By Jessica Sabbath

Virginia may be topping lists that rank the best business climates, but the state fails when it comes to equity pay between college-educated men and women.

The commonwealth ranks 49th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia when comparing men and women’s pay scales, according to a study done by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. Only New Jersey and Louisiana had a wider pay gap.

According to the study, women in Virginia with college degrees earn 67 percent of what their male counterparts do.

The news isn’t all bad for Virginia women, however. When ranking women’s median pay, Virginia ranked 10th at $47,387 between 2003 and 2005. The state also ranked ninth on the list for the percentage of women with a college degree — 32 percent.

The states that fared best on equity pay for women were West Virginia, the District of Columbia and Vermont.

Virginia was likely hurt by in the rankings by its high percentage of college-educated women. Although it topped the pay equity ranking, West Virginia ranked last on the percentage of college women (16 percent). The other leaders, however, did well in both rankings. The District of Columbia had the highest percentage of college-educated women (48 percent) and Vermont ranked third (36 percent).

by Jessica Sabbath

Lawmakers want to turn the sparkling white Capitol in Washington, D.C., green. No, not the color green. Leading lawmakers want the historic gem to become a role model in energy efficiency.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer announced last week the “Green the Capitol” initiative, a push to make the House of Representatives a role model in creating environmentally friendly buildings.

The preliminary report suggests basic recommendations to reduce the environmental impact of the Capitol and lawmakers’ offices, but a final report will be issued June 30. The goals include using 100 percent renewable electrical power, improving energy efficiency and ensuring operations are carbon neutral.

According to a press release from the U.S. Green Building Council, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated the House buildings emitted 91,000 tons of green house gas in fiscal year 2006 — the equivalent of 17,200 cars.

Virginia Business reported on the increase of green building in its July 2006 issue.

By Robert Powell

Former Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner may not be running for any office right now, but he still sounds like a presidential candidate.

Warner sharply criticized President Bush’s foreign and energy policies Monday during a speech in Richmond. “We are borrowing money from the Chinese to buy oil from countries that don’t like us,” he said.

After leaving office in January 2006, Warner crisscrossed the country and created a buzz in the Democratic Party as a potential challenger to New York Sen. (and former first lady) Hillary Rodham Clinton in the chase for the presidential nomination. But Warner pulled out of the race abruptly last fall, citing family concerns. Since then Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has emerged as Clinton’s most competitive challenger.

Warner admits that he is still interested in elective office, but says he has made no plans for any specific political race. Many observers wonder if he will run next year for the seat held by Republican Sen. John Warner, who has yet to announce plans to seek a new term.

But Bush, not the senator, was Mark Warner’s target in Monday’s speech at a ceremony presenting the Virginia Global Business Ambassador Awards. The awards honored Virginia companies’ whose values help improve the image of the United States. Warner said that, because of Bush’s handling of the Iraq war, “our standing in the world has never been lower than it is today.”

Warner endorses the findings of the Iraq Study Group, which recommend including Iran and Syria in a negotiated solution to the war. The former governor said the U.S. must begin to extricate itself from Iraq where U.S. troops have become “referees in a civil war.’

The American presence in the war-torn country “is creating more terrorists than we are capturing or killing,” he said.

But while Warner said Bush’s foreign policy has cost it moral leadership in the world, the former governor said the president’s failure to react to climate change and energy issues is even more crucial. Warner believes said that the world will not begin to tackle the issues posed by global warming until the U.S. takes an active role.

Warner said energy and conservation policy could have a great influence on homeland security and future job growth. And he thinks that Virginia can have a leading role in the development of alternative energy sources because of its highly developed information technology community and research in areas such as carbon sequestration (removing carbon from the atmosphere) at Virginia Tech. Warner said Bush has missed opportunities to challenge the American people to make changes in energy consumption. “People are yearning to step up and get the country fixed,” he said.

Warner helped present awards to Albemarle Corp. of Richmond, Kerneos Inc. of Chesapeake, LandAmerica Financial Group of Henrico County and Washington Consulting Group of Vienna.

Medical records have gone mobile. Thanks to technology, people can carry their records with them, via a storage device on their key chain. These medical keys, offered by Vital Date LLC in Richmond, once were marketed heavily to companies as a perk for executives. But now they’re available to patients, couples and families. There’s even a Kids VitalKey that stores the health records of all of a family’s children.

In case of an emergency, a VitalKey gives doctors quick access to a patient’s medical history. By plugging the key’s USB thumb drive into a computer’s port, records can be viewed over a computer’s Web browser. A group of physicians at the CJW Levinson Heart Hospital in Richmond started the VitalKey initiative in 2005 as a way to protect patients from medical errors. The first VitalKey was released in 2006.

The fee for putting one’s medical information on the key is $39. Plus, people must pay monthly subscription fees, ranging from $9.95 for the Kids VitalKey to $29.95 a month for a senior aged 75 and older. For more information on fees and privacy issues — patients dictate what information is included on their keys — check out the company’s Web site at http://www.vitalkey.com

by Jessica Sabbath

It’s not unusual to wine and dine potential clients. But Velocity Broadcasting and Morton’s The Steakhouse are taking the approach to a whole new level.

The Pittsburgh-based private satellite broadcasting company and high-end restaurant known for its sizzling steaks and high-grade seafood have teamed up to offer companies a new method of “precision marketing.”

Morton’s has morphed its executive boardrooms into Velocity HD Suites, where Velocity’s high-definition satellite station can be broadcast into the room. Companies prepare a live broadcast, which appears on a 9-foot projection screen with surround sound. Executives — who are being treated to an expensive meal before, after or during the sales pitch — can ask questions by calling into the broadcast.

Velocity Broadcasting executives promise this is the marketing technique of the future. Philip Elias, CEO of Velocity Broadcasting, says this new approach allows companies to directly invite companies’ top decision makers — or those who “control the checkbook.”

Velocity demonstrated the technique on Wednesday, broadcasting a live “press conference” into 46 Morton’s restaurants.
The partnership between Velocity and Morton’s began last year. In Richmond, the Velocity HD suite has been used by pharmaceutical companies, which put on 10 events in the suite in 2006 and so far have done five in 2007.

The broadcast costs $2,800 per location, plus the production costs and Morton’s meals.