Gordon Sutton has expanded his locally owned fuel business into solar. Photo: Eze Amos
Eye of the Tiger
When attorney David Sutton purchased a small Charlottesville oil supplier on the verge of going out of business in 1982, the company had just two trucks to its name—and one had dry-rotted tires. But over the past four decades, Tiger Fuel Company has grown to become one of the largest petroleum distributors in the state. In addition to selling fuel to businesses and homeowners in Virginia and neighboring states, the company runs nearly a dozen gas stations, convenience stores, and car washes across central Virginia.
Last year, the family-owned business made a surprising pivot: It acquired Charlottesville-based solar company Altenergy.
“I’d been wanting to do solar at some of our facilities for a really long time, and had some good friends in the industry who were advising me on that,” says Tiger Fuel President Gordon Sutton. “For years and years, they [said] you could do it just for the feel-good reasons, but it doesn’t make a ton of financial sense. But about three or four years ago, they let me know that had absolutely changed.”
In 2018, Tiger Fuel hired Altenergy to install solar panels at its Preston Avenue and Ruckersville stores. Because the two companies had worked well together, Sutton decided to pursue a partnership, creating the petroleum distributor’s newest branch, Tiger Solar.
Tiger Fuel is now working to bring solar power to the rest of its convenience stores and bulk plants, and will use it for all future real estate projects. It’s also installed electric vehicle charging stations at its Mill Creek store, and plans to add them to more locations.
By transitioning to solar power, the company ultimately aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2025.
“It’s no question that the fossil fuel landscape is changing,” says Sutton. “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”—Brielle Entzminger
‘What’s going on in there?’
Strolling along the Downtown Mall these days will lead you past the quaint restaurants and boutiques that have long been associated with the pedestrian drag. But in some corners, that small business entrepreneurial spirit has taken on a more cutting-edge sheen. Icarus sells custom-made knee braces from its sleek office space near the corner of First and East Main streets. Closer to the mall’s east end Skooma opened last year, promising a “boutique” dispensary experience as full marijuana legalization approaches. Its Apple Store-esque decor strikes an entirely different note than the head shops of yore.
Dave Johnson, founder of Icarus, holds one of the company’s knee braces outside his downtown office. Photo: Eze Amos
Meanwhile, though plenty of traditional office space still occupies the mall’s nooks and crannies, multiple companies have set up trendy co-working spaces, where individuals or small groups can purchase more flexible access to office space. In addition to hosting larger tenants, the CODE Building houses the Codebase co-working space, which could support as many as 200 workers. Vault Virginia, also downtown, rents conference rooms, suites, and a la carte access to individuals and companies alike. And Common House, on West Market Street, offers membership-based entry to its coffee-shop-vibe multipurpose rooms. The times they are a-changin’.—Ben Hitchcock
If you build it…
Charlottesville’s innovators have had an effect on the city’s skyline in recent years. As the area becomes more and more of a hub for entrepreneurship and the tech industry, all those new employees need workspace, and that’s led to major new developments geared toward office space.
WillowTree has been in to its facility in the old Woolen Mills warehouse since last year. The Charlottesville-based software development firm has worked on digital products for big companies like HBO and McDonald’s, and also put together UVA’s COVIDwise app last year. The corp is very much in the process of pitching Charlottesville as a destination for entrepreneurship: “The future of tech innovation? It’s not where you think,” reads WillowTree’s website, above a picture of its new Woolen Mills campus. Checkmate, Palo Alto.
Closer to downtown, Apex Clean Energy has recently moved in to new digs, too. Apex is a renewable energy company, which organizes and operates solar and wind farms across the country. It has projects close to home, as well: last year, then-Governor Ralph Northam announced that the state would buy the output from Virginia’s first onshore wind turbine farm, operated by Apex and located in Botetourt County. The company’s shiny eight-story Garrett Street office building is made of sustainably harvested massed timber, a construction method that limits carbon emissions. Apex says it’s the tallest timber building on the East Coast.
Then, of course, there’s the CODE Building, which now looms at the Downtown Mall’s west end. The state-of-the-art tech tower opened late last year. The building’s upper floors will be rented to large companies—Jaffray Woodriff’s Quantitative Investment Management has already claimed one, and local wealth management firm Investure has moved in to another. In total, the building could bring as many as 600 workers to the mall.—Ben Hitchcock
Mission driven
Charity Malia Dinko has always had a passion for helping people. After immigrating to the United States from Ghana in 2010, she started sending money back to her hometown village of Worikambo as soon as she landed her first jobs at Walmart and McDonald’s. Making minimum wage, Dinko began to feel like she was not making much of a difference, but soon had a shift in perspective.
Charity Malia Dinko has created opportunities for women in Ghana through her shea butter business. Photo: John Robinson
“One day I was driving to work, and at the stoplight there was a homeless man begging for money. I only had 25 cents in my car…but God just spoke to me and told me you should give that money to him because that money could add up,” says Dinko. “It got me thinking…whatever it is I can save up and send to my mom, it will help something. It’s better than nothing.”
After earning her associate’s degree, Dinko transferred to the University of Virginia in 2016. She created a micro-loans program to help people in Ghana start their own businesses, but faced challenges keeping it running. While taking classes for her minor in social entrepreneurship, Dinko realized she could start her own business, selling what millions of exploited Ghanian women were already making: shea butter. In 2018, Dinko officially launched Northshea, which pays women in Worikambo a living wage to produce shea butter. Since then, the company has lifted many out of poverty, as well as built a library in the village and sent school supplies to children there.
“The northern part of Ghana is one of the poorest areas…Many [women] don’t have jobs at all, and they’re migrating to the south and [most] end up being abused,” says Dinko. “What we’re doing here is allowing the people to stay home by creating jobs right there.”
In addition to selling raw shea butter from her facility in Ghana, Dinko uses the raw butter to make a variety of whipped body butters with essential oils. Northshea’s products are currently sold at Darling, Rebecca’s Natural Foods, and The Elderberry, as well as on the company’s website.
As her company grows, Dinko plans to improve the schools and health care in Worikambo. And soon, she hopes to get her shea butter on shelves in big-name stores, like Target—the bigger the business gets, the more she’ll be able to give back.—Brielle Entzminger
Activists in Buckingham have been fighting the pipeline since 2014. On Sunday, they won.
PC: Friends of Buckingham
Pipeline defeated
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is history. In a surprise announcement on Sunday afternoon, Dominion Power called off the 600-mile natural gas pipeline that would have run from West Virginia to North Carolina. “VICTORY!” declared the website of the Southern Environmental Law Center.
The news is a major win for a wide variety of environmental advocacy groups and grassroots activists, who have been fighting the pipeline on all fronts since the project was started in 2014. The pipeline would have required a 50-yard-wide clear-cut path through protected Appalachian forest, and also disrupted a historically black community in rural Buckingham County.
Dominion won a Supreme Court case earlier this month, but that wasn’t enough to outweigh the “increasing legal uncertainty that overhangs large-scale energy and industrial infrastructure development in the United States,” says the energy giant’s press release.
Litigation from the Southern Environmental Law Center dragged the pipeline’s construction to a halt. Gas was supposed to be flowing by 2019, but less than 6 percent of the pipe ever made it in the ground.
The ACP had the backing of the Trump administration, and U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette blamed the “obstructionist environmental lobby” for the pipeline’s demise.
“I felt like it was the best day of my life,” says Ella Rose, a Friends of Buckingham member, in a celebratory email. “I feel that all the hard work that all of us have done was finally for good. I feel like I have my life back. I can now sleep better without the worries that threatened my life for so long.”
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Quote of the week
“It is past time. As the capital city of Virginia, we have needed to turn this page for decades. And today, we will.”
—Richmond mayor Levar Stoney on the city’s removal of its Stonewall Jackson and Matthew Fontaine Maury statues
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In brief
Loan-ly at the top
On Monday, the government released a list of companies that accepted loans through the federal Paycheck Protection Program, designed to keep workers employed during COVID’s economic slowdown. A variety of Charlottesville businesses accepted loans of $2-5 million, including Red Light Management, St. Anne’s-Belfield, and Tiger Fuel.
Renaming re-do
An advisory committee recommended last week that recently merged Murray High and Community Charter schools be renamed Rose Hill Community School, but this suggestion immediately raised eyebrows: Rose Hill was the name of a plantation that later became a neighborhood. The committee will reconvene to discuss options for a new moniker.
City hangs back
Charlottesville is one of a handful of localities that have pushed back against Governor Ralph Northam’s order to move to Phase 3 of reopening. While some of the state has moved forward,City Manager Tarron Richardson has decided to keep the city government’s facilities operating in accordance with Phase 2 requirements and restrictions. As stated on its website, this decision was made in order to “ensure the health and safety of staff and the public.”
Soldier shut in
Since at least the beginning of July, the gates of UVA’s Confederate cemetery, where a statue of a Confederate soldier stands, have been barricaded, reports the Cavalier Daily. A university spokesman says the school locked the cemetery because protesters elsewhere in the state have been injured by falling statues. Or maybe, as UVA professor Jalane Schmidt suggested on Twitter, “they’re tryna keep the dead from escaping.”
Belmont resident Rick Barnett says glaring lights are degrading residents’ quality of life, and he calls the new ones at Tubby’s “obscene.” Photo by Martyn Kyle
On a night with a full moon, Rick Barnett can see pretty clearly outside his Belmont house. The problem is, he can also see clearly on moonless nights—thanks to an array of lighting, mostly commercial, blazing up into the sky behind his house.
On a recent drive around the neighborhood, he points out a shielded fixture over the back door of a business on Carlton Avenue. “That’s a good light,” he says. Around the corner on the same building, another shoots a bright light up into the trees. “And that one is bad.”
That’s one major sign of light pollution: when the bulb blasts up into the sky rather than illuminating the ground below. Looking south from Barnett’s elevated Chestnut Street backyard, where he’s lived since 1995, he can see dozens of lights, including those of Sentara Martha Jefferson and State Farm on Pantops.
But the worst offenders are in his backyard, on Carlton Avenue, where the lighting on some businesses looks like a landing strip. It’s gotten worse in the past two or three years, he says.
Charlottesville’s light ordinance is pretty much a copy of Albemarle’s, according to light designer Mark Schulyer, who wrote the ordinance in 1998 with UVA astronomer Phil Ianna. Ianna raised the issue of lights obscuring the night sky and making McCormick Observatory useless for serious astronomy.
“The first ordinance was a significant challenge,” recalls Schuyler. It required approval from the General Assembly before the county could adopt it, and buy-in from the community to protect the science being done that requires dark skies.
The limit at the time, 3,000 lumens, came from an Ianna idea. At a meeting of around 300 people, many in the lighting field, he displayed different wattages and asked people to “raise your hand when this is really unpleasant,” recounts Schuyler. That’s what the cap was based on.
The ordinance requires outdoor luminaires to be shielded to avoid spillover into adjoining residential properties—and into the night sky. “Light that bounces up in the sky is wasted light,” says Schuyler.
All of that happened before the biggest revelation in lighting since the invention of the light bulb: the light-emitting diode. The LED saves so much energy, its three Japanese inventors won the Nobel Prize for physics in 2014. It’s also contributed to “a measurable increase in light pollution worldwide,” says Schuyler.
Before LEDs, which are not mentioned in the ordinance, electricians and electrical supply houses were aware of the ordinance and had displays of shielded lighting, he explains.
Now, people are ordering brighter LEDs without shields off of Amazon, and they have no one saying, “You shouldn’t be doing that,” says Schuyler.
In addition to blocking the stars, glaring lights at night may have a harmful effect on vision and health. The American Medical Association warns that artificial lighting can disrupt circadian rhythms, which can lead to health risks including diabetes, mood disorders, and cancer.
Ordinance enforcement is a “tricky business,” says Schuyler, because of limited staff resources and the fact that someone has to work overtime to check lights at night.
Lighting enforcement is complaint-based, and the city averages fewer than one complaint a year, says Assistant Zoning Administrator Craig Fabio. Zoning staff works with offenders to bring them into compliance, and fines are possible, he says.
City Councilor Heather Hill has been to Barnett’s place. “It was eye-opening to me,” she says. While she believes the bleed over from commercial lights that affects residents is unintentional, “I do think we have a lot of opportunity to enhance our lighting ordinance.”
Both she and Schuyler say the PLACE Design Task Force is looking at the issue.
Barnett has had some luck working with neighbors himself. A year ago he approached Tiger Fuel and “got a very good response,” he says. The company put up new fixtures on the front of its building, and “now it’s nothing like the locomotive lights that were coming toward me.”
He also cites success with City Walk apartments, which shielded its lights after neighbors complained. Barnett says Beer Run now cuts off the lights on its sign after it closes.
He’s less pleased with Tubby’s new lights, which illuminate the back of Richmond Camera. “It’s obscene. Obscene,” says Barnett. Tubby’s owner, John Fargale, did not respond to a call from C-VILLE.
Some people mistakenly believe that the more lights, the safer a property is, says Schuyler. He calls it “security theater.”
Police Chief RaShall Brackney agrees that lighting doesn’t necessarily deter crime. “People become immune,” she says. And the International Dark-Sky Association says that glare can decrease safety by creating deep shadows that make it harder to see a lawbreaker from constricted pupils.
Barnett counts seven sources of light that intrude into his bedroom windows or yard during winter months, and that doesn’t include the streetlights shining on the front of his house.
Before, “It was all delightfully dark,” he says. “I could sit on the roof and see the stars.”
Correction May 2: Barnett lives on Chestnut Street, not avenue.
Sigora Solar tied for first place on our list. Contributed photo.
Charlottesville routinely finds itself on lists of the best places to live in the country. But it’s also a great place to work, judging by what people had to say about the following organizations.
For this look at the best places to work in Charlottesville, we used job and recruiting website Glassdoor’s ratings system, a 5-point scale based on anonymously submitted, user-generated employee reviews. We considered only those companies that had at least six reviews and a sizable local footprint (or were homegrown). While the top spot was a tie (between Sigora Solar and Griffin Group Global) every company on the list had an above-average rating. And you can find more reader-generated candidates online at c-ville.com.
#1. Sigora Solar (TIE)
Glassdoor company rating: 5.0 based on 10 reviews
What they do: Solar design, installation, and solutions.
Size: Most of Sigora Solar’s employees work remotely or in the field. At its main office, they have approximately 15 employees staffed.
Benefits: In addition to standard benefits (including health care, vision, dental, and life insurance options), Sigora employees can take advantage of at-cost solar for their home.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “This company and the employees exude tremendous passion for what they do. It’s easy to work for a company that believes in their products and service.”
Ciera Cannizzaro, Sigora Solar HR generalist, says it’s the people who make the work so rewarding. “Everyone is so knowledgeable and friendly,” Cannizzaro says, adding that the employees are like family.
Flexible work scheduling is also a perk. “We don’t have the traditional work schedule where it’s like 8-to-5, 9-to-5. A lot of people work remotely, so that flexibility is obviously a really good benefit for everyone, especially people who have families,” she adds. Company parties, like the one held in November at Carter Mountain, helps build those “Sigora family” bonds.
#1. Griffin Group Global (TIE)
Glassdoor company rating: 5.0 based on 10 reviews
What they do: Cybersecurity and digital identity protection.
Size: 24 total employees, with 19 in the Charlottesville office.
Benefits: Benefits include “better-than-industry-standard” comprehensive health coverage, plus generous paid time off plans and domestic partner accommodations. Also included: flexible work schedules, work-from-home days, and company-sponsored philanthropy where employee volunteers don’t miss a day of pay.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “Griffin truly empowers employees. Their management is open to ideas and provides a framework for incorporating new ideas quickly to prove them and improve them. The technology is leading edge.”
Bill Heapes, Griffin Group Global chief operating officer, describes the company’s culture as “a learning environment in a high-tech business” where employees “thrive on everybody understanding our corporate goals and mission, and everybody has an equal voice in contributing.”
“The leadership has come from the government side, where we have a lot of institutional knowledge and discipline in our process management,” adds Heapes. “But that, combined with the flexibility of bringing in new technology, having people learn and understand it—Lunch n’ Learn-type sessions where everybody has the opportunity to bring what they know from their past experiences to the table. Everything is considered before we move forward.”
Photo: Amy Jackson Smith
#3. Tiger Fuel
Glassdoor company rating: 4.9 based on 23 reviews
What they do: Petroleum energy products distribution, oil and propane tank service and maintenance, and operation of The Markets chain of convenience stores.
Size: Approximately 260 employees.
Benefits: In addition to health insurance and vacation benefits, Tiger Fuel offers: financial wellness support, an employee assistance program, subsidized corporate gym membership, Tiger Card Fuel benefits, discounts on apparel from L.L.Bean, and a holiday bonus for every employee, among other perks.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “When you work for Tiger Fuel, you become part of the Tiger family. Great benefits, amazing atmosphere, friendship, [you’re] not just a cog on the wheel, [you’re] an important part of the business and it shows.”
Ryan Whitlock, Tiger Fuel director of human resources, gives all the credit to its employees for creating a positive work culture—and to the company’s owner and president for setting the tone. “They bring strength to the company and passion for customer service,” he says.
Photo: John Robinson
#4. ChartIQ
Glassdoor company rating: 4.9 based on 12 reviews
What they do: Fintech (financial technology company) providing software solutions to large capital markets companies.
Size: 50 employees.
Benefits: In addition to health, vision, and dental, benefits include catered lunch every day from local restaurants, unlimited vacation policy, flexible hours, and a dog-friendly office.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “So many pros to working at ChartIQ, including the top-notch talent we’ve been able to attract,
a leadership team that trusts its employees to responsibly manage a policy of flexible work hours and PTO, a relaxed work environment, opportunities for growth, location in downtown Charlottesville, inspirational leaders, and a customer-first approach.”
Even though the company is seven years old, ChartIQ still considers itself a “growth- stage startup,” wrapped in a “profitable, stable company that’s been around for a long time,” says Christian Hall, chief operating officer.
A focus on work-life balance, a laid-back work environment, and a “beautiful, open, big office space near the [Downtown] Mall,” are other perks, says Hall. Employees are also encouraged to have lunch together every day, a tradition that dates back to the company’s founding.
“We plan to continue having lunch together because it’s been that way forever,” he adds. “It basically feels like a gathering at someone’s home every day, which isn’t just a benefit, it literally sets the tone for the office culture.”
Photo: Stephen Barling
#5. WillowTree
Glassdoor company rating: 4.8 based on 183 reviews
What they do: Digital and mobile technology design and development.
Size: Approximately 320 employees between its Charlottesville and Durham locations.
Benefits: Benefits include fully paid employee medical premiums, paid parental leave, annual professional development budget, tuition reimbursement, and a monthly gym membership stipend. Working at WillowTree also comes with such office perks as snacks galore, fresh-on-tap kombucha, nitro cold brew coffee, and beer, plus paid lunches twice a week.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “The best thing about WillowTree is the energy in the space. I work among the most positive and talented people I have ever met. They inspire me to do my best work at all time. I don’t ever feel like I’m solving a problem on my own.”
“We focus on building a team of people who not only love their craft but who also value and respect their colleagues,” says Christy Phillips, WillowTree’s chief talent officer. “Our Glassdoor reviews almost always focus on the enjoyment people get from working with talented, kind people as a top reason they love working here.”
Photo: Amy Jackson Smith
#6. Room Key
Glassdoor company rating: 4.8 based on six reviews
What they do: Hotel and travel search site.
Size: 22 Charlottesville employees.
Benefits: Benefits include health coverage, bonuses, funding for personal development–conferences as well as continuing education–quarterly hackathons, snacks on snacks, a beer keg, and access to a conference room “dedicated to competitive Mario Kart.”
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “One of the best assets of Room Key is and has always been the quality of its tech team. Open, mature, respectful, no egos, highly knowledgeable, friendly, just a great place to work, learn and contribute.”
“It’s like a mostly sane Silicon Valley start-up with a heart,” says Doug Lawson, head of product and design, who praises Room Key’s employees for being “smart, motivated, super-creative and nice to work with” and who “pull together well as a collaborative team.”
#7. Locus Health
Glassdoor company rating: 4.7 based on 17 reviews
What they do: Remote care solutions, primarily for pediatric patients.
Size: 23 employees.
Benefits: In addition to a competitive salary (based on experience), Locus Health offers medical, dental, vision, 401(k) match, paid time off, employer life insurance, and a gym subsidy.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “The combination of a team that creates cutting-edge technology and actual health care professionals, as well as business gurus, make this such an interesting place to learn and grow as a professional.”
Its mission is one of the biggest reasons why Locus Health is a great place to work, says Rick Skinner, senior vice president and chief technology officer. “We make a product that enables babies to leave the hospital safely in the care of their parents. And so all of us at Locus really identify with that mission. We’re doing something that really has some intrinsic value,” he says.
#8. 2RW Consultants
Glassdoor company rating: 4.5 based on 12 reviews
What they do: Sustainability minded MEP/FP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection) engineering systems and energy consulting services.
Size: 72 employees.
Benefits: At R2W, employees get medical, dental, and vision, plus long-term disability and term life (with 100 percent employer-paid premiums for employees), employer contribution to health savings accounts, SIMPLE IRA with up to 3 percent matching contribution, banked paid time off, and company-sponsored holiday parties and outings.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “The team is young and fun. They have the perfect balance of light-hearted, easy-going culture and rigorous deadline-driven ethic. Very smart people who welcome new ideas and want to make everyone a better employee and engineer.”
“I think consistently, when we’ve surveyed our employees, the number one thing that people like about working here is that they love the people and they love the work environment,” says 2RW Marketing Director Denise McFadden.
2RW’s focus on sustainability also unites employees around a purpose for the common good. “I think that really resonates with people,” McFadden adds. “They like that that’s a part of what we do, because we are really in business to do more than just earn a paycheck–we’re trying to do something good for people, for society, for the planet, and it’s nice to have that greater goal.”
#9. CCRi (Commonwealth Computer Research, Inc.)
Glassdoor company rating: 4.5 based on 10 reviews
What they do: Applied data science and software engineering.
Size: 130 employees.
Benefits: In addition to customary benefits like health and retirement, CCRi offers free access to two employee assistance programs, a financial wellness program, gym and yoga discounts, professional develop opportunities, flexible work schedules and time-off policy, plus lots of daily snacks (including a free cereal bar in every building, monthly bagel breakfast, and coffee and espresso bars). They also have a community Vive, massage chair, and other office amenities.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “There is never a shortage of friendly, intelligent, and ambitious people at CCRi. The amenities and environment are laid-back and very friendly, but there is never a shortage of tough problems to solve.”
Flexibility is one of the top benefits of working at CCRi, says Julia Farill, human resources manager. “We value flexibility, and we’ve made a lot of choices as a company to try and foster that so people have a lot more control over their life and their work-life balance,” she says.
CCRi also has a collaborative, meritocracy-focused, “kind of quirky” culture, she says.“We want to hire the best people we can find that are really smart, creative problem-solvers, and then keep them happy for a whole career.”
#10. Southern Environmental Law Center
Glassdoor company rating: 4.4 based on 15 reviews
What they do: Environmental protection legal and policy nonprofit
Size: 59 employees in the Charlottesville offices, and 149 total.
Benefits: A snapshot of benefits at the SELC: affordable health, dental, and vision, generous paid time off, fully covered life, short-term, and long-term disability insurance, retirement contribution (not match), up to a total of 12 weeks parental leave following childbirth or adoption (six weeks fully paid by SELC), and opportunities to visit the places the organization works to protect.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “While the mission brings most people to SELC, I have stayed because of the people, the benefits and the work/life balance. Having genuinely nice colleagues who go to work excited about what they do makes SELC an incredible place to work. . .”
Sarah Francisco, director of SELC’s Virginia office, credits its team of “intelligent, hard-working people pursuing a shared mission” for making the organization a top-notch place to work.
“We set ambitious goals, have high standards, and work with dedication alongside wonderful co-workers,” Francisco adds. “This creates a special mix of professionalism, collegiality, teamwork, and camaraderie. We celebrate successes together, and everyone is valued and recognized for their contribution.”
Photo: Sanjay Suchak
#11. University of Virginia
Glassdoor company rating: 4.3 based on 765 reviews
What they do: Higher education
Size: The university employs about 30,000 people total (not including the College at Wise)—that number includes roughly 16,000 faculty and staff and approximately 12,000 Health System employees.
Benefits: UVA’s benefits (“total rewards”) package includes health insurance, retirement plans, flexible spending accounts, paid time off, education benefits, back-up care for children and elderly family members, and wellness benefits.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “Consistent work-life balance (best I’ve ever experienced), kind and supportive coworkers, beautiful campus, excellent benefits, meaningful work, opportunities for professional development.”
The University of Virginia is the largest employer in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area, and it needs no introduction as one of the premier higher education institutions in the country. While jobs vary widely, UVA consistently earns accolades: In 2018, it landed on Forbes’ ranking of “America’s Best Employers” (#66) and “Best Employers for Women” (#36). Earlier this year, it made Forbes’ list of “Best Employers for Diversity” (#54). UVA’s continued growth and reputation for stability, as well as its suite of benefits and career development opportunities, no doubt contribute to its status as a top place to work.
#12. CoConstruct
Glassdoor company rating: 4.3 based on 41 reviews
What they do: Construction project management software for custom home builders and remodelers.
Size: Approximately 99 employees.
Benefits: A sampling of benefits includes generous holidays plus paid time off, flexible work schedules, paid leave for new parents, regular happy hours, and paid training.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “I’ve never seen a shared ethos enacted every day from the top down the way it is here. I felt it the first moments, even before I could really even define it. This company cares deeply about their core values and strives to live them out every moment. . . and is probably the single most important point of differentiation here.”
Donny Wyatt, CoConstruct founder and CEO, points to the company’s five core values as the foundation for its work culture, which contributes to a palpable “energy” in the office. Those distinct core values—like “understand why” and “show personality”—are “very much us” and enable employees to excel as individuals and as a team, says Wyatt. “When everybody’s in, and we all have a common vision of what we expect from ourselves, and others, and how we act, it actually provides a lot of comfort and freedom to people to be themselves,” he adds.
Photo: Martin Kyle
#13. Crutchfield
Glassdoor company rating: 4.2 based on 37 reviews
What they do: Online and catalog retailer of consumer electronics.
Size: More than 600 employees at locations in Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, and Wise County.
Benefits: Benefits include health, dental, vision, disability (long and short term) and life insurances, paid leave, 401(k), flexible spending accounts, paid time off, paid holidays, employee assistance program, adoption assistance programs (both for children and pets), pet insurance, and registration fees for fitness events.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “The whole company has employee appreciation days twice a year plus other fun company-culture-building events that I always look forward to. . . The different departments are happy to work together, and anyone with a good idea or concern is heard, no matter what their job is.”
Crutchfield has steadily burnished its reputation as an award-winning, customer service-oriented business since its founding in 1974 by Bill Crutchfield. A shared belief in a set of core values and a focus on training, career development, and employee engagement contributes to a high level of satisfaction, says Chris Lilley, Crutchfield’s chief human resource officer.
“We take great care employing the right kind of people here—people who respect each other, who have the capacity to be empathetic, and care for our customers, and for each other,” says Lilley. “It’s really as simple as that and it comes from Mr. Crutchfield at the top.”
Greg Mika Images
#14. Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital
Glassdoor company rating: 4.1 based on 11 reviews
What they do: Not-for-profit health care.
Size: 1,600 employees.
Benefits: Benefits include medical, dental, vision, 403(b), pension plan, and paid annual leave— as well as tuition assistance, scholarships, free on-campus gym, and discounts on local area services.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “Friendly co-workers, patient-centered work environment, focus on safety and quality. Culture is centered around ‘caring tradition.’ Employees of all levels involved in improvement efforts and decision-making.”
Founded in 1903, what is now Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital has a long history of employing generations in the greater Charlottesville-Albemarle community. And Johnsa Morris, chief nurse executive at Sentara MJH, gives all praise to its employees for making it a place where “you can put your passion into action and turn your calling into a career.”
Morris says the hospital has a culture of teamwork. “We are also fortunate to work in a beautiful location that offers a healing environment,” she says. Each day we can take advantage of our beautiful mountain scenery and walking trails. We are able to offer flexible schedules and, through our scholarship programs, we have the opportunity to continue to learn and advance in the organization.”
#15. Red Light Management
Glassdoor company rating: 4.0 based on 55 reviews
What they do: Music industry artist management.
Size: unavailable
Benefits: Red Light did not respond to requests for comment or information on their benefits.
What people are saying on Glassdoor: “This company has all the connections and networking you could ever ask for at your fingertips. Be ready to work hard and play hard.”
I mean, wouldn’t you want to work for the organization that gave us the Dave Matthews Band? Founded in 1991 by Coran Capshaw, Red Light Management’s diverse roster of talent also includes Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie, Leona Lewis, Enrique Iglesias, Dierks Bentley, Chris Stapleton, Anita Baker, Michelle Williams (of Destiny’s Child), and Phish, among others. Its website highlights a “progressive work environment” and the opportunity to work with “an industry-leading team.”
