t benefiting from the Girl Scout Leadership Experience,” said Kathy Cloninger, Chief Executive Officer of GSUSA.

GSUSA also released a new campaign that speaks to what Girl Scouts are doing today. Known by the tagline What Did You Today?, the campaign challenges and empowers girls and the community to think about how they take action each day to not only better themselves but to better their community and the world....

On January 27, 2010, Governor Bob McDonnell speaks to the gathering of Virginia's Chambers of Commerce during their annual visit to the General Assembly.

The Hampton Roads Chamber is accepting applications through August 20th for business and community leaders to participate in LEAD Hampton Roads (LHR), an Executive Leadership Program, Class of 2011. The Chamber's leadership seminars represent the diversity of the region and include those who demonstrate leadership and a sincere commitment, motivation and interest in serving the region.

LEAD Hampton Roads has been connecting leaders, organizations, and business to regional opportunities for 23 years. The program brings together forward-thinking leaders from top organizations to address critical business, community and regional challenges, to exchange ideas, to see the region from "behind the scenes" and to interact with experts in leadership strategy and business and personal growth.

"LHR is an essential experience for anyone wanting to understand the complexities of the Hampton Roads Region. You may not want to run for political office when you're done, but you'll have a much better handle on the challenges facing our local and state governments, the opportunities for our economy and the enormous talent we have to make our area more prosperous and livable." ---Joel Rubin, LHR Member Pres. & CEO, Rubin Communications Group

Read more...

Opportunity, Inc., the South Hampton Roads' Workforce Development Board, has partnered with Monster.com to bring the region several free "Power Job Seeker" Employment Workshops.

Why do you need to attend?

Steven Bixler, a senior systems analyst briefs a standing room only crowd at the Homeland Defense and Defense Support of Civil Authorities Modeling and Simulation Demonstration hosted by the US Joint Forces Command’s Joint Futures Lab. The demonstration brings state of the art modeling and simulation capabilities to natural disaster and terrorist threat response. (Click on this USJFCOM Photo by Air Force Staff Sgt. Joe Laws for a high-quality image)

From InsideDefense.com: Defense Business Board: Reducing Overhead and Improving DoD's Business Operations, July 22, 1010
Presentation (PDF 43 pages, 1.2MB) and Statement of Arnold Punaro, Task Group Chair (PDF 25 pages, <1MB)

Pentagon advisory board recommends axing Joint Forces Command

Command employs more than 5,100 in Hampton Roads
From Peter Frost, Daily Press, July 23, 2010

A Pentagon advisory board is recommending that the Defense Department eliminate the Norfolk-based Joint Forces Command as part of a plan to significantly cut defense spending.

The Defense Business Board, the Pentagon's independent board of economic and business advisers, made the preliminary recommendation Thursday in a presentation at the Pentagon.

Joint Forces Command is the linchpin of Hampton Roads’ blossoming high-tech industry, a segment that provided almost 4,500 high-paying jobs and pumped about $365 million into the local economy in 2007, according to 2007 Old Dominion University report.

"It would be absolutely devastating" for Hampton Roads if Joint Forces Command would be shut down, said Andrew Sinclair, a program manager for the Hampton Roads Partnership, a nonprofit made up of business leaders and elected officials whose goal is to promote regional development.

"We've put a lot of effort and resources into building Hampton Roads into a modeling and simulation cluster, and it has all been built around Joint Forces Command," he said Friday. "There are a number of businesses that are here only because of Joint Forces Command. If it were to go away, all of our effort to grow the modeling and simulation industry would really be for naught."

Get the full story...

Submit your recommendations to: http://www.reform.virginia.gov.

In light of the unprecedented budgetary challenges facing the Commonwealth and the increasing demand for core public services, government must become more effective and efficient. Governor McDonnell’s Government Reform & Restructuring Commission will work to put forth bold and innovative ideas to ensure that duplicative, outdated, unnecessary and ineffective services and service delivery methods are eliminated and that state revenues are dedicated to the core functions of government. We must make government simpler and easier to use, more efficient and more effective. That is the work of this Commission....

It’s been a busy hurricane season, and on October 15, Hurricane Nerissa, a Category 2 storm, makes a direct hit on Hampton Roads with the eye of the storm passing over the middle of the resort area of Virginia Beach and progressing through Norfolk, Hampton, Newport News and Williamsburg before dissipating on its way towards Washington, DC. Amazingly, there weren’t any evacuation problems, but the storm did cause flooding in the Midtown Tunnel and Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, and the James River Bridge was damaged as well. Fortunately, regional planners and experts on disaster response and recovery are standing by as well as others from around the country.

This was the scenario the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC) walked through with a crowd of 75 people on Wednesday, July 14^th and Thursday, July 15^th at Lockheed Martin’s Center for Innovation in Suffolk, VA. The hurricane was used as a backdrop to a broader conversation about disaster preparedness and appropriate policies....

The regional blog, http://SmartRegion.org, and its accompanying monthly e-News were launched in Fall 2008. Currently, the blog averages a post per day, and there have been well over 120 blog guest authors from Senators to military moms.

Stories are received from municipal jurisdictions, businesses, nonprofit organizations, educators, other bloggers and individual citizens. The purpose is to communicate things going on in the Hampton Roads region that we all "need to know," especially those happening jointly or region-wide, in the categories of Arts & Culture, Business, Economy, Education & Workforce, Government & Citizens, History, Military, Research & Technology (including modeling and simulation, energy and the environment), Transportation (including port and maritime logistics), and Tourism.

SmartRegion.org is the answer to the call from Hampton Roads’ citizens for one regional focus, one reliable source of information (like “Wikipedia”), a portal to connect Hampton Roads’ organizations, citizens and civic leaders and media, traditional and non-traditional. This call was heard from the Batten Surveys: A Regional Civic Capital Assessment produced by the Hampton Roads Center for Civic Engagement.

SmartRegion.org was specifically named as such to reinforce the concept of a “regional” blog. No one organization (see “Bookmarks” in left-hand column) has more prominence on the site than any other. Articles are attributed to the appropriate author or source. The region collaborates to make this a strong, united, regional effort by sharing timely news, features and event announcements with the citizens of Hampton Roads.

SmartRegion.org serves as that one “all-things-Hampton Roads” website by focusing on all aspects of regional collaboration and action. It provides links to important regional organizations an major economy- and political-focused bloggers in Hampton Roads. Think of it as "democratization of information and communication."

Hampton Roads’ SmartRegion.org was one of only 24 nationwide blogs selected in early 2009 for a local-national online collaboration with the PBS NewsHour’s Patchwork Nation project as they looked for “citizen journalists” who focus on regional economies as well as those who can share a regional perspective of national issues. Read more at http://bit.ly/SmartRegion.

Why does this collaborative outreach matter to Hampton Roads?

Communities that grow and prosper together plan and implement together. Hampton Roads cannot have a vision for the future without including everyone, from decision-makers to voters and taxpayers. Inclusion requires understanding. Inclusion requires conversation. Collaborative communication efforts offer the region a way for everyone to be engaged. Engaged citizens make for better understanding, better democracy and better solutions. And, a better quality of life for us all.

Participation in SmartRegion.org is easy as 1-2-3 ! Contact us.