Making a green valley even greener

Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley is known in song and story for its natural beauty and the bounty of its farms.

And over the last few years, like many areas across the US, the Valley of Virginia has sought to create jobs and raise its already high quality of life by exploring the new clean-energy economy.

Hometown talent

What makes the Valley’s sustainability effort different is that it is not driven by large national or multinational corporations investing from the outside, but by local ventures like Secure Futures that have grown organically and are intimately tied into the community of this neighborly area.

A priority for Secure Futures, which is located at the crossroads of the Shenandoah Valley in the historic city of Staunton, has been to take an active role in the Valley’s green community. To meet that goal, the company has partnered with its clients, investors and local organizations to create a business and public policy environment friendly to the area’s budding green economy.

Most notably, in the city of Harrisonburg Secure Futures worked with a coalition of city residents and concerned groups, including our client Eastern Mennonite University, to pass a tax-exemption ordinance to encourage solar energy on both a commercial and residential scale. The company will be working with other cities in the near future on similar measures.

Please join us

Secure Futures CEO Tony Smith will talk about ways the company has worked with the regional green community and give his thoughts on how to grow the clean-energy economy in the Valley at a panel called “Powering the Valley: Sustainable Energy Ventures in Staunton and Beyond” on Thursday, May 5 at 6:30pm at Staunton City Hall at 116 W. Beverley Street (see map here).

Sponsored by a coalition of green groups, the panel will also include a green architect, a farmer growing switchgrass for fuel and the executive director of the local historic preservation group. When the presentations finish at 7:30, the panelists and attendees will decamp to the nearby Mockingbird restaurant to network and socialize.

If you’ll be in the Staunton area on May 5, we invite you to join us!