Hull Lays Out Vision for Roanoke Regional Partnership’s Future

Editor’s Note: Learn more about John Hull’s inclusion in The Roanoker’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2021.

After being led by Beth Doughty for the last 12 years, the Roanoke Regional Partnership is now under new management. 

John Hull, no stranger to the partnership, was named executive director at the beginning of this year after serving as acting director of business investment and director of marketing intelligence. He has also served as the executive director of the Western Virginia Regional Industrial Facility Authority.

“Economic development is a passion for me,” Hull says. “I wanted to step into the role because this organization has an excellent staff and competent leadership. We have a great capacity. We believe in making strategic investments and changes that make our region more competitive.” 

Hull explains that he finds the challenging work of driving economic growth in the region that the partnership does to be incredibly rewarding. 

“As an organization, we’ve been making a real difference. We aren’t just doing marketing work like a lot of regional development partnerships do, but we’re identifying opportunities to make strategic change and are pursuing that change in partnership with our local government and private sector partners. We’re making a real impact.”

Throughout his time at the partnership, Hull says he’s seen it leverage the region’s natural resources in ways that had never been seen before. “We started using the outdoors as a support to our talent attraction efforts. Folks weren’t talking about the outdoors the way they do now 10 or 12 years ago. Even though it’s all around us, we turned the region’s attention to it and we used it as a means to support economic development,” he explains. “As an essential part of our livability narrative, the outdoors frames a lot of our conversations around attracting young professionals to move here, live here and work here.”

The outdoor activities and beauty that the region has to offer was one of the driving factors behind Traditional Medicinals’ decision to locate in Franklin County in January 2020. “We really fell in love,” Blair Kellison, CEO of the California-based herbal tea manufacture, says in regard to the region.

Hull says that he’s also proud of the efforts the partnership has made in developing sites to help lure potential businesses to the region. He cites Pratt Industries, a packaging company that located in Botetourt County in 2019, as a prime example of successful site development.

Despite the partnership’s recent wins, there’s no getting around the fact that his appointment comes at a precarious time. Like the rest of the country and the world, the Roanoke Valley has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. State health guidelines and a reluctance to take risks has complicated doing business. With that being said, Hull stresses the partnership has persevered in such a way that it has successfully managed to pull off a number of key initiatives over the past year, including an online marketing campaign to attract remote workers and influence population growth, the shifting of talent solutions to address the concerns of major employers related to COVID-19 recovery, and location and expansion announcements for Mack Trucks, Traditional Medicinals, Fleetwood Homes/Cavco and Apex Systems. 

Looking ahead, he hopes to continue the partnership’s momentum by being agile and forward-thinking. 

“Short term, we have continued interest in the region from the perspective of advanced manufacturing and industry. We’re going to continue to connect those opportunities with the right real estate, the right training and the right workforce solutions,” he explains. 

As time goes on, Hull stresses that the partnership will have a prominent role to play in the region’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. To aid in that effort, the partnership will be in contact with businesses and local governments to see what their needs are. 

“In the long term, there is an excellent opportunity to collaborate with a number of organizations in the technology and innovation space,” he says. “We will seek to find ways to support the growth of life science and technology business in the region.”

To do so, he says the partnership will need to leverage its talent solutions and programming in order to connect businesses with higher education resources that are in the region.

Quite simply, the partnership’s goal in his mind is to, “look for opportunities to attract investment to support our region’s growth.”

His staff, he says, will be instrumental in achieving his goals. 

“They each have a very specific role to play, but yet they’re all generalist enough that they can get together and brainstorm new strategies,” he explains. “The organization is flexible and adaptable, which allows it to meet the evolving needs of the region.” 

Since starting in the new role a month ago, Hull reports that he is settling in well and enjoying the responsibilities associated with being the partnership’s executive director.

“It’s going great. I’m really excited to have this role and carry the work of the partnership forward,” he says. “In spite of the fact that we’re in the midst of a pandemic, things are starting to improve. I think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

The Roanoke Regional Partnership serves Botetourt, Alleghany, Roanoke and Franklin counties, the cities of Roanoke, Salem and Covington and the town of Vinton.

About the Author: 

Aila Boyd is an educator and journalist who resides in Roanoke. She holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University.