My wife and I moved to Roanoke after graduating from James Madison University and The College of William and Mary, respectively. Both from Bristol, we wanted to live in southwest Virginia, and were in search of professional and personal opportunities. Now, fourteen years later, we simply can’t imagine living anywhere else.

I teach in Roanoke City at Crystal Spring School. Roanoke is home to an incredibly diverse population, and our schools certainly reflect that. Our classrooms are buzzing with technology, cutting edge teaching and learning methods, and administrators, teachers, and staff that continually strive to improve and grow.

Robbie works with Pfizer, Inc., and can speak firsthand about the world-class medical community that calls Roanoke home. Previously, she worked in the hospitality industry here in town; she knows firsthand that the business community here is connected and progressive, and never seems to stand still.

Our children, Jack and Gracie, both attend fantastic Roanoke City elementary schools. As a parent, I couldn’t be happier about the education they are receiving, or about the care they receive during the school day. Attending a true neighborhood school is special, and they simply love it.

We also enjoy the vibrant cultural and entertainment opportunities that abound in the Valley. From the various festivals that cover the City calendar to visual and performing arts exhibits and performances, there’s always something going on. And I get an extra peek at the music scene by playing in two bands, The Jiving Five and The SwayKatz.

Every time family or friends visit our home in Raleigh Court, they comment about the small town feel and accessibility that Roanoke offers. Our church, Raleigh Court Presbyterian, is just down the street from our home, as is the Grandin Road shopping district, which includes shoppes, restaurants, the Grandin Theatre, and our favorite place, Pop’s Ice Cream. When we take around town, they’re amazed at the variety of big city resources that Roanoke offers. In the end, it’s this combination – the best of both worlds – that we treasure most about the Star City.

• Wade’s Career: Teacher, Crystal Spring School
• Wade’s Hometown: Bristol, VA
• Wade’s Website: www.wadewhitehead.com

I came to Roanoke 13 years ago with my husband and two children. We are from Sarajevo, from Bosnia and Herzegovina. I never thought that I would move away from my hometown. I loved everything there. I spent my childhood and early adulthood in Sarajevo – a happy time and place. My heart was full of love and my life felt like a poem put to motion. Everything was beautiful and peaceful. People were smiling. Children were playing. Birds were singing all-around. Flowers were blooming everywhere.

Yet Sarajevo, Olympic City suddenly changed. This warm, beautiful, bright city became a dark, scary place. People changed. Neighbors became enemies. They started to hate each other. Bombs, shells, blood littered the landscape. No food, electricity, water. This went on for three years. Hope sustained us in our struggle and fight for life.

Than one day, I woke up in a city named Roanoke. It was July 8, 1995 a warm and sunny day. Our little family living in this little city. What are we doing here? Starting our life from the beginning. We were fortunate to have a chance! After days, months and years of hard work as a refugee, we all became citizens of our new Country.

One day I heard somebody say, “Your heart is where your home is”. My home is here as is my heart. This is a place where I met my friends and started my new life. Roanoke is my new hometown. Now I am very rich. I have two hometowns, two countries. I love both of them, but Roanoke is the place where my husband and I are enjoying life. We will be forever grateful for the wonderful hospitality we have found here.

• Adelaida’s Career: Department Secretary, Jefferson College of Health Sciences
• Adelaida’s Hometown: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

I was one of those young professionals we hear so much about, who left Roanoke in search of greener pastures. After graduating from North Cross School and Randolph-Macon College, I set off into the world in search of opportunities that were simply not available locally. My career in the commercial printing industry led me to a number of major metropolitan areas, including Richmond, Charlotte, and Washington, DC.

As my career advanced steadily, I was offered the opportunity to become vice president of sales for a company in Western New York. It was truly an eye-opening experience. The differences between the thriving areas I had left behind, and the stagnant economies of declining industrial cities like Rochester and Buffalo were like night and day. After 2 ½ years in the Great White North, the company I was working for was sold. My wife and I decided that we had no desire to remain in New York, and suddenly, we were faced with the unique opportunity to pack up and go anywhere we wished.

Jennifer had grown up in Milwaukee, and we met each other while we were both living in Northern Virginia. Our first instinct was to pick another major city as our next destination, but we realized that our priorities had changed. We wanted to have a child, and at this point in our lives, family life was more important than night life. We chose Roanoke as the ideal place to settle permanently and raise a family of our own. Even though I had been gone for over 20 years, I always considered Roanoke to be my hometown.

By this point in my life, I had a strong desire to own my own business, and after taking some time to consider my options, I opened Foodies in 2004. I wanted to do something completely different from my past experience, and introduce a new concept to the Roanoke Valley. I operated the business for 3 ½ years before selling it in December of 2007.

For the next phase of my career, I’m planning to put my 20 years of business and entrepreneurial experience to use as a consultant. I’ve spent virtually my entire career in privately owned companies, and I’m hoping to use this experience to help local businesses grow and create opportunities for the next generation of Roanokers. My goal is to ensure that when the time comes for my son to begin his career, remaining in Roanoke will be a viable option for him.

• Chris’ Career: Small Business Consultant, Applied Insights for Small Business
• Chris’ Hometown: Roanoke, VA

I was born and raised in Roanoke and was lucky enough to come from a very large, close-knit family. Growing up I started to realize how great a value living in Roanoke is compared to other cities. I was graduated from the University of Virginia in May 2007 and chose to come back to Roanoke. I received job offers in other cities but had long ago decided that Roanoke was where I wanted to start out.

Although I did not end up working for a company based out of Roanoke, I decided to start an office in Roanoke. Working for Advanced Planning Services has given me the chance to start a regional office in Roanoke instead of Richmond or elsewhere. In fact, our company is just a couple of spots ahead of another Roanoke company, Atlantic Credit and Finance, in Inc. Magazine’s top 500 fastest growing private companies list! I also recently joined the golf committee for the National Kidney Foundation tournament held at Ashley Plantation. Coming back to Roanoke was definitely a great decision!

Having always loved downtown, I recently purchased a condo at The Candy Factory on Salem Avenue. Downtown is becoming so much better than I had heard it described when I was a child. With exciting new restaurants and bars opening, I have no fear that when entertaining out of town clients there will be no shortage of things to do. With the good friends I have that chosen to stay and start something in Roanoke, and with the unbelievable golf community I have grown up in, I know that I will have no shortage of friends or fun in the years to come with the good friends I have that chose to stay.

• Barry’s Career: Mid-Atlantic Brokerage Director, APS, Inc
• Barry’s Hometown: Roanoke, VA

As a lifelong resident of Roanoke my goal after graduating high school was to move to the big city and get out of Roanoke. I felt the city was too small and did not provide amenities and opportunities for a 20-something. I decided to stay a little longer by going to Roanoke College and after one thing (or another) kept me in this town I grew to love it. I found that Roanoke did have the amenities and I eventually created my own opportunities. I bought a small franchised business headquartered in Roanoke. I found my wife Samantha in Roanoke and we currently live in Old Southwest. We love living and working in downtown and making an impact on the inner city. We see a bright future for the area and hope the governments can continue to work together to make Roanoke an even better place to work and live (and play!).

• JJ’s Career: Executive Director, Dale Carnegie Training
• JJ’s Hometown: Roanoke, VA

My husband, David, and I were drawn to the Roanoke Valley by the opportunity offered to me in 2004 to become president of Hollins University. Since then, I have been fortunate to witness first-hand here the transformative power of women’s education, and at the same time David and I also feel blessed to live in the midst of such striking surroundings. We love having four seasons and whenever we can we take advantage of the many ways one can enjoy the outdoors in this area, especially hiking. Other treasures we’ve discovered include the Roanoke City Market, an eclectic array of great restaurants, and the Grandin area, which is our favorite place to have dinner and catch a movie.

Describing our experience since we moved to the Roanoke Valley would not be complete without acknowledging the warmth and graciousness of the people who live here. From the very beginning we felt welcome and were encouraged to become an active part of this community. We will be forever grateful for this wonderful hospitality.

I encourage anyone who has the chance to do so to come to this special place. I also want to extend my personal invitation to visit Hollins University. You can see our world-class art museum, attend one of the many cultural events we hold here throughout the year, or simply walk the grounds and enjoy the beauty of our historic campus.

• Nancy’s Career: President, Hollins University
• Nancy’s Hometown: Dallas, TX

I grew up in small town outside of the DC area named Culpeper and “moved southwest” when I entered Virginia Tech in the fall of 1980. After graduating with a BS in Finance in ‘84 I jumped at the opportunity to stay in the Blacksburg area and enjoyed two completely different careers between then and 2003 when I moved to Roanoke after a job transfer. I quickly fell in love with a more urban lifestyle, and planted myself right in the middle of everything so I could walk downtown, or to Grandin Village and South Roanoke.

I really couldn’t be happier with life here. I’ve been an avid mountain biker since the early 90’s and can hop on my bike and be in the woods within 5 minutes of my front porch. Where else can you do that and still be able to walk to the movies, or the theater, or dozens of restaurants? With the Roanoke Valley Greenways project, there is even more recreation right at my doorstep and there are only more great things to come with that.

Roanoke really is the city for me, and I think it offers so much potential for young people who want to raise a family in an affordable and safe environment, and still have access to the cultural amenities that larger cities offer. It seems like a perfect mix to me. Since moving here I have left the corporate world and have my own photography business. I meet so many young people coming back here to get married. I try to talk every one of them into making Roanoke their home. Many of them really want to, and I think with all of the “right” growth we have going on here, they have lots of opportunity to do just that.

• Kemper’s Career: Photographer,
  Kemper Mills Fant Photography & Design
• Kemper’s Hometown: Culpeper, VA
• Kemper’s Social Profile: Facebook

I grew up in Baltimore, MD and was first exposed to Roanoke on my way to Virginia Tech. I had a blast enjoying outdoor activities in the Blue Ridge area while earning my undergraduate degree in civil engineering. What I noticed first was the glow of lights you can see from I-81 while driving back to Tech late at night but I didn’t really venture into Roanoke until returning to the region five years after graduating.

After college I moved out west to fulfill my dream of working with children in therapeutic wilderness programs and living the ski town life in Utah and Colorado. Lucky for me, while living in Aspen a friend from Tech encouraged me to meet another Virginia Tech Civil Engineering graduate who was living in Denver at the time. We hit it off, moved to Vail and were engaged.

While in Vail, Sarah and I planned our wedding and honeymoon and decided there was no better time to quit our jobs, sell what worldly possessions we had, and travel the US to find a place to settle down. We were married in Virginia, to make it easy for our families, and then spent the next five months driving from coast to coast checking out all the cool towns. We visited the likes of Burlington, Bend, Boise, Boulder, Seattle, Portland, and many more. Along the way we honed in on what we wanted. We wanted a small city to allow for cultural amenities and professional career options. We wanted a region surrounded by National Forest land, affordable housing and good mountain biking. When we drove into downtown Roanoke in the summer of 2001 we found all that and a vibrant downtown teeming with pedestrians shopping on the open air market. We found home.

We moved to Roanoke that fall, reconnected with our friends from college and proceeded to import my brother, two other classmates from Tech who had left the region and Sarah’s parents. In Roanoke we’ve found great friends, great jobs and great recreation.

I highly recommend Roanoke as a place to call home!

• Jeff’s Career: Southwest Virginia General Manager, SyCom Technologies
• Jeff’s Hometown: Baltimore, MD

I was born in Washington, DC but grew up in Roanoke, VA. After being graduated from Cave Spring High School in 1995 I completed my undergraduate education from Radford University 1999 and obtained my MBA 2003 from the University of Phoenix. I have always considered myself a dreamer and have always had a drive to do something with my life.

I decided to leave Roanoke for DC when I was 22 and said I would never come back. I knew I was going to be a career man and Roanoke didn’t seem to have what I wanted at the time. I spent almost 5 years in Washington and rarely came back to Roanoke to visit. After living in the city and working as a financial planner at a few different banking institutions, I decided I didn’t want to deal with the rat race, high cost of living, and horrific traffic. I was barely getting by and wasn’t very happy with my situation after a few years. At 27, I came back to what I call home and after some soul searching I started work as a Mortgage Banker with Atlantic Bay Mortgage Group. We are an innovative Mortgage company open to new ideas and it was a perfect fit for me.

The rest is history. All of my struggles and humbling experiences in the city made me stronger. I feel very comfortable in Roanoke and enjoy the way of life here. I have made a dynamic career from scratch in just a few years and I am very thankful for the people of this town who have helped me make that happen. If I wasn’t a professional athlete I would be a mortgage banker so I really can’t complain about anything. Thank You Roanoke! The people of this town are very good people and I appreciate you.

• Jason’s Career: Senior Mortgage Banker, Atlantic Bay Mortgage Group
• Jason’s Hometown: Washington, DC
• Jason’s Website: JasonBialek.com

After my dad retired from the military in 1997, our family moved to a little town called Bedford, Virginia. I spent my teenage years there and, after graduating from high school, ended up attending college 45 minutes away at Hollins University in Roanoke. I originally didn’t want to even look at women’s colleges, but when I walked on campus I fell in love with it. I was impressed with their academic programs (especially the English/Creative Writing department), small class sizes (my largest class had maybe 30 or so students), and the sense of community (fun traditions like Tinker Day).

I have so many wonderful experiences from my time at Hollins. I met my best friend there my freshman year who I am still very close with. I spent a semester in London through the Hollins Abroad program, which was an amazing opportunity I will never forget. I wrote a screenplay for my honors thesis - which I submitted to the Virginia Screenwriting Competition in 2007 unfortunately I wasn’t a finalist, but I got some good pointers to improve the script). I worked part-time at Community School across the street from Hollins, which is a wonderful private school that I would send my kids to if I’m still in Roanoke when I start a family (whenever that may be… I’m still looking for Mr. Right!).

I really liked what Roanoke had to offer. So when I received an email from the Hollins Career Center last March about a job opportunity at the Veterans Affairs Roanoke Regional Office, I jumped at the chance and was happy when I found out I got the job. I’m so thankful that I found a great job which not only has good pay and benefits, but is helping out veterans get the benefits they deserve.

As I’m writing this, I’ve been at the VA for nearly nine months (it doesn’t seem that long!). I’m living in an apartment with my crazy but loveable cat and recently started taking ballroom lessons at Arthur Murray Dance Center. I also became a member of the Methodist Church I attended regularly while at Hollins.

Life is great here in Roanoke, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I stayed here for a long time!

• Kristen’s Career: Veterans Service Representative at the Department
  of Veterans Affairs

My wife, Cortney, and I met during college up the road at James Madison University. After graduation we lived for several years in Charleston, SC where we enjoyed the beach, the history and the climate (apart from hot & humid summers, that is). Cortney was born and bred in the Roanoke Valley; when we began our family with the birth of our oldest, we decided it would be best to move close to her parents and stay within reach of mine in Northern Virginia. Leaving Charleston was difficult, but we’ve come to know that Roanoke truly is home. The quality of life in our region, the pay in my industry (technology) vs. the cost of living, and our proximity to things we love (including a half day to the beach, less than half a day to Washington DC, minutes to the mountains, Smith Mountain Lake, the New River and more) seem likely to keep us here for life. Since coming to Roanoke in 2001, I’ve been happy to work downtown, we’ve owned houses in Raleigh Court, Roanoke County, and settled in downtown Salem, and we’ve become active in our church and community. We can’t imagine a better place to raise a family and build a career.

• Tom’s Job: Senior Account Manager, ABS Technology Architects
• Tom’s Social Profile: Facebook

Sherry and I were both working at GE in the 1970s. We met at the water fountain! She was raised here; I was raised ‘up North’! Despite that significant liability, we were married, and moved into a duplex in the Raleigh Court area. The old GE motto was right, “we bring good things to life”: our son was born at Community hospital and our first daughter was born at Lewis-Gale. The Roanoke Valley was our personal genesis: the place where so many things began for us. We moved away in the 1980s to work with students at the University of Virginia, but now, after 23 years, we have been called back to live and work in this beautiful valley. We are involved in planting a new kind of church in Roanoke and, not too surprisingly, it is located in the Raleigh Court Area and is filled with young people and young families who will be the future of this community and who are putting together their own set of beginnings.

• Tom’s Career: Pastor, Christ Our Redeemer Church