November 6, 2025

Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center Launches Secure Energy Future Center as a Hampton Roads Playbook Project to Advance Energy Innovation and National Security

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 6, 2025

Newport News, Va. — At the October 29th launch of the Hampton Roads Playbook, the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center unveiled the Secure Energy Future Center, a strategic initiative that anchors the region’s deep defense, logistics, and energy assets in a mission-driven ecosystem. Developed over the past 18 months, the Playbook realigns the region’s unique strengths, spanning shipbuilding and repair, resilient energy, high-performance data infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing, with the global agenda of reshoring, remilitarizing, and re-energizing. The Playbook identified four sectors that should anchor the region’s economic future. The DEAL Framework – Defense, Energy, Aerospace, and Logistics – are four regional economic engines of growth that each matter independently, but the real advantage comes from how they work together. Furthermore, each DEAL sector is supported by cross-cutting growth drivers including workforce development, innovation and technology, sites and infrastructure and supply chain.

Hampton Roads Alliance identified eight flagship projects, each directly aligned with the DEAL sectors and cross-cutting drivers to bring the playbook to life and provide specific opportunities for targeted collaboration and disciplined project development. The Secure Energy Future Center was one of the eight transformative projects that will grow the Hampton Roads workforce, strengthen infrastructure and secure long-term investment to lead the next era of American growth and innovation.

“This is our moment – let’s seize it,” said Douglas L. Smith, President and CEO of Hampton Roads Alliance. “The Hampton Roads Playbook is a shared regional plan that highlights our collective assets and outlines a strategy for success. We are putting the region on offense, together, and the Secure Energy Future Center is exactly the kind of initiative our region needs to align behind. SEFC was developed with adaptability, scalability and sustainability in mind which is what every competitive strategy must be anchored in.”

Seed funding from GO Virginia and inclusion in the Playbook enabled the leadership team at the VTCRC to design SEFC in alignment with regional priorities and industry clusters – laying the groundwork for a multiplier effect that will be transformative for the region, the Commonwealth, the nation, and beyond. Developed in collaboration with Virginia Tech Outreach and International Affairs, Hampton Roads Alliance, the Hampton Roads Executive Roundtable, the City of Newport News, W.M. Jordan Company, and many other partners, SEFC represents the culmination of years of analysis and stakeholder engagement focused on uniting around a shared vision, a compelling mission and a clearly defined problem to solve.

“A reliable, affordable, and clean energy supply – a secure energy supply – is a national imperative and energy security is the backbone of modern economies.” said Elizabeth A. McClanahan, President of VTCRC and CEO of the Virginia Tech Foundation, Inc. “The Secure Energy Future Center can connect Virginia’s unmatched research, defense and industry strengths with VTCRC’s ability to advance University research by providing places and programs where entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and researchers can collaborate. VTCRC, in all its locations, is where education meets business.”

“SEFC was developed to fill a critical gap in the Commonwealth’s energy innovation landscape in a region of the United States that is strategically important and uniquely positioned at the intersection of defense readiness and the energy transition,” said Chelsea J. Olivieri, Managing Director of VTCRC Newport News and SEFC. “SEFC will focus on maturing six integrated pillars: energy literacy, research and modeling, innovation and demonstration, technology commercialization, talent pipeline development, and regional growth support.”

In a white paper released in collaboration with the Hampton Roads Alliance, SEFC outlined initiatives and programming already underway with strategic regional and state partners. Energy education and training, an energy soft landing program, entrepreneur support and accelerator programming, EnergyTech meetups and networking, along with an immersive energy system visualization display are planned Q1 2026. The programs will be based in a new energy innovation suite under construction in partnership with W.M. Jordan, 757Collab, Dominion Energy Innovation Center, and others. SEFC also announced a series of requests for information intended to help vet and shape the development of distributed energy testbeds and pilot sites located throughout Hampton Roads that would position the region as a living laboratory for energy innovation and resilience.

“I applaud the team responsible for leading this GO Virginia funded project. I’ve watched them navigate many obstacles since 2023 due to dynamic and disruptive market and economic conditions and evolve this project into a transformational opportunity for our region. The Secure Energy Future Center is exactly the kind of project GO Virginia aims to support, one that encourages development of this key industry cluster through collaboration among higher education, government, private industry and workforce,” said Nancy Grden, President & CEO, Hampton Roads Executive Roundtable, which serves as the Support Organization for GO Virginia Region 5. “Hampton Roads has an opportunity to truly lead the Commonwealth, the nation, and beyond with this effort. SEFC can accelerate technology innovation and deployment, train the workforce of tomorrow, and attract the private capital that will catalyze our energy economy and enable our region to prosper for many decades to come.”

About the Secure Energy Future Center
The Secure Energy Future Center (SEFC) is a hub for next-generation energy solutions in a highly strategic coastal location, leveraging Hampton Roads’ unique assets to drive innovation, solve complex energy challenges, and enable strategic growth for the region, the Commonwealth, and beyond.

About the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center
Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, Inc. (VTCRC), in all its locations, is where education meets business. VTCRC is a place and a paradigm at work within an ever-changing landscape. VTCRC is the wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of the Virginia Tech Foundation, Inc.

About Hampton Roads Alliance
The Hampton Roads Alliance (the Alliance) is the leading regional economic development organization for the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. It is a nonprofit, public-private partnership supported and led by the region’s most influential business leaders, local governments, and top academic institutions. The Alliance is proud to represent 15 localities who, with the support of more than 100 private sector investors, govern and resource the organization and its regional economic development efforts. Those efforts focus on the following services areas: business attraction, business expansion, and business intelligence.

About GO Virginia
The Commonwealth’s innovative Growth and Opportunity (GO Virginia) Program is a state-funded initiative administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) that strengthens and diversifies Virginia’s economy and fosters the creation of higher wage jobs in strategic industries. Its mission is to grow and diversify the regional economies and the Commonwealth.

About Hampton Roads Executive Roundtable
The Hampton Roads Executive Roundtable brings together corporate and higher education CEOs and Presidents with the mission to enhance the region’s economic advantage and growth trajectory. The Roundtable also serves as the support organization for Region 5 of Virginia’s innovative GO (Growth & Opportunity) Virginia program.

Media Contact:
 Danielle Akers
 Director of Marketing and Communications
 Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center
 danielle.akers@vtcrc.com | 540.818.7371
 vtcrc.com/sefc