A clock runs most of John Reid's life.

He's on the road this morning by 1:45, bound for Williamsburg. He arrives by 3 to pick up his credentials, pass through security, arrange his makeshift studio on a table outdoors and be on the air by 5:30, set to talk for the next four and a half hours.

When Reid left his job 15 years ago as morning co-anchor at WRIC-TV 8 in Richmond, he swore he'd never again work the sunrise shift.

But here he is. Back to broadcasting. Back home.

And the sun won't rise till 6:09 a.m.

In a few hours, President Donald Trump will step into an air-conditioned tent not far from Reid, on the back lawn of the Jamestown Settlement — the site of America's first permanent English colony and the destination of a gazillion school field trips.

It's July 30 — 400 years to the day since colonists convened the first House of Burgesses, the beginning of representative democracy in America. Today's ceremonies will kick off related educational and cultural programs across Virginia.

With Trump's presence, anything could happen.

Reid brought his show here because he knows this event will resonate with his audience on Newsradio 1140 WRVA. The station is 94 years old, with the biggest signal reach and highest ratings of any Richmond news and talk station.

It also airs the most politically conservative programming. Voices later in the day include the nationally syndicated Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, with Richmond-based Jeff Katz as host of the weekday drive-time call-in show.

Reid's program mix, with producer Trey Yeatts, is less politically charged. It includes his conservative and libertarian perspectives alongside interviews with guests from across the spectrum. From 5:30-10 a.m., it hits on news, business reports, entertainment updates, weather, traffic and sports.

"The last thing I want it to be is boring," Reid says.

Since broadcasting atop the Eiffel Tower at Kings Dominion a year ago, Reid has worked to get the show out of the studio, off Basie Road in Henrico County. Most Fridays, he takes it to sites of interest across Richmond and elsewhere for "Reid on the Road," and for occasions such as today.

At the Jamestown Settlement, faint shouts from protesters are audible in the distance. A bomb-sniffing dog checks camera equipment. In front of Reid's broadcast setup, dignitaries and guests move through a line toward a metal detector.

Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam speaks —"pretty high on the pandering scale," Reid remarks on air — and slips away before the president is scheduled to arrive. Most Democratic legislators aren't in attendance.

Since Reid signed on this morning, Trump has tweeted about terrorism, infrastructure, immigration law loopholes, the left's stance on open borders, the weakness of the Chinese economy and the "really crashed" ratings of "Morning Joe & Psycho."

Then at 9:55 a.m. comes a tweet that he's on his way to Jamestown.

"Word is the Democrats will make it as uncomfortable as possible," Trump writes, "but that's ok because today is not about them!"

These are heady times for public discourse — and by extension, the role of talk radio.

The president talks like no president in history. Encountering an opposing view seems to come with shorter fuses and fiercer tribe loyalty. Social media makes it easy to hold close those who agree. You can cultivate friends and timelines that reflect your worldview. There's little persuading, more perturbation and less patience with the other side.

This is the environment in which Reid enters the world of talk radio, where discourse has been both revered and reviled.

People continue to tune in, making news and talk the No. 1 radio format, Nielsen reports. They're a big part of a broad audience. Nearly 90 percent of Americans ages 12 and older listen to the radio in a given week, according to a state of the media report released by the Pew Research Center in July.

There's an intimacy to radio that lends itself to community ties, relevant information and strong connections. It's also blamed for attention-grabbing division, bombastic personalities and overheated hype for the sake of ratings.

Is healthy debate still possible?

Can we speak with each other and really listen?

Can we disagree and come out the better for it?

Reid says yes.

On air, he says, his personality as a consensus builder helps. He aims to show respect, give room to guests with opposing views and work to understand the other sides. He also wants to be the same person you'd meet off the air.

That's what it takes to succeed in this job —"complete and total honesty," says one of Reid's bosses, Gregg Henson, program director for Entercom Richmond's WRVA and its sports radio station, WRNL the Fan, which airs on 910 AM and 106.1 FM.

"John is a Southern gentleman," Henson says. "He'll listen, he'll hear you out. You don't ever hear him get upset on the air, but he's very pointed in his comments."

Friends and colleagues say Reid simply is nice — but not Mr. Rogers. He pushes buttons and speaks his mind, and at 6-foot-3 can wield a commanding presence. But he walks the line between opinionated and genial.

Reid, 48, attributes that to an "awkward existence" he's lived between groups that can be socially, politically, diametrically opposed.

"Half my life I'm around liberal, pro-gay people who can't believe that they're talking to a conservative Republican," Reid says. "And then the other half, I'm around very conservative people, some of whom never thought that they would engage with an openly gay guy."

Depending on the situation, Reid can find himself coming out twice. As gay, as a Republican. The process continues to be challenging, he says. But he's able to leverage it as strength in communication, both off and on the air.

"I try to be respectful of both groups," he says. "And I try to unify people if I can. It's not going to happen every time. But when you've lived most of your adult life under those circumstances, one revelation away from people rejecting you — and sometimes very harshly — you learn to navigate."

Before he graduated from high school, Reid was using his voice to take him places — like the Statue of Liberty.

He grew up in Tuckahoe Village with his older sister, Lisa, and their parents, Jack and Judi. His dad, who later served in the House of Delegates from 1990-2008, was the principal at Robious Middle School and eventually worked with Henrico school superintendents. His mom took a variety of jobs that allowed her to be home with her children by 3:30 in the afternoon.

Reid attended Carver Elementary in Henrico and Byrd Middle, now Quioccasin. Then he entered the private college prep school, St. Christopher's, where he graduated in 1989. He was an Eagle Scout and president of the student government, and had a knack, one fellow student recalls, for performing spot-on, brave impressions of teachers.

He enjoyed speaking, at school and Scouting events, and eventually put together a demo reel to try out for voice-over gigs with the help of two people who worked in radio. One was Tim Timberlake, who for years sat in the host chair at WRVA.

Reid had a "rather prodigious ability to do voice work," Timberlake recalls, "to be a good announcer even that young."

Reid says he started launching FedEx packages toward David Wolper in Los Angeles. The prolific producer's credits included "Roots,""Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" and the 1984 Summer Olympics. After 10 letters Reid broke through, he says. Wolper put him in touch with the producer of Liberty Weekend, the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty in 1986.

That's how he ended up, at 15, giving a five-minute speech at the event's closing arena show, representing the youth of America. He was on stage with first lady Nancy Reagan, met Lee Iacocca and spoke with Walter Cronkite, who later sent him a note saying, "Well you sound like you have a career in broadcasting."

As he was preparing for high school graduation, his dad was working on his run for the House of Delegates. It was a good time to head out of Richmond for college.

"I didn't want to be the son of the guy in the General Assembly," Reid says. "I wanted to be my own person."

He earned a bachelor's degree in political science at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and started interning at the CBS station there. After graduation he left for L.A. to intern in Ronald Reagan's press office and explore the entertainment and news industries.

He returned to Waco as the overnight producer for the CBS affiliate, working 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. on "Good Morning Central Texas."

Reid persuaded the station to give him a shot on-air covering the Baylor homecoming parade. "When I came to work on Monday," he recalls, "they said, 'You're on the air and you're going to be a reporter now.'"

He loved it.

In addition to reporting on serious news, like the Ku Klux Klan marching through town, Reid looked for ways to stand out. When it finally snowed one Christmas, he was the only reporter around. He sweet-talked a janitor at the tallest building in Waco to let him in, where he set up a broadcast from the roof.

A job opening at Channel 8 in Richmond brought him home in 1994. He worked as a weekend anchor and investigative reporter before landing a spot on the morning show as a co-anchor.

There was nowhere to go but up. Channel 8's morning show was fourth in the ratings, Reid says — behind Channel 12, Channel 6, and the cartoons on Fox.

Television news looked a lot different 20 years ago. There was no social media, no roving around the studio, no behind-the-scenes peeks.

The morning show team coalesced with Reid and Gwen Williams as co-anchors and Keri Abbott reporting the weather.

"We just clicked," says Abbott, who now works in sales in Richmond. "We just had fun." And they started to see ratings growth.

It was Reid who pushed for new ideas, Abbott recalls — anything to make them stand out. More cross-talk between anchors, more hot topics, lifestyle segments and different ways of presenting the news than simply sitting behind the desk.

"We're not going to beat Channel 12 doing another version of Channel 12," Reid says. "I have always had fights with consultants, because they want you to do it exactly the same way as everybody else."

But his news director and station managers were open to change.

"He brought to the table something new, something fresh," Abbott says.

To celebrate Richmond's first snow of the season, Reid hired someone from the Byrd Theatre to bring in a snow machine to make it snow on set.

It was innovative, but Reid had to promise to clean up the artificial snow. He says the evening anchors, Lisa Schaffner and Rick Young, weren't too thrilled when they saw how the machine left marks on the studio floor.

Another experiment was Pump It Up Friday, where they opened the studio into the parking lot at the Arboretum station. They invited bands and other community groups — sometimes 300 to 400 people would show up. Police directed traffic.

Channel 8 finally broke out of its ratings slump, hitting second place — and for at least one ratings book, Abbott says, even first.

But not everything was fun and games. Reid wasn't yet fully out, and says he was anxious that revelations about his personal life would hurt his professional career.

He also faced a crossroads in television, figuring out whether he wanted to forge a long career in Richmond or try something new. He opted to make a move. "I want to do stuff," he says.

Former Gov. George Allen, a Republican, had won election to the Senate —"an amazing governor," Reid says, "and a dynamic guy."

A job as director of communications for Allen's Senate office opened up in 2004. "I thought: 'This is my chance. I'll go to Washington, I'll see how this works out.'"

It freed him, both personally and professionally, kicking off a second career in political communication and public relations.

Philip Crosby, executive director at Richmond Triangle Players and a longtime voice for LGBTQ issues, met Reid in the 1980s.

It wasn't Reid's orientation as gay that surprised him, Crosby says: "The revelation for me was when he went to work for George Allen."

Crosby's had his share of maddening political debates with Reid on Facebook — and that's OK, he says. "We love the country, we love everything about it equally as much," he says, even if they have totally different ideas about making it better.

Reid says Allen, a social conservative, never had an issue with his personal life. He says Allen told him, "You're a good person, just do a good job."

Others took a different stance.

Reid recalls a blog that aimed to out gay Republicans working on Capitol Hill and their bosses as hypocrites. When a left-wing journalist called Reid about his personal life, he says, Reid told him he wouldn't dignify such questions at work. "But if you see me at a gay bar you can ask me a question," he said, "because I'm a very friendly guy."

The experience demonstrated to him that for some people, he would never be "out enough" that he couldn't make everyone happy. So he's never had a flip-the-switch coming-out moment where a weight lifted off his shoulders.

"I'm glad that I'm more comfortable with who I am," he says. "But I wouldn't say that I've ever felt totally free, because I've always been attacked."

Reid worked with Allen's office until 2007, when the senator lost re-election to Jim Webb. From there, he had stints as director of communications for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and with private public relations firms. One sent him overseas to the Middle East for three years. He's traveled to 85 countries.

When Trump became president, Reid presumed that he would continue his public relations career. "I kept hoping ... that my fortunes would turn and all these PR firms would want a Republican" to help them build relationships with the new administration.

Instead, he says, things got more toxic. "It was so polarized and ugly."

That's when he learned in the summer of 2017 that morning host Jimmy Barrett was leaving WRVA after 16 years.

"In my heart of hearts," he says, "I am a broadcaster."

Reid interviewed and waited while the station transitioned to new owners. Entercom was buying WRVA from iHeartMedia, formerly Clear Channel — along with such sister stations as XL102, Q94, Mix 98.1 and the Beat 106.5.

Reid was the first Entercom employee hired in Richmond, on Dec. 4, 2017. He returned to his hometown. His partner, Alonzo Mable, moved with him from Washington. They started their relationship that year, Mable says, and "it's been a hit since."

Like other media outlets, WRVA has faced layoffs, financial challenges and a changing industry. But ratings are up, says Henson, the program director.

The station's key demographic, men ages 25 to 54, has grown 12 percent from Nielsen's winter ratings book to its spring ratings book, he says.

Results of the May to July ratings period, published last week, show WRVA has moved from eighth to sixth place, according to the Nielsen Topline radio ratings of Richmond-area listeners 12 and older who tuned in to the average quarter hour.

The station also is seeing sellouts at 300-seat events called Politics and Pints, where Reid, Katz and a liberal guest discuss current issues onstage. People are paying $50 and more for tickets.

"We're growing," Henson says, "and a lot of that is because of John."

The clock is ticking toward the end of Reid's show from the Jamestown Settlement, where the Virginia legislature is divided, a good chunk absent, because of the president's pending appearance.

It's too bad, Reid says. Elected officials should set aside differences during ceremonial events that are bigger than themselves.

"It doesn't mean you have to vote for him," he says. "It's not an endorsement of their policies. It's called grace and class. I'm sure a lot of people will say Donald Trump doesn't have that, but even Donald Trump shows up for the ceremonial stuff."

He speaks on air about the issue. Trump will become the first sitting president to address the Virginia General Assembly in 400 years, and it is symbolic. The event should be considered and remembered for its historic implications, he says, a colony that almost didn't survive, the struggle, the determination and ideas that began the evolution of a country into "a remarkably successful society," he says on air.

That should be "inspirational to everyone."

Reid signs off at 9:54 a.m. With the show's producer back in Richmond, Reid records a few quick intros to play later, introducing the president's remarks on air.

He hands his equipment off to a production assistant, goes through another Secret Service screening, and is inside the tent by 10:07.

He finds a folding chair in the back, settling into one of the areas reserved for dozens of media representatives forming the White House press pool. He checks his phone, looks at the program and surveys the rows of about 700 people ahead of him. He leans over to whisper, "Which one do you think is a protester?"

A protester? Here? In this tightly secured environment?

Reid turned out to be right.

Jason Roop is a former editor of Style and the founder of Springstory. He appears as an unpaid guest in Friday segments on WRVA to discuss water-cooler headlines and weekend events. Style did not make this story available to Reid or anyone at the station before publication.

There's a big hip-hop show on the horizon that is bringing together some of the best in local talent.

On Saturday, Aug. 24, the Cheats Movement is presenting one of the most stacked hip-hop bills of the year at the Darkroom inside the Hofheimer Building. Hosted by Nitty Blanco, the night features live performances by 3 Way Slim, Big Kahuna OG, Fly Anakin, Monday Night, and Young Flexico. Graymatter will also be DJing the proceedings.

"This show is important for hip-hop in Richmond because we are bringing multiple fan bases together for a chance to support our flourishing underground hip hop scene," 3Way Slim told Style via email.

Here's more from Marc Cheatham via a press release:

This show features Richmond’s now generation of hip-hop. 3 Way Slim has spent 2019 performing up and down the East Coast. In the previous year, the Richmond native has performed at the popular SXSW and AC3 showcases and has opened for with platinum recording artist Wale and breakout star Dave East. Fly Anakin has been featured in numerous popular publications: Vulture, Complex, Vibe, and Mass Appeal. Anakin, along with Big Kahuna OG and Graymatter are members of Mutant Academy, labeled as the collective most-poised to breakout in 2019. Young Flexico has been featured in Pitchfork and is making a ton of waves in Richmond’s growing hip-hop scene. You add those artists with Monday Night, The Cheats Movement, and a few surprise guests and it’s going to be a night to remember.

"Our goal our music is to bring a fun atmosphere so that everyone can be a fan and support something authentic and genuine," added Big Kahuna OG.

"We also want to drop seeds of change within our community," added 3WaySlim. "We not only want to entertain but empower our fans through music."

The Cheats Movement Presents: Scheme Team Live: 3 Way Slim, Big Kahuna OG, Fly Anakin, Monday Night, Young Flexico. Hosted by Nitty Blanco. DJ’d by Graymatter, takes place Saturday, Aug. 24 at the Hofheimer Building (Dark room) Doors open at 8:00 p.m., music at 8:30 p.m. $10 at the door.

No doubt about it, the upcoming exhibition "Edward Hopper and the American Hotel" already has Richmond art lovers salivating in anticipation.

Hopper, like scores of American artists before him, traveled to Paris — in his case, three times — as a young man to study the masters and absorb the art scene. But unlike the American artists before him, Hopper, working in the 20th century, admitted to no European influences.

Not so many of America's painters of the late 19th century.

A jewel of a show at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, "Transatlantic Currents: American Art from the Collection of Jane Joel Knox," shines a spotlight on the work of American artists at a time when nothing was more important in their development than time spent studying and traveling through Europe. For visiting artists, that meant engaging with impressionism, landscape painting, portraiture and still life, as well as academically informed styles of the day.

Leo Mazow, the museum's Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane curator of American art, says that studying abroad was essential to American painters because some of the best artists of that generation were teaching in art academies such as the École des Beaux Arts and the Academie Julién, the latter being the only European institution that accepted female pupils at the time.

"Time-honored masterpieces were in European art museums," he explains. "Studying such works constituted an extension of several American artists› ongoing artistic education."

Collector Jane Joel Knox has long been a friend, patron and former member of the board of trustees at the museum, so Mazow was aware of her impressive collection of American and European art. Eager to exhibit her works by Americans abroad near works in the permanent collection that point to similar tendencies, the museum created "Transatlantic Currents," a small but compelling exhibit that examines the pull exerted on American artists by European training and artistic output.

Milne Ramsey headed to Paris in 1868 to study with Leon Bonnat, only to stay for a decade and subsequently co-found the Society of American Artists in Paris. He's represented in the exhibition with a piece painted later in Philadelphia, "Turkish Still Life," that reflects the lessons learned during his Parisian academic training. The beautifully composed tableau contrasts the tactile qualities of soft red fabric slippers with the metallic hardness of a water jug and basin.

The influence of Èdouard Manet is evident in James Carroll Beckwith's "Monsieur est Servi/Le Café," which adoringly depicts a young Parisian waitress whom Beckwith undoubtedly encountered during his yearly visits to France. With her tray laden with wine and a cup extending toward the viewer, the artist creates a sense of immediacy and intimacy comfortably familiar to any 19th century cafe-goer.

Italy was as important a destination as France for American artists. Cincinnati-born painter Frank Duveneck settled there in 1879, developing a close bond with American artists such as John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler. Albert Bierstadt's "Boats Ashore at Sunset" romanticizes a beach near Capri, Italy, with dramatic boat silhouettes set against a rugged mountain range.

Such works, according to Mazow, reflect the strength of Knox's collecting eye. They show a keen understanding of the role played by both European historic sites and academies at a crucial moment in American art, when older traditions were giving way to more modern approaches.

"The Italian beach scenes by Bierstadt and Coleman show the tendency of 19th-century American artists to render picturesque shorelines," he says. "But these works also show Jane›s discerning eye in finding works that follow this innovative formula."

Knox's taste is impressive and many of the paintings reward the viewer who takes the time for sustained close looking, whether at portrait studies, seascapes, still life scenes or highly finished landscapes. Mazow says the array of genres ensures something for everyone.

Happily for art lovers, the works on display in "Transatlantic Currents" are promised gifts to the museum.

"Part of the museum›s mission concerns enhancing the lives of those in the Commonwealth and far beyond," Mazow says. "These rarely exhibited highlights from Jane›s collection bring rich life to visually stunning episodes in American art history, but also our cultural history."

"Transatlantic Currents" is the perfect lead-in to Hopper, a compact and illuminating reminder of how American painting evolved in a generation.

"Transatlantic Currents: American Art from the Collection of Jane Joel Knox" runs through Nov. 3 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Free.

The dazzling new Dominion Energy office tower at 600 Canal Place, fronting the 600 block of Canal Street, is a 29-story traffic stopper.

And, as the city's second tallest building at 417 feet — 32 shorter than the state's James Monroe Building — it's hard to miss. From Jackson Ward on Chamberlayne Parkway, the tower looks sculptural. When viewed from Interstate 95 from the east, its sloping roofline suggests a bird's peak. Over in Manchester on Hull Street, it appears shardlike, a welcome complement to the eclectic office towers near the riverfront: the stately Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond; the twin towers of Riverfront Plaza, pastiches of mansard roofs and Roman arches; and Riverside Towers, a postmodern colonial revival curiosity.

When seen from the south on the Lee Bridge, however, 600 Canal Place preens to full advantage. Three things make this view from the bridge of the elegant tower special. First, is the sublime sheer mass of the continuous glass curtain wall that stretches a full city block, from Sixth to Seventh streets. Second, is now the shallow arc of this south-facing wall bows slightly out. And finally, there's the bold diagonal at the top of the facade, which delivers implied motion and energy. If this were a ski slope, the 40 degree angle would be no bunny hill, but a black-diamond slope.

By combining glass and curves on both the south and north facades of the tower with the roof feature at the top, the architectural team of Kendall Heaton Associates of Houston and Pickard Chilton of New Haven, Connecticut, takes major design cues from a 1983 high rise, 333 Wacker, a Chicago office building. But whereas 36 years ago the architecture firm of Kohn Peterson Fox Associates utilized a curve to fit the tower next to a bend in the Chicago River, this Richmond descendant high-rise suggests a billowing sail.

But here's another take: Since the impressive curtain glass wall doesn't touch the ground, but hangs irregularly like a skirt with a high-low hemline, there's a subtle organic or feminine quality to the building. This glass skirt on Canal Street reminded me of an office structure in Prague, the so-called Fred and Ginger building of 1992, designed by Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunic. But if its two exuberantly-entwined corner towers suggest Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing in a 1930s musical, the overall effect of 600 Canal Place's sheer glass and a mesh of fine steel netting is translucent: Think chiffon gowns worn by such 50s Hollywood dancing divas as Leslie Caron or Cyd Charisse.

From a marketing standpoint, however the irregular angularity of the Canal Street-facing glass curtain wall also evokes the recently introduced Dominion logo, obviously writ really large. The familiar blue capital D, with diagonally lineated slashes, was designed by Chermayeff & Geismar, a top-drawer New York branding firm which also designed the Philip Morris Co. product pylon that faces I-95 here, and the familiar identifying marks of Chase Bank and Mobil.

The 600 Canal Place complex strikes often thrilling poses from afar, and up close the tower's exterior is equally sleek on the south side where one enters the main lobby. Those approaching the lobby via sidewalk enter at the corner of Canal Street and South Seventh and will pass under the hanging glass wall and through a nine-column alignment of polished steel columns. A long reception desk in the two-story lobby aligns with Canal and a glass wall overlooking the Delta Hotel and the entrance ramp to the Downtown Expressway across Canal Street. At the western end of the lobby a fireplace is set within a wood-paneled partition, its continuously-burning gas flame offering an unexpected hearth.

On the upper, working floor levels, many of the building's 1,000 employees are reportedly adjusting to a lack of cubicles and a considerably more open office arrangement. The fitness center, which I have not seen, is according to an employee, "Better than any gym in Richmond."

The situation is decidedly less inspired on the Cary Street side of the complex, however, where the tower abuts a three-story parking garage with additional spaces underground. Here, the complex looks value designed. While the tower's third level opens onto an employee outdoor terrace that rests atop the parking deck. Nice. But the Sixth Street side of the deck below is designed for deliveries and automobiles. And while copious amounts of landscaping, including sizable oaks, are planted on the four sides of the complex, the garage's frosted glass windows look like shower doors in an institutional bathroom. The deck adds to the already numbing effect of East Cary as a canyon of parking garages. The 5,000 square feet of designated retail space at Cary and Seventh doesn't mitigate the dullness on this side of the building.

In the future, Dominion may demolish the One James River Plaza building across Seventh Street, which it is now vacating. In its place, an architecturally compatible complex is planned, 700 Canal Place. Hopefully the Cary Street side of the new building, a major approach for those coming to the financial district, won't be given similar short shrift like an unappealing parking deck.

Also, renderings show a bridge that would span Seventh Street to connect the complexes; convenient for employees walking back and forth without braving the elements or interacting with people on the sidewalks. Since Dominion and its management have fully embraced the roles of community philanthropist and urban designers, especially with redeveloping Navy Hill, they might follow some best practices in Phase Two. That would be to eliminate plans for an over-the-street bridge that would block vistas of the river from Seventh Street. The placement of the Delta Hotel blocks Sixth Street and many Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center buildings in Court End have obliterated other once important vistas of Shockoe Valley and hillsides beyond.

Heck, even the Virginia General Assembly and its staff, whose collective hubris is considerable, is placing a pedestrian tunnel underground to link the new General Assembly Building with a parking garage. Dominion might take note and only improve mostly handsome Phase One as it contemplates even larger corporate footprint downtown.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)
It's not cost-efficient to recycle plastic. Sorting and processing the used materials to make them available for fresh stuff is at least as expensive as creating new plastic items from scratch. On the other hand, sending used plastic to a recycling center makes it far less likely that it will end up in the oceans and waterways, harming living creatures. So in this case, the short-term financial argument in favor of recycling is insubstantial, whereas the moral argument is strong. I invite you to apply a similar perspective to your upcoming decisions.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
African American slaves suffered many horrendous deprivations. For example, it was illegal for them to learn to read. Their oppressors feared that educated slaves would be better equipped to agitate for freedom, and took extreme measures to keep them illiterate. Frederick Douglass was one slave who managed to beat the ban. As he secretly mastered the art of reading and writing, he came upon literature that ultimately emboldened him to escape his "owners" and flee to safety. He became one of the nineteenth century's most powerful abolitionists, producing reams of influential writing and speeches. I propose that we make Douglass your inspiring role model for the coming months. I think you're ready to break the hold of a certain curse—and go on to achieve a gritty success that the curse had prevented you from accomplishing.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
For twenty-five years, businessman Don Thompson worked for the McDonald's fast food company, including three years as its CEO. During that time, he oversaw the sale and consumption of millions of hamburgers. But in 2015, he left McDonald's and became part of Beyond Meat, a company that sells vegan alternatives to meat. I could see you undergoing an equally dramatic shift in the coming months, Gemini: a transition into a new role that resembles but is also very different from a role you've been playing. I urge you to step up your fantasies about what that change might entail.

CANCER (June 21-July 22)
"The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot," wrote author Audre Lorde. As an astrologer I would add this nuance: although what Lourde says is true, some phases of your life are more favorable than others to seek deep and rapid education. For example, the coming weeks will bring you especially rich teachings if you incite the learning process now.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)
The American idiom "stay in your lane" has come to mean "mind your own business," and usually has a pejorative sense. But I'd like to expand it and soften it for your use in the coming weeks. Let's define it as meaning "stick to what you're good at and know about" or "don't try to operate outside your area of expertise" or "express yourself in ways that you have earned the right to do." Author Zadie Smith says that this is good advice for writers. "You have to work out what it is you can't do, obscure it, and focus on what works," she attests. Apply that counsel to your own sphere or field, Leo.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
Yisrael Kristal was a Polish Jew born under the sign of Virgo in 1903. His father was a scholar of the Torah, and he began studying Judaism and learning Hebrew at age three. He lived a long life and had many adventures, working as a candle-maker and a candy-maker. When the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945, Kristal emerged as one of the survivors. He went on to live to the age of 113. Because of the chaos of World War I, he had never gotten to do his bar mitzvah when he'd turned thirteen. So he did it much later, in his old age. I foresee a comparable event coming up soon in your life, Virgo. You will claim a reward or observe a milestone or collect a blessing you weren't able to enjoy earlier.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
Sailors have used compasses to navigate since the eleventh century. But that tool wasn't enough to guide them. A thorough knowledge of the night sky's stars was a crucial aid. Skill at reading the ever-changing ocean currents always proved valuable. Another helpful trick was to take birds on the ships as collaborators. While at sea, if the birds flew off and returned, the sailors knew there was no land close by. If the birds didn't return, chances were good that land was near. I bring this to your attention, Libra, because I think it's an excellent time to gather a number of different navigational tools for your upcoming quest. One won't be enough.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
What do you want from the allies who aren't your lovers? What feelings do you most enjoy while you're in the company of your interesting, non-romantic companions? For instance, maybe you like to be respected and appreciated. Or perhaps what's most important to you is to experience the fun of being challenged and stimulated. Maybe your favorite feeling is the spirit of collaboration and comradeship. Or maybe all of the above. In any case, Scorpio, I urge you to get clear about what you want—and then make it your priority to foster it. In the coming weeks, you'll have the power to generate an abundance of your favorite kind of non-sexual togetherness.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)
As the CEO of the clothes company Zappos, Sagittarius entrepreneur Tony Hsieh is worth almost a billion dollars. If he chose, he could live in a mansion by the sea. Yet his home is a 200-square-foot, $48,000 trailer in Las Vegas, where he also keeps his pet alpaca. To be clear, he owns the entire trailer park, which consists of 30 other trailers, all of which are immaculate hotbeds of high-tech media technology where interesting people live. He loves the community he has created, which is more important to him than status and privilege. "For me, experiences are more meaningful than stuff," he says. "I have way more experiences here." I'd love to see you reaffirm your commitment to priorities like his in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. It'll be a favorable time to do so.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)
Medical researcher Jonas Salk developed a successful polio vaccine, so he had a strong rational mind. Here's how he described his relationship with his non-rational way of knowing. He said, "It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It's my partner." I bring this up, Capricorn, because the coming weeks will be a favorable time to celebrate and cultivate your own intuition. You may generate amazing results as you learn to trust it more and figure out how to deepen your relationship with it.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)
Aquarian environmentalist Edward Abbey once formulated a concise list of his requirements for living well. "One must be reasonable in one's demands on life," he wrote. "For myself, all that I ask is: 1. accurate information; 2. coherent knowledge; 3. deep understanding; 4. infinite loving wisdom; 5. no more kidney stones, please." According to my analysis of the astrological omens, now would be an excellent time for you to create your own tally of the Five Crucial Provisions. Be bold and precise as you inform life about your needs.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)
"We may be surprised at whom God sends to answer our prayers," wrote author Janette Oke. I suspect that observation will apply to you in the coming weeks. If you're an atheist or agnostic, I'll rephrase her formulation for you: "We may be surprised at whom Life sends to answer our entreaties." There's only one important thing you have to do to cooperate with this experience: set aside your expectations about how help and blessings might appear.

It's a common concept of those video games of yore: A protagonist, often male, sets forth on a journey to save the universe or a damsel in distress by conquering some evil foe.

In each successive level, the protagonist defeats minions, collects items and solves puzzles before defeating the more powerful "level boss" to advance in the game. Though game styles have morphed over the years, some of the most durable brands of video gamedom — the Mario Bros., Zelda and Sonic franchises, for instance – at least began with this setup.

In "Level 4," local playwright Dante Piro plays off this with "Karma Quest," an aptly named fictitious video game where the Hero (Adam Turck) must defeat the Darth Vader-like Gauntlet (Levi Meerovitch) by collecting the shards of a powerful crystal.

All this is exposition to get us to the Light Lord (Chris Klinger), the fourth-level boss who suddenly and hilariously becomes aware of his own existence within the video game. Every time someone plays his level, the Light Lord must watch as the Hero decimates his friends and colleagues before he has the Sisyphean task of fighting the game's protagonist himself.

As the Light Lord, Klinger skillfully plays the exasperated everyman thrown into a crazy situation. While frequently funny, Klinger goes well beyond playing the role for laughs. His reactions to the mundane — such as a takeout place getting his order wrong, or slowly realizing that he's a character in a game — feel natural. Between this and his performance in last month's "Dance Nation," Klinger is quickly becoming a name to know in town.

Similarly, Turck deftly balances the humor and heart of his character. With wraparound shades and pseudo-military garb, he looks something like Tom Cruise in one of the "Mission: Impossible" films. Under Chelsea Burke's direction and Emily Turner's fight choreography, he gets some of the show's funnier physical comedy bits, leaping around and swinging his sword like an early Link. In addition to having the proper biceps to play the hero, Turck gets to show off some of the puppetry skills he mastered for last year's "Hand to God."

Playing both the meek Mertens and the evil overlord Gauntlet, Meerovitch reveals his range, and Adam Valentine is hilarious as Strobe, the Light Lord's dimwitted miniboss who must first do battle with the Hero. Playing a variety of roles — including the irritating level boss Tammy and the Heroine, a female version of the Hero — Breezy Potter proves herself a gifted comedic actress.

Technically, the show's elements conspire to give the feel of an old console game, including Dasia Gregg's teal circuit-board-themed set design, Michael Jarrett's pulsing lights and Joey Luck's superb sound design, which includes original mock-video game music. Gregg's projections have the look of an NES game, but on opening night the projection screen appeared to fall down in the second act. Ruth Hedberg's costume designs work in most instances, but the button-down shirt and khakis of the Light Lord feel out of place. As a former scientist, couldn't he at least wear a lab coat?

Like many a new work, "Level 4" could use a trimming — personally, I'd advise cutting the last three scenes entirely — but the script is 90% there, and has some truly inspired moments, such as when the game overheats and turns into a bad acid trip of glitches.

An inventive and funny show that delivers glancing blows at existentialism and the human condition, "Level 4" is one of the more original works to hit Richmond in recent years. Between this and Firehouse's recent staging of his one-man show "The Verge," Dante Piro appears a promising young playwright to keep an eye on.

TheatreLab's "Level 4," plays through Aug. 31 at the Basement, 300 E. Broad St. For information, visit theatrelabrva.org or call 506-3533.

For Style’s annual Sandwich Week, 15 area restaurants are offering special sandwiches for $5-6. Try at least three of them, have your servers sign off on your passport and then turn the sheet in to have your name entered in a drawing for the aforementioned gift card.

At the Flyin’ Pig in Midlothian you’ll find a hearty breakfast sandwich laden with smoked brisket, an over-easy egg, American cheese, pico de gallo and mayo. In Manchester, Camden’s Dogtown Market offers up the veggie-heavy Viet Baguette, featuring hummus, fried eggplant and roasted and pickled vegetables. The Camel, located in the Fan, embraces the carnivore with a turkey Rueben, an Italian melt and a chicken cordon bleu sandwich. The best bang for your buck is either the $6 fried chicken thigh sandwich at Burgerworks in Glen Allen, or the $6 Cleopatra at Secret Sandwich Society, a caprese-inspired meal served with chips and pickles.

Other participating restaurants include Beauvine Burger Concept, Industrial Taphouse, McCormack’s Big Whisky Grill, Metro Bar and Grill, New York Deli, Potbelly Sandwich Shop, Sedona Taphouse, Sticks Kebob Shop and Wood and Iron Gameday Restaurant and Bar.

Joey Darragh’s golden red coarse beard is never longer than half a foot. He tries not to focus on it too much, but his girlfriend advises him to shave it frequently.

I ask him if he felt compelled to lean into the bar owner aesthetic by growing it out, maybe thickening it a bit to fit into Richmond’s beard town.

“Nah,” he says. “But it can be a little bit like a flavor saver if you got a nice foamy brew.”

Väsen Brewing Co., which Darragh co-founded and owns with his cousin Tony Giordano, celebrated its second anniversary in late July and sits next to Stella’s

Grocery in Scott’s Addition.

As he looks around, Darragh’s eyes pause on the massive reindeer graphic on the wall — an ode to Väsen’s spirit animal and Scandinavian culture.

This almost didn’t happen, he says.

It was an unlikely process, complete with people believing in two guys who’d never owned their own company. Darragh was fresh off the Tesla engineering route and Giordano had been promoted to head brewer at Boulder Beer Co. in Colorado.

Then they went on a monthlong trip to Europe. After tasting the spectrum of smoky and sour beers and ales available in Belgium, England and Germany, they ended the craft beer crawl in Sweden.

A year later, they quit their jobs.

After signing the lease in January 2016 and breaking ground on the 26-foot-ceiling space, its interior design fell into place thanks to a woman Darragh says he’d get in trouble if he didn’t mention: his mother.

“[She’s] the driving force behind a lot of the extra details that have gone into the taproom,” he says, referencing the planters she built on the patio and the potted plants surrounding Väsen’s boulder centerpiece.

Family is a major component of the brewery with Giordano’s brother, Peter, helping grow the distribution side of the business.

The brewery parallels their deep-rooted Scandinavian background while the tart and fruity Otter series — one of Giordano’s babies — has made Väsen a prime spot for goses.

The 20-barrel brew house is all about the creative process, which sometimes includes an hour of Taylor Swift, one brewer’s favorite artist, before Giordano switches it to Huey Lewis.

“I joke around and say it’s bad luck to brew a beer without music,” Giordano says.

As it keeps up with increasing demand, the team continues experimenting with different strains to add to Väsen’s Wanderlust series. One brewer forages mushrooms for fun and recently harvested pounds of wild honeysuckle to be put into a beer.

Giordano is excited about that one.

Each beer is named after a spirit animal. Darragh is quick to say his is a snow fox, which keeps to itself while retaining an adventurous nature. Giordano’s is a honey badger. Their years spent in California and Colorado only fast-tracked Väsen’s journey in promoting environmental awareness and staying active outdoors.

The company’s sustainability initiatives include the construction of the brew house and brewing system, using biodegradable chemicals and responsibly releasing waste into the sewer system by equalizing pH and temperature.

Väsen takes it a step further with its vagabonds project, which sponsors trips and competitions and provides merchandise to brand ambassadors.

“It turned out to be a great program where you get these amazing people repping your product in the way you really want it to be represented,” Darragh says. “Badass people drinking this beer outside.”

It also exposes Väsen to the expansive outdoor opportunities available in the area, whether it be rafting, trail running or rock climbing, Darragh’s favorite. He recommends heading straight to Väsen bartenders for recommendations.

While Darragh says the outdoor community in Richmond has room to expand, he acknowledges there are already existing groups focused on growing it. That’s where Brian Bell, founder of Keep Virginia Cozy, and the person Giordano lovingly calls B, comes in.

Keep Virginia Cozy started with litter cleanups and wilderness protection. It’s since worked with Väsen to help restore trails in the George Washington National Forest, build recycling bins for trailheads and take the brewery’s employees on backpacking trips.

“Those guys are really, really great people. … They actually care about the outdoors,” Bell says, pointing out Väsen’s stacked activities calendar. “It’s been really cool to watch them evolve into such an aware, conscientious company.”

Alongside Keep Virginia Cozy, Väsen works with Beyond Boundaries, which guides people with disabilities on outdoor activities and Blue Sky Fund, a nonprofit that connects Richmond public school students with the outdoors. Giordano says it’s all a part of what makes up Väsen — and that includes the people who invite employees out on daily adventures.

“I got a text from one of our vagabonds, Carl, and he’s like, ‘Hey, uh, interested in rafting later today at four o’clock?’” Darragh says. “Like ‘yes, sign me up.’”

Search online and there are many definitions for innovation.

Some sound kind of blah, like the ones written with a rambling, dead-inside corporate lingo. So I looked at the basic Webster’s definition, which was simple.

“The introduction of something new,” it read.

That’s kind of broad. Next, I reached out to Richard Wintsch, executive director of Startup Virginia, a nonprofit that champions high-growth startups.

“Innovation to me is the ability to execute new ideas into a process, product or service,” he says, adding that he is inspired by innovation in Richmond every day, including the creative work from our local schools and universities, improved processes and innovative content employers. “And in our case, current and aspiring founders who find an idea and then work tirelessly to translate that idea into a good or service that a potential customer is willing to pay for.”

Asked what he looks for in an innovative idea, Wintsch points to “whether the business’ value proposition and the customer discovery work has been done to prove that idea.” Makes sense considering his organization works to help its members gain paying customers and increase scale at the same time.

When we decided to publish an innovation issue at Style, our first thought was to be open-minded about it. That means including all kinds of innovative people, organizations and concepts, big and small. Ideally, these would be ideas that fascinated us, or made us wonder why the thing hadn’t caught on more widely.

We found people with ideas to help the parents of children on the autism spectrum, to reduce waste through solar technology and analytics, to provide insurance to outdoor adventurers and to help restaurants and local nonprofits not only grow but thrive.

In an information economy, innovation is power. There are many innovators in Richmond with creative ideas they hope will change the world.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of getting noticed.

Mike Scelzi
Founder and chief executive of Wala

BLK RVA

Dr. J. Randy Frederick and Rachel Featherstone
Medical director and nurse practitioner at Alchemy Wellness

Babylon Micro-Farms
With modular hydroponic units managed by a mobile app, chefs can grow fresh produce on-site.

Racial Equity Dinner
Duron Chavis, director of Happily Natural Day

Patrick Hull and Jeff Palumbo
Co-founders of NPO Launchpad

Mac Beaton
Director of career and technical education, Henrico County Public Schools

Austin Green
Executive Director of Hatch Kitchen RVA

Jeff Beck
Co-founder of AnswersNow

Bruno Welsh
Founder of Compost RVA

Charles Merritt
Co-Founder of Buddy insurance

Mike Scelzi has hated waste his entire life, noting that he’s been auditing energy bills since his early teen years.

Today, the 52-year-old holds a dozen patents within the energy efficiency and accounting realms, which include automatic thermostats and smart valves that sense water flow in commercial buildings.

But his latest innovation could be a game changer, he says, describing it as “the culmination of my life.” The company is called Wala, and it uses real-time analytics and solar power to assist heating, ventilation and air-conditioning units, allowing compressors to do less work.

“You get the same amount of cooling and lower costs,” he says. “It’s going to change the world.” The company is cleverly named after an aboriginal sun goddess who stored the sun in a bag after the Earth got too hot, he explains.

Scelzi offers a customized service for commercial clients that includes real-time monitoring sent to his Cloud service, where he can diagnose a problem early and quickly. For example, a recent fix to a transfer switch, a “fire and life-safety issue,” saved a customer roughly $39,000, he says.

“We do a checkup every minute,” he says. “It’s an energy happy meal. If everything’s green, you go about your daily routine.”

Incorporated last month, the business already has about 18,000 pieces of equipment hitting the database every minute, he says.

Wala is an opportunity-zone business, which means it falls under a federal tax incentive program available to investors with capital gains.

The smart building market is expected to grow to $61.9 million in the next five years, according to a recent report from Zion Market Research.

The company is already working in various states through word-of-mouth and Scelzi says he hopes to move into the residential market in the third quarter.

“Cost for energy is creeping up in Richmond,” he says. “We’re starting to get a lot more charges from Dominion. Plus people are more concerned about the environment. There’s a convergence happening. … Connectivity is power.”— Brent Baldwin

A couple years ago, Richmond Region Tourism realized it could be doing more in terms of showcasing local black-owned businesses just by leveraging existing contacts. So it began reaching out to communities. A link with the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Africans in Virginia in 1619 also presented a new opportunity.

From those discussions emerged the concept of BLK RVA, a collaborative effort between Richmond Region Tourism and the Black Experience Initiative, an advisory board of about 30 people focused on promoting black culture and entrepreneurship.

The tourism campaign centers the black experience in Richmond and will look to spread its cultural and business footprint outside the city.

It’s a homegrown concept for destination marketing that has grass-roots support and has been popular on social media.

“It’s kind of an obvious innovation,” says the advisory board’s chairwoman, Enjoli Moon. “It gives people an opportunity to easily plug into a demographic and experience a huge part of what makes Richmond what it is across the region.”

Moon says that BLK RVA already pulls businesses off the database of Richmond Region Tourism with the tag “African-American heritage.” But it’s continuing to reach out to black businesses to make sure they know about the new resource.

“This is a tourism effort, so it’s heavily about the website, social media presence, but also where we show up,” Moon says, adding they were at the Down Home Family Reunion [in Abner Clay Park] recently. “We’ll also be going out of town. … It’s designed to bring people from out of town here. So when people go visit D.C., Baltimore, Philly, you’ll see advertising about Richmond in those spaces.”

“I think the key is it’s been community driven,” says Katherine O’Donnell, executive vice president of Richmond Region Tourism. “We really wanted to figure out how to better elevate these businesses, leveraging what we have and gathering the community to come together in a way that shines a spotlight and is authentic.”

The tourism group created a budget amendment last year and allocated some of its marketing budget moving forward to BLK RVA, which will also apply for additional grants.

BLK RVA's all-volunteer action team includes Moon, Amy Wentz, Josh Epperson and Free Egunfemi. To design the campaign, it hired a local business owned by a black woman, Shannon Bass, a visual strategist with Ryano Graphics. — Brent Baldwin

Suicide rates are up, particularly among white men, who make up the vast majority of suicides. In Virginia, suicides rose 17.4% from 1999 to 2016, slightly less than the 25.4% national bump, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. 

As you may have seen in recent reports involving President Donald Trump and the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, there is a controversial new treatment that proponents say could be a game changer: ketamine.

Yes, that ketamine. It’s been around for decades. Many know it either as an animal tranquilizer or a party drug. But one Richmond doctor believes it provides an innovative new tool in the fight against treatment resistant depression. 

“It’s one of the great examples of medicine being repurposed,” says Randy Frederick, medical director of Alchemy Wellness, a ketamine infusion clinic in Richmond. Frederick is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and Navy veteran who received the Hanover Crisis Intervention Center medical provider of the year award in 2017.

For the past several decades, the main treatment for depression has been selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, known as SSRIs or SNRIs, such as Prozac, Zolaft and Celexa, which Frederick says can take a minimum of four to eight weeks to show any effect and are known to have side effects — while a third of people don’t respond at all.

He believes that ketamine works by increasing neuro-plasticity, allowing brain cells to establish more and better connections between neurons, essentially regrowing connections that have atrophied in depressed patients. He’s also been using it for chronic pain treatment to offer an alternative to opioid medications.

So far, there are only two ketamine clinics in Richmond. Alchemy has been open for about two months. Frederick and his partner, nurse practitioner Rachel Featherstone, opted to go the infusion route rather than the insurance-approved nasal spray, because it allows for much “better control” he says.

“We take a holistic approach,” Featherstone says. “Our clients see both of us, and we maintain good communication with all doctors involved with a patient.”

Ketamine was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1970 as a dissociative anesthetic that became important in developing countries. Frederick says he often used it in the emergency room because it didn’t drop the respiratory drive or blood pressure like a lot of sedating medications.

A paper written two decades ago first showed how it might work against depression. Now ketamine has momentum thanks to a new nasal spray called Spravato, formulated by Johnson and Johnson via Janssen Pharmaceuticals, which got fast-tracked FDA approval for treatment resistant depression in March.

So why has it taken so long for ketamine to be approved for this use?

“The general consensus is that ketamine had been a generic medication for awhile,” Frederick says. “There was no opportunity for a pharmaceutical company to make a profit.”

Professional opinions vary on its effectiveness. The VA decided to restrict the use of Spravato to a pre-approved, case-by-case basis, waiting for more data.

Frederick characterizes infusion treatments as “the gold standard” and says the protocol is six infusions over three to four weeks, then booster infusions as needed, which is patient dependent. Unlike the spray, the IV infusions are not covered by insurance and cost $495 per infusion — an important consideration. Frederick notes that Alchemy offers no-interest financing for 14 months as well as discounts to military, first responders and health care providers suffering from post traumatic-stress disorder.

“There’s a lot of overlap between all these syndromes, more than 50% of veterans suffer from PTSD with concurring pain problems,” he says.

Frederick encourages those interested in learning more to attend a monthly patient and provider information session held at Alchemy Wellness, 8639 Mayland Drive, Suite 102. The next one will be held Sept. 10, which falls during Suicide Prevention Awareness month. — Brent Baldwin

Fresh produce doesn’t always travel well. Delicate, perishable items like greens and herbs are especially vulnerable to damage during packaging and shipping, and they lose flavor during the stretch between picking and plating.

Babylon Micro-Farms, a Charlottesville-based startup making inroads in Richmond, wants to ease that burden for food service providers with automated indoor hydroponic systems.

Each clear, cabinetlike unit contains four shelves and sets of pre-seeded trays. Customers, who pay $600 a month for the all-inclusive service, select the produce they want and simply follow directions via the app, which alerts them when to transplant and harvest. Cameras inside each unit allow Babylon staff to identify any problems and adjust the settings accordingly from afar, negating the need for a horticultural expert on-site. Greens, herbs and edible flowers are currently available, and peppers, tomatoes and berries are coming soon.

“Some things may not do that well outside because they’re very susceptible to pests or to weather, but when you control their entire environment you can grow them very successfully,” says its chief operations officer, Marc Oosterhuis. “We’re growing it at the point of sale, at the point of consumption. People are really harvesting just prior to serving.”

Babylon installed a farm at Hatch Kitchen earlier this year, and the company is in discussion with Richmond restaurants, hotels and other food service providers in the area. A smaller unit for homes is also in the works. — Laura Ingles

Duron Chavis is known for his tireless community advocacy, particularly in urban agriculture and local food systems. The former Style Weekly Top 40 under 40 winner is also the founder of Happily Natural Day, a grass-roots festival dedicated to cultural awareness, holistic health and social change, which is having its 17th annual event this weekend (see calendar pick).

And there’s something with a twist this year.

During last year’s festival, a cooking demo from Elijah “Chef Zu” Lee of Kings Apron in Atlanta allowed Chavis to learn about a racial equity dinner held in that city earlier this year. Chavis had just finished Richmond Memorial Health Foundation’s Health and Equity Fellowship, a yearlong process built around attaching a racial equity lens to the work that foundations and nonprofits do in the community.

Chavis thought the equity dinner sounded good for Richmond.

“The whole idea is it’s easier for us to have discussions about difficult topics if we’re in dialogue in an intimate space around food,” Chavis says. “But the vision was to actually make the dinner an equity practice.”

That means the ticketing system for the Living Color Racial Equity Dialogue Dinner: RVA Edition on Sunday, Sept. 1, at Studio Two Three, is based on a sliding scale dependent on average income by race, according to research statistics.

“It’s designed to have attendees understand income inequities in our [food] system based on race and gender,” Chavis says. “White men, Asian men get paid the most, white and Asian women are next, black people and Latinos get paid third, and farm workers are paid the absolute last.”

Elijah Lee is preparing the five-course vegan meal with local produce. There will also be prompts set on the table during the meal to promote dialogue in between dishes. Chavis says that tickets already sold out, and they sold out “for white women first, then black women, then black men, and white men came in last.”

During the dinner there will be a presentation by panelists Chelsea Higgs Wise, another Top 40 winner, and Ram Bhagat, and afterward tool kits will be given out on how to apply an equity lens in the attendees’ future work.

“When we talk about equity there are different needs based on different communities, especially in terms of accessibility,” Chavis says. “This is a phenomenon that exists already. We leveled it up by being explicit about race, and having folks that participate wrestle with that. I look forward to doing more of these to spark conversations and understand there are ways we can create equitable systems.”— Brent Baldwin

Nonprofits do essential work in Richmond and are led by some of the most idealistic and passionate people around.

But they can also be hard to get off the ground.

NPO Launchpad, a newly formed incubator for nonprofit startups, hopes to change this for some lucky Richmond nonprofits.

Established by entrepreneurs Pat Hull and Jeff Palumbo, it’s an accelerator program for three chosen nonprofits that involves mentorship and operational resources to help them make it through the difficult early stages.

“They enter as novices and leave as experts,” Palumbo says.

Financially backed with a multiyear commitment from the Hull Foundation, NPO Launchpad has already chosen its inaugural class. Applicants had to be Richmond-based with charitable nonprofit status as well as have revenue of less than $100,000.

The first class will include Beyond Boundaries, which offers people with disabilities the opportunity to experience outdoor activities, Shood, which collects gently used running shoes and reconditions them for people living in poverty, and Veterinary Emergency Treatment Fund, which provides financial support to pet owners facing financial hardships.

NPO Launchpad is collaborating with Virginia Commonwealth University’s da Vinci Center to provide on-site, shared co-working space and operational support to the accelerator program. The nonprofits get office space, one-on-one collaboration with NPO Launchpad leaders, public relations and social media support, free technology software supporting marketing, operations, accounting, text messaging and cybersecurity protection.

There are absolutely no costs to the nonprofits, Palumbo says.

In the past, Hull and Palumbo made charitable donations and developed technology as for-profit companies that impact nonprofits. One company, Y!rm, connected influencers or celebrities with nonprofits and charitable causes.

But they quickly noticed there wasn’t much support in Richmond for new nonprofits.

“We both run across a lot of people who want to start nonprofits and have good ideas,” Hull says. “But early on they drop to the wayside.”

The inaugural three-month accelerator program starts in the first week of September and runs until Dec. 1, after which there will be a launch party and a fundraising event Dec. 3, the international day of charitable giving known as Giving Tuesday.

Palumbo notes that Capital One is starting a similar accelerator program this fall, geared toward nonprofits benefitting its organization — so its applicant pool may be narrower than NPO Launchpad.

Looking forward, he says they hope the NPO program will continue to expand so it can help more nonprofits grow in a short amount of time — maybe even ones with brilliant ideas that can be successful beyond Richmond.

“I’d love to foster the next Charity: Water,” he says of a clean water nonprofit from New York. “But right here in our city.”— Brent Baldwin

The idea came to him as he watched young athletes accept scholarships and sign letters of intent to top institutions on national television.

“I thought, we need to do something like that to truly celebrate our students,” says Mac Beaton, the director of career and technical education for the Henrico County Public Schools.

Beaton, whose career path included a period of working before attending a university, wanted to make graduating seniors entering the workforce feel just as valued as those packing their bags for college. So in collaboration with a couple dozen companies across a wide indistry spectrum, Henrico held its first letter of intent signing day for students who successfully completed the program and had jobs lined up after graduation.

“A career is not a straight line,” he says. “I’m a firm believer that it’s our job to help every student look at all the different options that are out there.”

The first signing day took place in the spring of 2018, and since then, Beaton says the list of businesses wanting to get involved has grown from about 25 to more than 150. The program’s exposure has facilitated relationships with industries that students may otherwise never have discovered, he says, such as a scaffolding company that hired two students who expressed interest after a hands-on demonstration.

Beaton has also been fielding hundreds of calls from school districts and companies across the country wanting to duplicate the program and hold similar events celebrating trades and the students who choose them.

“Any time anyone has called, I’ve sent them everything we’ve done to help them get it off the ground to be successful,” Beaton says. “It’s really about all of us across the country helping young people find those options that are out there, and I’m very willing to share all of it.”— Laura Ingles

Sometimes, Austin Green goes out into the wild — if food truck courts, breweries and the streets of Richmond count as wilderness — to find potential clients.

Green, the executive director of Hatch Kitchen RVA, says the idea to develop the 9,000-square-foot space came from exploring the needs of the city’s food and beverage industry alongside co-founder Brad Cummings. When they teamed up with business partners to develop more than 15 tobacco warehouses on Maury Street, the project began to fall into place.

“We’re here to help the companies grow,” he says, pointing to the commissary kitchens and food stations. “But we also invest our time as part of that membership, helping them with whatever they need.”

At Hatch, this can mean assisting members with accounting, connecting them with investors, mentors or inspectors and teaming up with local businesses to hold professional development courses.

Members pay $750 monthly to have 24/7 unlimited use of the kitchen with access to cold and dry food storage for an extra cost. Since opening in January, Green has already seen a community grow among its 34 members.

“There’s a lot of collaboration going on. People share contacts, we’ve had people help each other out when [food] trucks break down,” Green says. “It’s been special. … It’s just going to keep getting more interesting.”

At the beginning of next year, Hatch is expanding the passion project with an adjacent 2,000-square-foot cafe and event space that will include seven private kitchens, an area dedicated to bakers and a fully automated bottling line for products such as sauces and juices.

The smaller spaces will be saved for companies that need to avoid cross-contamination to ensure food is either gluten-free, certified kosher, soy- or nut-free. Also in the works is an on-site U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector and a space for packaging meat products for wholesale. Items produced and packaged in the space will carry a USDA stamp, opening up new growth opportunities for businesses such as butcher shops that could previously only sell directly to consumers.

One of Hatch’s newest developments is a food truck corral near the entrance where as many as 14 trucks can park, plug in and keep food refrigerated.

“We’re always reaching for that next step,” Green says. “People deserve to have beautiful places to make their products. … Our chefs, our creators here, they deserve it.”— by Sabrina Moreno