Manufacturing Mission 2010

Dear VMA Members:

The Virginia Manufacturers Association has been Industry’s Advocate for all sized companies on issues of importance to our operating competitiveness, our families, our communities and the Commonwealth for 85 years.  In that spirit, I am asking you to get involved and help us grow the only statewide association exclusively dedicated to manufacturers, their suppliers and allies. We have created Manufacturing Mission 2010 (MM2010) to raise $318,000 to accomplish the Virginia Strategy for Growth & Manufacturing Renewal.

Membership investment dues cover 56% of the association’s costs. The rest is earned through our discount business services, insurance programs, events and special projects. To get this project started, the VMA Board of Directors has pledged $111,100 toward the MM2010 goal. We are asking each member company, whether you are a manufacturer, contractor, law firm, environmental service firm or a retired VMA member, to support MM2010.

In 2004, the VMA worked with the Virginia General Assembly to get the Virginia Strategy for Growth & Manufacturing Renewal adopted as the Commonwealth’s own “blue-print” for helping this important sector and its supply chain to rebound from the economic crisis it was facing. That 12 point plan laid the foundation for the robust legislative and regulatory agenda that we continue to work under today. In fact, we have documented some of our progress in this brochure and the results are quite amazing.

Now we are at a cross-road. The political environment nationally has changed and we are experiencing some of it in Virginia. As the VMA has reiterated time again, manufacturing has vastly different needs than all other business sectors. The Virginia Strategy for Growth & Manufacturing Renewal addresses these needs and has enabled us to establish aggressive objectives that have yet to be fully achieved. For example, manufacturers have the highest effective tax rate of any Virginia business sector, so we have committed to repealing Virginia’s machinery and tools tax and end taxation on pollution control equipment. We have also committed to closing the skilled trades gap, enhancing career and technical education standards in the K-12 and community college systems, increasing the supply of natural gas and renewable energy offshore, offering employers more affordable health insurance and improving the capacity for moving road, rail and port freight. These objectives are essential to our near-term and long-term success as an industry.

We have resolved to push ahead with these objectives and others and your commitment is necessary. Please review the Manufacturing Mission 2010 materials and make a pledge today. While we are each focused on making our own businesses competitive, the VMA focuses our collective interests. That focus and that single voice speaking on our behalf in all corners of the Commonwealth is our strength. The VMA is us and we are still the economic foundation of the Commonwealth. Join me to accomplish the Virginia Strategy for Growth & Manufacturing Renewal.

Sincerely,
Rick Higbie
Chairman, VMA