History

A Quarter-Century of Growing the Roanoke Region

The birth of the Roanoke Regional Partnership in August 1983 was announced with great fanfare. It was an opportunity for public and private sectors -- multiple governments -- to come together to sell the greater region. Ours would be one of the first regional economic development partnerships in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We would speak with one voice for the region and serve as a one-stop shop for companies seeking to locate here or expand.

Our five founding governments were the counties of Botetourt and Roanoke; the cities of Roanoke and Salem, and the Town of Vinton. Since then, they’ve been joined by the City of Covington and the counties of Alleghany, Craig and Franklin.

The 1980s saw announcements totaling $57 million and 1,450 new jobs. New companies included Gardner-Denver, Orvis, Vitramon, Sears Telecatalog and Tweeds. Orvis celebrated its 20^th anniversary in the Roanoke Region in 2007 and has expanded several times.

By 1990, we had changed our name from the Regional Partnership of Roanoke Valley to the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership.

The booming economy brought more than $500 million in investment and more than 5,900 new jobs. Companies such as Arkay Packaging, Fleetwood Homes,

Metalsa Roanoke, R.R. Donnelley, Virginia Forge, Dynax America, First Citizens Bank, Maple Leaf Bakery and JTEKT Automotive Virginia either located in the region or expanded. They’re all still going strong.

The turn of the century brought economic challenges, the global war on terror and war but the Roanoke Region has continued to attract a variety of domestic and international companies. Expansions of existing firms demonstrated the area’s positive business environment. New to the region since 2000 are: Altec Industries, Trinity Packaging, Integrity Windows, Cardinal Glass, Tecton Products, McAirlaid’s and LiteSteel Technologies.

In 2008, we completed a successful campaign that raised more than $6,500,000 for an expanded program of work to include image building, asset development, and benchmarking in addition to traditional business recruitment. We changed our name to Roanoke Regional Partnership.