Moving Ahead

The following is an extended version of the article that appears in our February 2021 Sourcebook issue.

We interviewed local leaders in health, education, business and the arts and asked them what they are most hopeful about and their plans for pandemic recovery. They forecast some lasting changes in education, health care and the way we work, but there are silver linings to some of the lessons learned from 2020 that bode well for brighter days ahead.

Dr. Arthur L. Kellermann

Senior vice president for health sciences at VCU and CEO of VCU Health System

Kellermann joined VCU on Oct. 1, 2020, after leaving a job as dean of the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, the leadership academy for military health and the U.S. Public Health Service. A member of the National Academy of Medicine, he is also a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and of the American College of Physicians.

Richmond magazine: What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned from the pandemic? 

Dr. Arthur L. Kellerman: Public health matters. Although everyone is understandably focused on the incredible pace with which modern science, building on 17 years of research, produced two effective vaccines in less than a year, the biggest story in my mind is the terrible price we paid for under-resourcing public health and denying public health science in the early weeks and months of the pandemic. Not surprisingly, those suffering most are the same communities who struggle daily with substandard housing, unemployment, lack of education and racial discrimination.

RM: What is the biggest challenge you face in the year ahead? 

Kellerman: Beat COVID-19 once and for all. Until we get everyone vaccinated, it will be vital to convince everyone to practice “The 5 W’s”: Wear a mask; wash your hands; watch your distance; wait to dine indoors, gather or party until COVID-19 is on the run; and whack COVID-19 by getting vaccinated. Ignore the antivaccine garbage circulating on ... social media. Instead trust credible sources like your doctor, the local health department, the CDC and VCU Health. The COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. As soon as you have a chance to get either one, take it!  

RM: What are you most hopeful about? 

Kellerman: The power of teamwork, innovation and commitment. Since moving to Richmond in October to join VCU, I’ve been blown away by the community in this city and region, the warmth of its residents, and the enterprising spirit in everyone from VCU researchers and educators to community artists, restaurateurs and local businesses, large and small. At VCU Health, I’ve found an academic health system that is incredibly skilled at treating cancer, heart disease, strokes, trauma and burns, and transplanting organs and is equally committed to treating everyone who needs help as the commonwealth’s leading safety-net hospital.  

RM: What do you wish people knew? 

Kellerman: How fortunate Richmond is to have one of the nation’s most unique, innovative and caring universities and academic health systems in its midst. In the three short months I’ve been here, I’ve been blown away by all that Richmond has to offer: parks and museums, natural beauty, and incredibly warm and civic-minded people. When — not if — we beat COVID-19 in 2021, my wife and I look forward to enjoying Richmond’s restaurants, performing arts, sports scene, diverse neighborhoods and history. 

RM: What changes have you made in your personal or professional life that you intend to stick with once things are back to “normal”? 

Kellerman: In the midst of the deadliest pandemic our world has faced in 100 years, my wife and I left Washington, D.C., and a job I loved to move to RVA and VCU. We’re sticking with both! 

—Paula Peters Chambers

Floyd E. Miller II

President and CEO of the Metropolitan Business League

After 17 years as senior director of urban programs with Special Olympics, Miller joined the Metropolitan Business League in 2017. The nonprofit assists the growth of small businesses, including women- and minority-owned enterprises.

Richmond magazine: What is the biggest challenge you face in the year ahead?

Floyd E. Miller II: Technology is probably the biggest challenge not only for us, but for a lot of people. … Many businesses weren’t equipped to operate virtually. The major challenge is in training [business owners] and [finding] the revenue to increase capacity for expanding technology as we move into this new norm.  

RM: What are you most hopeful about?

Miller: I am most hopeful ... that this pandemic has allowed folks to sit back and reevaluate how they do things, [along with] the continuing opportunities for collaboration. We collaborated with We Care RVA Rebuild Project, Venture Richmond, ChamberRVA, Virginia Local Initiatives Support Corporation and Virginia Community Capital. During these unprecedented times, we created an emergency fund for businesses affected by COVID-19 and social justice demonstrations. I’m very hopeful that people will continue to see the importance of collaboration. I’ve been in nonprofit management for more than 20 years, and this is the first time I can recall four, five nonprofits coming together for one cause.  

RM: What do you wish people knew? 

Miller: I wish people would understand the importance of supporting small businesses, especially minority-owned businesses. Small business is a huge contributor to the national and regional economies, providing local jobs.   

RM: What changes have you made, personally or professionally, that you intend to stick with when things get back to “normal”?

Miller: I will be more sensitive as a manager to allow staff to work remotely. I’ve always been one to advocate for partnerships and collaboration, and moving forward, [I’ll] seek to increase those opportunities with other nonprofit organizations and folks that sponsor our organizations. 

—Harry Kollatz Jr.

Lisa Sims

Venture Richmond CEO

Among other initiatives to support and promote downtown, Venture Richmond sponsors numerous popular events — Friday Cheers, Dominion Energy Riverrock, the 2nd Street Festival and the Richmond Folk Festival, all of which were canceled or reimagined as virtual events in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Richmond magazine: What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned from the pandemic? 

Lisa Sims: This year showed us — showed me — that sometimes you can’t fight against change, even if it’s not a good change. To survive, we’re forced to innovate and take real risks. And for some businesses and organizations, even extreme innovation and brilliant risk-taking was not enough. In some ways it’s been a crapshoot, a luck of the draw. In that regard, I feel very lucky. 

RM: What is the biggest challenge you face in the year ahead? 

Sims: Keeping up the constant energy and innovation we’ve all had to dig deep for [last] year. 2020 clearly has been a challenge, simply to survive. And it was hard work for everyone. But that doesn’t end with the year. In 2021, we will face the same challenges. We need to gather our strength … be grateful that we’ve survived, and continue to evolve and dig even deeper. 

RM: What are you most hopeful about? 

Sims: I’m most hopeful that the attention that was brought and the work that was done to further social justice will continue, and that the focus on diversity, equity and inclusion ... will continue in a very deliberate way. I’m also hopeful that having gone through this pandemic year, that we are able to live in a space of real gratitude when we come out the other side. 

RM: What changes have you made that you intend to stick with when things get back to “normal”? 

Sims: Letting go a bit more. This year has been about working from home, working independently, socializing very distantly and in tiny groups — drawing energy and strength from within rather than directly from our co-workers, friends and colleagues.

—HK

Dr. Amy Cashwell

Superintendent, Henrico County Public Schools

Henrico County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Amy Cashwell was hired in July 2018 to oversee the state’s sixth-largest school division. During her tenure, she has championed the goal of having every student enrolled, enlisted or employed upon graduation. Since last spring she has faced many difficult decisions as the school system pivoted to virtual learning and has delayed the start of in-person learning numerous times due to the pandemic. In August 2020, Cashwell’s contract was extended two years, to July 2024.

Richmond magazine: What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned from the pandemic? 

Amy Cashwell: I think this lesson was important pre-pandemic but has been underscored — the importance organizationally of being nimble to change, to adapt to challenges and sustain that across a large organization, how to get comfortable with the new and unknown, get comfortable in looking at problems and solutions, get open to change along the way, and being open to solutions.  

It’s tough to separate personal from professional, because this year, the bulk of my life focused on the professional. [We see] individuals and businesses and organizations struggling with how to sustain the stamina and mindset that’s needed to navigate an ever-evolving situation. I’ve had several aha moments that have underscored the need to keep that [mindset], to navigate successfully and come out on the other end of this pandemic intact.  

RM: What is the biggest challenge you face in the year ahead? 

Cashwell: Staying true to our work as a school division and meeting individual needs, even as those needs may look very different in the aftermath of this pandemic. We are committed to the work we’ve always done and being committed to work still to come, but we face uncharted territory, closing gaps and meeting individual student needs we perhaps haven’t seen before. I’ve heard it said that we are all weathering the same storm, but some students are on rafts while others are on yachts. I don’t think we’ll have a full grasp of what we need to do until the storm has passed us by. We need to respond to those who have had vastly different experiences, both in education and personally. 

RM: What are you most hopeful about? 

Cashwell: There have been so many silver linings that have been presented, [I hope] we can continue to capitalize on those. We have found new ways to connect with families and new ways to engage with communities. We’ve used technology to reach our families and provide resources, and the digital format has allowed us to establish connections we may not have had before. I’m very hopeful we will be able to capitalize on synergies with community partners that have occurred during the crisis. As a community, we now have a broader understanding of the whole child in ways we haven’t before. That will positively impact our practice going forward. When it comes to the community, people have known that schools do school — education — but now the community has seen school divisions being constant sources of meal services and so many other wraparound [supports]. This shines a light on the positive ways school communities have served families. 

RM: What do you wish people knew? 

Cashwell: How talented and tremendous the Henrico [schools] team is. We’ve seen the results, and they’ve made it look easy. I’m thinking of how teachers have retooled and rethought the ways they have engaged students. And again, the daily meal service for thousands of families — a grab-and-go program, contactless pickup, involving vast amounts of time and energy for our school nurses and clinic staff, food service workers, bus drivers — they are all truly heroic. I wish people knew all that had gone into that effort.  

RM: What changes have you made in your personal or professional life that you intend to stick with once things are back to “normal”? 

Cashwell: Personally, I have learned to enjoy things closer to home. I used to be a very on-the-go person, but I’ve really come to appreciate things like home improvements on weekends, to enjoying local parks and outside spaces. I intend to stick with that, because it gives you a fresh look at your home community.

—PPC

Hamilton Glass

Artist/muralist/activist

A Philadelphia native, Glass studied architecture at Hampton University and moved to Richmond in 2007. After an unexpected layoff, he turned to painting, and today his vibrant murals adorn buildings throughout the city. This summer, he founded the Mending Walls project, a public art project to foster honest conversations about race.

Richmond magazine: What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned from the pandemic?  

Hamilton Glass: The biggest lesson I’ve learned from the pandemic is how to be versatile. When first faced with the pandemic, I honestly thought this moment would be a great time to sit down and focus on me and my personal work. That only lasted for about two weeks, as the itch and urge to work creatively was a lot stronger than I anticipated. The struggles of 2020 led to the creation of the All in Together project and Mending Walls, which have been very successful creative avenues to interact with the community. 

RM: What are you most hopeful about?  

Glass: I am most hopeful about [the Richmond] creative community’s ability to be versatile and flexible. If I’ve learned anything else in the year of 2020, it’s that through all the challenges, this community is resilient and super creative in nature. 

RM: What do you wish people knew?  

Glass: I wish people knew how much I love this city. Richmond has so many great people working and advocating for great causes. 

RM: What changes have you made that you intend to stick with when things get back to “normal”? 

Glass: Through 2020, I have had the opportunity to work on more of my personal paintings through the Artists for Hope auction platform. Artists for Hope is a project where local Richmond artists auction off a painting every Friday for the benefit of small local nonprofits or organizations. I have been doing these auctions ... since March of 2020 and have raised over $30,000. I would like to find a way to keep this going and have an even bigger impact in the future. 

—HK

Adele Johnson

Executive director, Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia

Adele Johnson was named executive director of the Black History Museum & Cultural Center in January 2019 after serving as interim director for 18 months. With a mission “to preserve stories that inspire,” the museum offers special exhibitions and programming for children.

Richmond magazine: What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned from the pandemic? 

Adele Johnson: One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from the pandemic is the importance of reaching out and depending on each other. I have a tendency to think that if I sit in a corner by myself long enough, I can figure out a solution to any problem. Although this may, indeed, be true, the solution will more than likely be more colorful, innovative, attractive and feasible when I invite others to share their thoughts to help make the solution even better.  

RM: What is the biggest challenge you face in the year ahead? 

Johnson: At the Black History Museum, we are facing a number of challenges just like other museums and nonprofits. ... We believe that Black history is an important component to student education — students of all colors and backgrounds — because Black history is a critical part of America’s story. We will continue to offer programs and opportunities for education and enrichment virtually in order to provide a more complete and inclusive Black history narrative. But virtual programs don’t bring in the revenue that protects our artifacts or keeps our operations going. 

RM: What are you most hopeful about? 

Johnson: I am most hopeful about students. I hope that the protests, the frustration, the dissatisfaction they saw and participated in will help them view the world in a different way and encourage them to continue to use their voices. I hope this time in our lives is a lesson for them in politics, government and leadership that stays with them as they begin to understand that each of us has a responsibility to make our city/state/country better. 

—PPC

Dr. M. Norman Oliver

State Health Commissioner, Virginia Department of Health

Formerly chair of the department of family medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Dr. Norman Oliver helped oversee the transformation of clinics into patient-centered practices focusing on overall population health. His research has focused on health inequities, specifically as they affect racial and ethnic minorities. Early in his career, he practiced family medicine in rural Alaska.  

Richmond magazine: What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned from the pandemic? 

Dr. Norman Oliver: The importance of public health. I’ve always felt that way, and the pandemic has really underscored the importance of public health departments and practice. It’s also clear that public health has been undersourced, underfunded — the workforce has not been built up the way it needs to be to handle something like a pandemic. You want to build it up before you have the emergency. 

RM: What is the biggest challenge you face in the year ahead? 

Oliver: Getting everyone vaccinated — that’s going to be a big challenge. We have something like 6 million people to vaccinate between now and the end of next summer. We have plans for how to do it. We’re working diligently to expand the workforce to be able to implement [vaccination distribution]. Public health [entities] will likely be responsible for 30 percent to 35 percent of that, especially in the early stages. Later on, we’ll see primary-care providers, pharmacies with the vaccine.  

RM: What are you most hopeful about? 

Oliver: I’m looking forward to 2021 being the year we put COVID-19 behind us, having vaccinated the overwhelming majority of [the] adult population, making sure COVID-19 doesn’t have a home anymore. We’re always concerned about mutations, but from what we can tell so far, the mutation won’t have any impact on the effectiveness of [the current] vaccine. This vaccine is aimed at a particular part of the virus — a spike protein — that hasn’t changed. What you worry about is that a virus can change radically.  

RM: What do you wish people knew? 

Oliver: I wish people had really good access to all the facts about COVID-19 and our responses to it, including the vaccination campaign. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. A lot of what people think they know about what’s going on isn’t accurate. I get that — there’s a lot of data and stories out there, but they’re not always grounded in actual fact.  

RM: What changes have you made in your personal or professional life that you intend to stick with once things are back to “normal”? 

Oliver: It’s definitely going to be a new normal. Teleworking is one thing. It turns out that we’ve been very productive. … In my mind, that means we need to be more flexible in allowing that. This is particularly true for working women — in public health, that’s the majority of our workforce.  

We’ve seen more flexibility in our work schedule. I’d like to continue that and continue to extend that to staff as well. We often hear this is a marathon not a sprint. This [pandemic] is a major emergency and major disaster we’re responding to, but it’s not like a hurricane, when it’s a week and then you’re into recovery mode. This is ongoing. It’s been going for months now. You have to pace yourself, realize, “If I take a day off, the emergency will still be there when I get back.” If you need some space for yourself, you can take that space. Otherwise, you will burn yourself completely out.

—PPC