History of Future of Hampton Roads

Founders

Future of Hampton Roads, Incorporated, grew out of a 1982 initiative of several local private citizens who recognized the increasing importance of regional cooperation for enhancing the economy and quality of life in Southeastern Virginia.

Henry Clay Hofheimer, long recognized as an outstanding business and community leader in Norfolk, together with Dr. William Mayer, president of the Eastern Virginia Medical School; Thomas Chisman, Chairman of WVEC-TV; and retired Admiral Harry D. Train II, formerly the senior U.S. Atlantic Fleet and NATO Naval Commander, recruited other business and civic leaders from the area's 16 cities and counties to engage in the region's first strategic visioning process.

The Sea Symposia, 1982

The decision to create a permanent organization to promote regionalism was the product of 3 successive Symposia conducted in the last quarter of 1982. Landmark Communications provided a grant of $15,000 to underwrite the effort. A consulting firm, Harrison H. Owens, Inc., was engaged to plan and conduct the symposia. Forty-three community leaders from the Peninsula and the Southside took part in these symposia. The objective was to identify ways and means which might enable the cities and counties of Hampton Roads to work together as a region to pursue regional solutions to regional problems. In the course of the final symposium in December 1982, the participants identified problems, established goals, and recommended an organizational structure by means of which these goals could be pursued.

In January 1983, the Symposia participants — now known as the Sea Symposium — met and identified a founding Board of Directors. They drafted Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation. From this emerged an organization initially called "Tidewater's Future Incorporated."

An office was provided by Eastern Virginia Medical School in Smith Rogers Hall on Mowbray Arch. The founding Board embarked upon a vigorous and successful fundraising effort. The Board soon changed the name of the organization to The Future of Hampton Roads, when it became apparent that many on the Peninsula did not believe they lived in Tidewater. Furthermore, the Code of Virginia identifies Tidewater as the 54 cities and counties that are washed by the Chesapeake Bay and the four major rivers up to the fall line.

Committee of 101: Opportunity Group Visioning, 1983–2002

The Board created a Committee of 101 to carry out the region's first strategic visioning process. This body consisted of community leaders and opinion leaders from all the cities and counties of Hampton Roads — serving not only as an intellectual resource but also as a sounding board to test initiatives and ideas. The Committee of 101 met as a body once a year over lunch as guests of the organization.

The Board created 10 Opportunity Groups as suggested by the Sea Symposium participants. The Opportunity Group structure modeled the business activities which drive the economy of Hampton Roads. The Maritime Industries and Tourism Opportunity Groups explored the two principal revenue generators of Hampton Roads. Each Opportunity Group was asked to inventory the strengths and weaknesses of their business areas and to identify opportunities for regional action to stimulate growth and economic progress.

The basic tenet of the Future of Hampton Roads game plan was the recognition that if you are not officially a region you have to act like a region in order to be competitive. The remaining 8 Opportunity Groups were: Transportation; Health Services; Education; Finance; Agribusiness; Marine Research, Development, Production and Aquaculture; Technology; and Cultural. An 11th Opportunity Group, Sports, was added later in the first year.

The Sea Symposium's original concept called for the work of Future of Hampton Roads, Inc. to be accomplished in 3 years. A public symposium would be held every year at which the chairmen of the Opportunity Groups would brief the community on their progress. Keynote speakers for these symposia included then Senator Paul Trible, Governor Charles Robb, and Senator John Warner. At successive 3-year points over the next 21 years, the governing Boards addressed the subject of standing down — and in each case decided the mission was not accomplished and much remained to be done. The Committee of 101 was disbanded in 2003 when the Planning Group for the Regional Structure Project supplanted its role.

Plan 2007, 1993–94

In the midst of a recession in the early 1990s, the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce initiated the region's second visioning project, with a primary focus on job creation. Future of Hampton Roads was among the regional organizations invited to collaborate in this activity, which involved facilitated discussions among over 430 business and community leaders — a process that succeeded in setting fresh goals and strategies for improving the region's main economic clusters.

The results were documented in Plan 2007: For a Global Hampton Roads. As much of the brainstorming reported in Plan 2007 reflected projects already conceived by the business community, many of the Plan's strategies were implemented in the following years. Recommendations involving local governments were presented to the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission in December 1994, which then undertook successive retreats of the Chief Administrative Officers and the Mayors and Chairs during 1995. Out of these meetings came the decision in November 1995 to create the Hampton Roads Partnership.

The Hampton Roads Regional Structure Project, 2003–2009

In late 2003, concerned about an economy weakened by recession, the Future of Hampton Roads sponsored 3 regional forums on the theme of improving the competitiveness of Hampton Roads. Somewhat surprisingly, all of the speakers — including former Governor Baliles, Professor Larry Sabato, and civic expert Robert O'Neill — stressed the same point: that the biggest hindrance to improved economic performance of Virginia's regions is the structure of local government, by which they meant the lack of an effective governance structure for dealing with regional issues.

The emphasis they gave to this assertion motivated the board of the Future of Hampton Roads to organize a "Hampton Roads Regional Structure Project" to develop a solution. A Planning Group was established to organize a highly participative planning effort. During 2004, in order to provide the conceptual basis for the project, the FHR board approved a Case Statement. The tasks of the Structure Project would be to:

1. Take note of the agenda of regional issues
2. Examine how our existing regional institutions deal with that agenda
3. Develop practical proposals for improving regional governance without either merging cities and counties or creating a full-blown regional government

The Case Statement identified 3 project goals:

1. Accelerate economic development
2. Improve regional efficiency
3. Create a stronger regional voice to advance the region's interests

The Case Statement was then used to recruit a Steering Committee of 35 regional organizations, which agreed on a 3-stage planning process: (1) Where we are now; (2) Where we want to go; (3) How we get there. The Steering Committee organized a sustained creative process that involved some 150 volunteers in conferences to brainstorm ideas and, in a dozen small study groups, to sharpen raw proposals into practical recommendations.

By 2007, this intense process produced a number of recommendations subsequently presented to the Hampton Roads Partnership, the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Chief Administrative Officers, and Mayors and Chairs Caucus. Thereafter, over more than a year and a half, study group leaders scheduled scores of individual interviews with elected officials and leaders of regional organizations to explain, clarify, and advocate the recommendations.

In summary, the Structure Project recommended the following measures:

1. Create a Stronger Regional Voice by establishing a Hampton Roads Metropolitan Council composed of the mayors and chairs — a body that would speak for the region and provide stronger political leadership for fostering regional visioning, economic development, and a regional legislative agenda.
2. Improve Public Participation in Decision Making by creating a Hampton Roads Center for Civic Engagement to assist citizens and government in the use of modern methods of democratic dialog.
3. Organize a Regional Services Review by creating a Metro Council which would evaluate the performance of the various independent regional agencies by having the Planning District Commission staff conduct periodic reviews of agency reports.