The Southern Virginia Higher Education Center (SVHEC) will host noted industrial designer Charles “Chuck” Harrison for a free, public presentation at 10 a.m. Friday. Harrison is best known for his distinguished career as an industrial designer for Sears and for the contributions he has made to a host of household products. The first African-American executive for Sears, Roebuck & Company, Harrison began his career as a freelancer, moved on to staff designer and later headed the Sears design department.

His work has influenced many of the products we use on a daily basis including blenders, can openers, AM-FM radios and calculators.

The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) One-Stop in South Boston, VA will be sponsoring a Job Fair starting Monday October 31st  at 9:00 AM  and continue until 7:00 PM at Riverstone Centre. This Job Fair is being conducted to support a single employer for a planned new Customer Contact Center that may locate in Halifax County.

The VEC is looking for people with experience in Customer Contact, Customer Service, Customer Care, Call Center Operations, Back Office, Administrative, Clerical or Data Entry.

From SoVaNow.com - Inventor Ryan Rusnak visited the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center (SVHEC) on Friday, Feb. 25 to speak to Halifax County High School dual enrollment students in Digital Art & Design, Product Design & Development, and Hi-Performance Technology classes.

Rusnak has made a name for himself in the world of physical computing with his invention of the beverage cannon. The cannon is a converted mini-fridge that will launch the beverage of your choice with the touch of an iPhone app button.

from the News & Record - The Center for Coatings Applied Research and Education (C-CARE), on Tuesday, received $1,052,000 from the Southside Economic Development Committee of the Virginia Tobacco Commission at the Commission meeting in Richmond.

C-CARE will be a state-of-the-art center in Riverstone Technology Park to identify and help commercialize solutions in the surface engineering field as well as provide a high-quality workforce in related areas. “Surface engineering” is concerned with how wood, metal, composite and other surfaces can be coated, treated or otherwise finished to provide specific performance, appearance and/or sustainability characteristics.

Three of South Boston's adaptive reuse projects - The Prizery, Southern VA Higher Education Center, and the American Tobacco Warehouse (currently under renovation) - were recently featured in a Richmond Times-Dispatch column about how tax credits can help revitalize a community. 

All three of these projects made use of state and federal historic tax credit programs; read the full article here.