Beth Weisbrod and Ayana Obika
Beth Weisbrod
Former director of the Virginia Capital Trail Foundation
Beth Weisbrod was a grade schooler living in Hawaii when she saw her first bike lanes. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw one of those little green signs,” she recalls. “I just thought, ‘That’s the coolest thing!’” From 2007 until this October, Weisbrod served as the executive director of the Virginia Capital Trail Foundation, the nonprofit behind the 52-mile multi-use trail connecting Williamsburg and Richmond. The trail, which serves cyclists and pedestrians alike, had over 1 million users in 2017. “We predicted we’d get there within the first five years. So that’s accelerated in a way that’s kind of surprising to us,” explains Weisbrod, who stepped down as the foundation’s director to pursue other professional interests.
The final miles of the trail were completed in 2015. Once that was done, Weisbrod oversaw the foundation’s efforts to grow the trail’s economic impact by working with local startups like the Capital Trail Shuttle and helping localities maximize their tourism bounce off the trail.
Stu Blain, chairman of the foundation’s board, credits the completion of the trail to Weisbrod’s passion. “I have said many times, and I firmly believe, that the Capital Trail would not have gotten built without Beth.”
“It really has been the luckiest opportunity that’s ever come my way,” says Weisbrod of the experience. “It’s just been a really, really tremendous ride.” —Elizabeth Ferris
Ayana Obika
Event organizer, nonprofit leader
It’s hard to know where to start when talking about Ayana Obika’s influence on Richmond. “I have a lot of interests,” jokes the North Side native, who was one of the hosts of this year’s Diner en Blanc, a pop-up dinner party that took place on the grounds of the Science Museum. The event, based on a concept that began in Paris 30 years ago, was a success, with over 1,000 attendees and a few thousand more on the waiting list. “We’re still answering emails,” says Obika.
Also on Obika’s list of contributions: She’s a founding board member of Camp Diva/Girls for a Change, a co-owner of the nonprofit Sistah Sinema, a former board member of Project Yoga Richmond, and a current board member for Diversity Richmond and the Richmond Business Alliance. She also owns Gratitude Rising Events, a company that helped expand the Washington-based LGBT wedding expo “Say I Do!” to Richmond in 2015.
“Ayana works selflessly to make our community better by lifting up children, women of color and Richmond’s LGBT community,” says GayRVA founder Kevin Clay, who has worked with Obika on some of her projects.
For Obika, there is unity in her diverse interests. “When I look at everything I do, I see how it all connects. My greatest interest is to serve people.” —EF
Laura Lafayette, Tyrone Nelson, Shannon Siriano Greenwood
Laura Lafayette
CEO of Richmond Association of Realtors and Maggie Walker Community Land Trust Board chairwoman
In mid-November, the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust handed over the keys to a new, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath home in Church Hill to a first-time homeowner. Just four months prior, the city’s first land trust – and only the second in Virginia – broke ground on the first property parcel beneath the home, in an innovative approach to affordable housing.
“The goal of the land trust is to preserve a mixture of incomes in a housing market that’s rapidly seeing a loss of affordability,” says MWCLT board chairwoman Laura Lafayette, who is also chief executive officer of the Richmond Association of Realtors.
The land trust model works by allowing income-qualifying homeowners to purchase only the actual housing structure, because the trust owns the land under the house. When the owner later sells the home, the cost of the land is subtracted from the sale price, and any equity increase is split between the homeowner and the land trust. “One of the ways to build wealth is through home ownership,” Lafayette says, “but you have to be able to afford that step.” She expects at least 10 more MWCLT homeowners by the end of 2018. —Sarah King
Tyrone Nelson
Henrico supervisor, pastor of Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church
A Henrico County supervisor since 2011, Tyrone Nelson works to make sure residents in the eastern Varina District — 16 percent of whom live under the federal poverty line, compared with Henrico’s overall rate of 10 percent — get their fair share.
In 2017, through the 44-year-old Nelson’s efforts, An Achievable Dream Academy started at Highland Springs Elementary School. Former state Sen. Walter Stosch had recommended he look at the Newport News-based program, which provides conflict resolution, social skills workshops and academic support for children in economically challenged communities. Highland Springs now has half-day classes on Saturdays and after-school programs, thanks to a five-year public-private partnership. Nelson, who also serves as pastor of Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church in Jackson Ward, says he hopes to expand to other schools.
Growth has been slower in the eastern part of the county than in booming Short Pump, but Nelson points to the new Varina Library, the Walmart Supercenter on Nine Mile Road and the Advanced Career Education Center at Highland Springs as examples of progress, as well as the incoming Facebook data center. Moving forward, Nelson wants to see more regional cooperation and better public transportation.
“I’ve been trying to get the County of Henrico to understand the importance of putting public dollars behind transportation," he says. "I’d love to see us make the jump to Innsbrook and beyond, to Short Pump.” —Kate Andrews
Shannon Siriano Greenwood
Co-founder of Boss Babes RVA and Rebelle Con
Shannon Siriano Greenwood ran into the same issues that many women do: trying to have it all and feeling “absolutely miserable,” she says. Working a full-time job while having also opened a new business, Boho Cycle Studio, as well as planning to have a family, the 35-year-old Greenwood “had to take a big step back.”
Today, she is still busy by many people’s standards, raising two boys, ages 3 years and 5 months, coaching people with small businesses and co-founding the women’s business support group Boss Babes RVA. In November, Greenwood also launched Rebelle Con, a three-day conference to connect Richmond-area women who have started businesses or freelance full time, and offer financial advice and other tips to stay balanced between work and personal life. She has found that Richmond is good place for taking chances in business and finding support, particularly through the ChamberRVA’s Thrive mentorship program and Richmond SCORE, both of which are free.
“I was one of those people who thought if I worked really, really, really hard, I’d be successful,” Greenwood says, but in recent years, she began to understand that people have different definitions of success. “You can set boundaries in place when you decide not to do the rat-race thing.” —KA
Paul Fisher and Ashley Hawkins
Paul Fisher
Director, VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine
Metastasizing solid tumors kill 90 percent of the time. Paul Fisher wants to change that math in favor of people dealing with the cancers.
Fisher and his team of researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute of Molecular Medicine and at the VCU Massey Cancer Center are working to bring laboratory discoveries to the clinic to treat patients in their battles with an array of cancers.
They have centered their efforts on a gene they identified in the laboratory that causes cancers to become aggressive and metastasize. The next goal is the development of small-molecule drugs that will block that phase from occurring, and the team has so far seen what Fisher calls “quite exciting results” in its research.
They are also working on modifying a gene to block cancer cells from escaping a primary tumor, which would impede the cells’ ability to attach to and invade healthy tissue and regrow. They are currently studying its toxicology (it looks nontoxic, says Fisher) and seeing how it works in patients.
The goal is a product that will be used before, during and after surgery to prevent cancerous cells from circulating.
“That would be a phenomenal way to treat,” Fisher says. —Tharon Giddens
Ashley Hawkins
Founder and director of Studio Two Three
“I think we’re providing something that Richmond wants and the community needs,” says Ashley Hawkins, the founder and director of Studio Two Three, a creative enclave she’s likened to a gym membership for artists. Two years ago, when Hawkins moved her cramped artist collective to Scott’s Addition from East Main Street, it became a linchpin for the neighborhood’s astonishing growth.
The studio’s big initiative in 2017 was the S-23-to-Go, a brush- and canvas-equipped 1999 GMC van designed to take art to the people. And with the purchase of the Delta V auto repair shop next door, she and her 75 affiliated artists will soon have room to grow — 13,000 total square feet of space, 30 private studios (expanded from 20), and a 2,500-square-foot meeting place. “It will also enable us to host large student groups on field trips, so our educational programs can take off,” Hawkins says.
The studio used to be a one-woman show, but she now employs three full-time and two part-time staffers. Art is a business, she says. Since the beginning, Hawkins has stressed this, offering professional development seminars and workshops for creative entrepreneurs. “Filing a Schedule C or determining what corporate entity you should be,” Hawkins says, “those are the kinds of things that make or break a career — or turn it from a hobby to a full-time vocation.” —Don Harrison
Rob Huddleston, Isaiah Todd, Mike Uzel
Rob Huddleston
Director of user experience (UX)/design for HUSL
Meet HUSL: a mobile app fresh out of Snagajob’s Richmond Innovation Lab that pairs local companies seeking last-minute hourly workers with a vetted group of employees looking for available shifts — sometimes in 15 seconds or less. In early fall, Mayor Levar Stoney and Snagajob CEO Peter Harrison launched the venture during an event outside the HUSL office in the Fan.
“It’s ‘Uber for hourly work,’ ” says Director of UX/Design Rob Huddleston, who co-created the app with Jason Hamilton and Brian Dylan. “The idea being that if you’re a restaurant, a retailer, a small business, and the dishwasher or somebody doesn’t show up for a shift — the same way you would call Uber for a ride, you call HUSL for a worker.”
For Lucy Browne, the HUSL app was a way to make money in the interim after she moved to Richmond from Los Angeles. At the launch event, she said she had worked about 10 shifts during the course of a month at businesses including White House catering, Roadhouse BBQ and Ardent Craft Ales. “The payment is really fast, which is great.” —SK
Isaiah Todd
Star basketball player for John Marshall High School
The most impressive thing about Isaiah Todd, a rising sophomore who plays basketball for Richmond’s John Marshall High School, is his attitude, not only toward the game, but life. “People talking about what I could be doesn’t make me better,” the 6-foot-9 power forward told USA Today earlier this year. “That’s just potential.”
National scouts and b-ball scribes don’t just think that Todd has potential; as ESPN’s No. 1-ranked high school player for the class of 2020, he could be a future superstar. “I’ve coached a lot of talented guys,” says John Marshall coach Ty White, who has had five previous players from his regional Team Loaded program join the NBA in the past year. “Isaiah has the potential to be eons better than them all.”
As a freshman last year, the Baltimore transplant averaged 13 points, seven rebounds and two blocked shots, and, as of press time, 13 college programs, including Kansas, Virginia, Villanova, Wake Forest and Maryland, have made offers. Todd, who attends Richmond Community High School, also sets a high bar for his peers. “He’ll go to the library and study for two hours after school before we even have practice,” White says. “His attitude, his energy is so infectious that it’s good for the whole team.” —DH
Mike Uzel
Leader of the Bermuda Advocates for Responsible Development
When the Chesterfield Economic Development Authority rolled out a plan with Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Aug. 31 to rezone 1,700 acres of residential and mixed-use land in Matoaca for heavy industrial use, many county residents were caught off guard. Mike Uzel, a lifelong Chesterfield resident and a broker with Harris & Associates Real Estate, was more than surprised — he was flat-out unhappy, and he’s leading the opposition through a recently relaunched coalition, Bermuda Advocates for Responsible Development. “The first public meeting held by CEDA was set up as what many described as a ‘science fair’ exhibit,” with no public presentation or opportunity for questions, Uzel says.
The authority says there is no “end user” for the proposed mega site, but economic development director Garrett Hart has said that a large industrial manufacturer investing $1 billion or more would create thousands of jobs. The plan would require a new east-west four-lane highway through Uzel’s neighborhood, as well as the relocation of Harrowgate Elementary School to a local park. CEDA said construction on the highway could begin as early as spring 2018.
That’s what led Uzel and others to investigate and oppose the rezoning and infrastructure to aid what he calls “some unknown, nonexistent high-tech company, at taxpayer expense, to the detriment of those very taxpayers.” —SK
