June 2001, Volume 13, Number VI

Features:

President's Message

A&A Tees Up with
Sam Snead

Ken Proffitt Speeds Along the Tracks at A&A

TradeWinds Site Management Offers Cutting-Edge Service

We're Working For

In the Community

...and more!

AMPERSAND is published monthly to inform employees, clients, and friends of events and issues which affect the company.

Print Circulation: 4,760
Online Circulation: 420

Questions,comments, suggestions, or ideas?
Contact Editor 
Kristen McClung
(540) 552-5592
(800) 763-5596
fax: (540) 552-5729
editor@andassoc.com

Contributing writers:
Kristen McClung
James Mercado II

Permission to copy any article if source is cited.

Can an ex-cop from Richmond find happiness in one of Virginia’s most rural counties? For Frank Chandler III, the answer is emphatically yes. As Chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Bland County (population approximately 7,000), Chandler finds life anything but bland.

"It’s exciting. We’re making things happen," he says. "We just got our first wastewater treatment system in the county. We now have two water systems in place. We’re working on getting clean industries and keeping our education system up to date. We’re looking 20 years ahead because we want to keep our young people around to take care of us."

Chandler describes himself as aggressive, maybe too aggressive to seem country-polite at times, but he wants to get things done. "I don’t mean to step on toes, but sometimes they’re in my way. I’m not afraid to apologize from the podium," he says. "But you have to be aggressive to get things done, especially if you’re from a small county that gets ignored sometimes. We don’t just write grants. We go visit politicians and present our case. We always have a good case."

In Bastian, the county’s fastest growing area, septic systems were failing and the health department had warned the groundwater wasn’t safe for drinking. The county was able to spend $17 million installing wastewater and water systems without using any new tax money.

"It was all grants and loans," Chandler says. "We really needed this infrastructure, and the state and federal government helped, partly because the rest stops on Interstate 77 required these services, too."

Although Chandler has only lived in Bland County 20 years — a relative newcomer by Bland standards — folks knew his wife as a native and drew Chandler into the organization that gets things done — the Ruritans. Although Chandler was running a catering business and then a service station, he found he was attracted to politics because he wanted more service from his government.

Chandler was defeated in his bid for sheriff, but he learned enough from the experience to be elected to the Board of Supervisors several years later and has been re-elected twice. "We’re a good board," he says. "We’re all so involved in the county that we’re only home a few evenings a month. We’re not always in agreement, but we don’t hold grudges and we get things done."

When Chandler is not working for Bland, he’s likely to be traveling with his wife ("She’s my other great passion," he says), antiquing, puttering over his extensive flower garden, and singing Christian music at churches, weddings, and festivals around the county. &

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