Chantilly Ranks a Top Place for Families + Weekly Business News

Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly (Photo credit: Visit Fairfax)

Fortune Ranks Chantilly in Fairfax County as a Top Place for Families

The Chantilly area in Fairfax County is ranked third in the nation by Fortune on its list of the 50 Best Places to Live for Families.

“A suburb of Washington, D.C., Chantilly is a serene escape 24 miles west of the city and seven miles from Dulles International Airport—convenient for family vacations. The community is largely residential, with just over 25,000 people, but there’s plenty to do. Along Route 50 you’ll find a number of eateries and bistros, and where it intersects with Route 28, there’s a ton of places to shop,” according to Fortune.

Some of the amenities in Chantilly mentioned by Fortune include the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Space Museum, Eleanor C. Lawrence Park, and Pleasant Valley Golf Club.  Click here to find out more about Chantilly from Visit Fairfax.

With top schools in the nation and unparalleled quality of life, including an abundance of recreational activities, Northern Virginia localities regularly rank on lists for best places to live, an important consideration for companies looking to launch or expand in the region. Regional amenities include access to a multi-modal transportation network, three major airports, and close proximity to Washington, D.C. Whether one is seeking an urban, suburban, small-town or country atmosphere, Fairfax County and the region has a wide array of options for places to live.

Click here to see Visit Fairfax’s Neighborhood Guide. To find your perfect community in Northern Virginia, go to workinnorthernvirginia.com/live/communities.

Weekly Business News Digest

Best Companies: 19 Fairfax County-based companies landed among the top 300 “Best Companies to Work For” in the country, according to a new ranking by U.S. News and World Report, reported Reston Patch. The study focused on six metrics: Quality of pay and benefits, work/life balance and flexibility, job and company stability, physical and psychological comfort, belongingness and esteem, and career opportunities/professional development. The Fairfax County-based companies: are Alarm.com (Tysons), Appian (Tysons), Beacon (Herndon), Booz Allen Hamilton (Tysons), Bowman (Reston), CACI (Reston), Capital One (Tysons), General Dynamics (Reston), Hilton (Tysons), ICF (Reston), Leidos (Reston), Maximus (Tysons), MicroStrategy (Tysons), NVR (Reston), Northrop Grumman (Falls Church area), Parsons Corporation (Chantilly), Strategic Education, (Herndon), Tegna  (Tysons), and Verisign (Reston). 5 additional companies located in other Northern Virginia Economic Development Alliance jurisdictions landed on the list: Boeing (Arlington), DXC Technology (Ashburn), Leonardo DRS (Arlington), Privia Health (Arlington), and Raytheon (Arlington).

And they’re (almost) off! Falls Church-based Inova intends to begin construction in August for a pair of new acute-care hospitals, Washington Business Journal reported in subscriber content. The facilities, one in the Franconia-Springfield area, and the other at the former Landmark Mall site in Alexandria, will together replace the nonprofit’s aging Alexandria hospital at 4320 Seminary Road. The system expects both hospitals, part of a $2.5 billion undertaking, to deliver in the fourth quarter of 2028. The Springfield hospital at 6330 Lewin Drive, about a mile from the Franconia-Springfield Metro station, would have a six-story acute-care building and outpatient center.

Cybersecurity arsenal strengthening: A Reston cybersecurity and cloud services provider is eyeing national expansion following the acquisition of San Carlos, California-based provider of IT and compliance services, Washington Business Journal reported. Neovera, located in the RTC West office complex at 12100 Sunset Hills Road, said its deal to acquire Emagined Security, will allow it to extend its security operations center, which is primarily located on the East Coast, to one that can better handle clients throughout the whole country. “This is a strategic move that builds on other recent acquisitions, strengthening our cybersecurity arsenal to better address the needs of our customers,” Neovera CEO Scott Weinberg said in a statement.

Best view: Geospatial intelligence and Earth observation services provider Maxar Intelligence, a division of Maxar Technologies, which is based in Colorado and has offices in Chantilly and Herndon, last week released the first images from its WorldView Legion satellites, reported SpaceNews. WorldView Legion is Maxar’s latest constellation of high-resolution Earth imaging satellites, designed to increase the company’s imaging capacity and revisit rates. These satellites are capable of collecting 30 cm-class imagery, providing detailed views of the Earth’s surface for a wide range of applications, from defense and intelligence to urban planning and disaster response. Click here to see the first images.

Data integrity: CGI Federal, based in Fairfax in the U.S., unveiled a framework that provides a set of tools and consulting services designed to help U.S. federal agencies accelerate transformation and improve transparency by determining the right agile implementation approach to specific challenges facing their organizations, according to ExecutiveBiz. The company said its CGI Agile Catalyst framework includes preconfigured workflows, dashboards, assessments, subject matter expertise, best practices, templates and tailored recommendations meant to help agencies achieve mission efficiency and enhance project status visibility. “As federal agencies face the increasing pace of technological change in the age of artificial intelligence and intelligent automation, they must also respond to the growing demand for efficiency, security, privacy and data integrity,” said Victor Foulk, vice president of emerging technologies at CGI Federal.

Backbone to the burgeoning space economy: Reston-based SpiderOak, a provider in zero-trust space cybersecurity solutions, announced the successful demonstration of its next generation OrbitSecure software module re-written in the memory safe programming language Rust with protocol design formally proven via the Alloy specification language on the International Space Station (ISS). This demonstrates key modern cybersecurity requirements called for by the White House Office of the National Cyber Director in a report published last February. SpiderOak is one of the first commercial software companies to successfully demonstrate a formally verified and Rust enabled security capability on a crewed space station. “This successful demonstration positions SpiderOak at the forefront of the coming cyber-safe tidal wave of products and services that will provide the backbone to the burgeoning space economy,” said SpiderOak CEO Dave Pearah. 

Shining bright: Seven Virginia-based startups have been invited to participate in the fall cohort of the Lighthouse Labs accelerator program in Richmond, according to Richmond INNO. Program participants receive $20,000 in equity-free funding and participate in weekly educational programming. They will also get mentorship from Lighthouse’s mentor network and connect with local partners and investors. The new cohort, the accelerator’s 17th overall across 12 years, includes 4 Fairfax County-area companies: Canopie (Falls Church area) a telehealth startup that offers maternal mental health services in English and Spanish; Gateway (Tysons) offers an onboarding and training platform that provides personalized content to streamline onboarding and speed worker productivity; Myles Comfort Foods (Tysons) offers a variety of frozen food products; and VerbaAI (Great Falls) develops software to affirm the legitimacy of information like online videos.

Another round: Annandale-based GovPort Technologies, a startup providing compliance technology to government contractors, announced that it has raised an additional $2.8 million in its seed round. The latest funding came from PruVen Capital and Fin Capital. The company has now raised a total of $5.3 million in the seed round, which also included backing from QED Investors, Humba Ventures, Cambrian Ventures and NextGen Venture Partners.” The combination of the highly sensitive nature of the business, heightened awareness of government spending, and a consolidating market means primes must be fully aware and proactive about their compliance requirements. However, contractor compliance monitoring remains inefficient, outdated, and largely ineffective,” said Christian Ostberg, general partner at Fin Capital. “We believe there is significant opportunity for GovPort to become the go-to platform for government contractors and look forward to partnering with them on their next phase of growth.” Potomac Tech Wire carried the release.

Enhancing national security: Herndon-based HawkEye 360 won a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract from AFWERX. In the contract, HawkEye 360 will work to design systems that improve homeland security and deliver radio frequency information for the Department of the Air Force. “This opportunity allows us to leverage our cutting-edge RFGeo and RFIQ data solutions to support the Department of the Air Force in addressing critical mission challenges and ultimately strengthening the United States’ national defense,” said Alex Fox, chief growth officer at HawkEye 360. “We are excited to collaborate with AFWERX and contribute to the innovative advancements that will enhance our nation’s security.” ExecutiveBiz has more.

Contract Wins

Northrop Grumman (Falls Church area) received a $1.46 billion contract modification from the U.S. Navy for nine E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft and related support. GovConWire

ICF (Reston) secured a five-year, $88 million subcontract to continue modernizing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Quality Payment Program by providing cloud data migration services. ExecutiveBiz

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October 29, 2024 — NVTC Cyber Summit and Cyber50 Awards. NVTC’s Cyber Summit and Cyber50 awards will highlight the latest cybersecurity trends, technologies, and federal policies and gathers the best and brightest minds in the cyber and national security sectors. Click here to register.