A panel of local businesswomen will lead a discussion next week in Tysons on communication and leadership as a woman.

The “Taking the Lead with No Apologies” event is hosted by the Tysons Regional Chamber of Commerce Women’s Leadership Committee. The event’s description says it will offer simple, easy-to-use tips to help women communicate effectively in the workplace.

The event will be held at Embassy Suites Tysons (8517 Leesburg Pike) on Wednesday (Feb. 27) from 5-7 p.m.

The panel is scheduled to be moderated by Virginia Case, a strategist for Falls Church-based marketing agency Strategic Tactical Marketing, LLC. The panelists will be:

• Nicole Geller, senior director of Springer Lawson & Associates
• Michelle Walker, founder of Trebla Consulting
• Danielle Turcola, president of Professionalism International, Inc.

Tickets are $35 for members, $45 for non-members, or $65 for a two-ticket pack.

Photo via Facebook

If you had a game on pre-order at the Vienna GameStop (203 Maple Ave E), you might be surprised to show up and find the store completely boxed up.

According to an employee sitting in the otherwise empty storefront, the chain closed last week and consolidated with the store in the Tysons Corner Center mall, where customers can go to pick up games they ordered.

The employee said rising rent prices in the shopping center — at the corner of Maple Ave and Park Street — forced them to close and relocate.

Two doors down, the Starbucks is also on the way out. An employee said that both of the existing Starbucks locations in Vienna are being closed in April, with staff consolidated to the new drive-through location one block away.

Between the two is Cold Stone Creamery, but a manager at the store said the location is on a 10-year lease for the location. The manager did not know how far into the lease the chain was but said there were no immediate plans for it to leave.

The Tysons branch of Republik Coffee, which opened last June near Tysons Galleria, could face eviction within the week.

The coffee bar occupies a high visibility corner of Highgate at the Mile (7915 Jones Branch Drive), the first in a series of new mixed-use developments planned for the area.

Owner Talha Sarac said the eviction notice is part of a misunderstanding with Kettler, which owns Highgate at the Mile. Sarac said he met with Kettler representatives last week to discuss issues related to the building’s rent and believed everything had been settled.

Steven Tracy, property manager for Highgate, said he could not comment on an ongoing issue and the Kettler management office could not be reached for comment.

Sarac said he expected the issue to be cleared up imminently, but the eviction notice from the county sheriff’s office said the property must be vacated by Feb. 27.

The City of Falls Churched announced via a Simpsons GIF that trash and recycling curbside pickup services delayed yesterday on account of the snowstorm have been rescheduled for this Saturday.

Snow angels > garbage angels. City trash and recycling curbside collection is rescheduled for this Saturday, February 23 because of yesterday's snow! pic.twitter.com/gUv3nBxVq5

— City of Falls Church (@FallsChurchGov) February 21, 2019

Trash pickup for other localities started sooner. In Vienna, trash pickup canceled yesterday was picked up earlier today, though the town asked locals not to include brush or bulk items.

Roughly 90 percent of Fairfax County residents and businesses use a private collection service and are encouraged to reach out to their chosen provider to find out when trash services resume.

American Disposal Services, one of the largest private collection services in the county, announced that its Wednesday trash pickup service was also postponed to the weekend. According to the website:

Wednesday Residential service will be made up on Saturday, February 23, 2019. Please have trash and / or recycling out the night before to ensure collection.

Commercial and Roll off service will be on a one day delay. Wednesday service will be performed Thursday, Thursday service will be performed Friday, Friday and Saturday services will be performed Saturday.

The collection service also asked that the lots near dumpsters and the wheels are cleared of any ice.

At least one Falls Church resident noted on Twitter, though, that some Fairfax Public Works employees were braving the foul weather yesterday to pick up bulk trash on the street.

Seems to be tapering off a bit here in Falls Church/Fairfax, but the snow didn’t stop Thomas, an awesome @ffxpublicworks employee, from braving the roads to help pick up some bulk trash for us. pic.twitter.com/MzLKtcdpEv

— Brian Chiglinsky (@chiglinsky) February 20, 2019

Photo via Facebook

Bamboo may be a favorite of pandas and homeowners looking for a screen around their property — but it’s also an invasive species that can quickly grow out of control, and Fairfax County is struggling to figure out what to do about it.

An effort led in part by Providence District Supervisor Linda Smyth is examining what to do about bamboo in Fairfax County. According to Jack Weyant, director of the Department of Code Compliance, the county is putting together an educational flyer to let homeowners know about the risks of bamboo, but is also in the first stages of considering more stringent ordinances.

The plant was first introduced to the Mid-Atlantic region in 1882 as an ornamental decoration. Sprouts of the plant can grow 12 inches a day and roots can travel 20 feet away from the original clump, according to the Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia.

Patches of wild bamboo can be found throughout the county, including the Pimmit Run Trail in McLean.

The plants can dominate sites, creating a monoculture that can crowd out and ultimately displace native vegetation. The plant can cause extensive property damage to decks, pool liners or even building foundations.

Getting rid of bamboo is far more difficult than growing it. Justin Roberson with the Fairfax County Park Authority said the best way of eliminating bamboo is to cut down the shoots and treat the stumps with herbicide, a process that needs to be repeated over multiple growing seasons. Digging into the ground and breaking up the roots could make the problem worse and spread the plant even further.

In 2017, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation authorizing localities to regulate bamboo to existing ordinances regulating grass. The code specifies that the bamboo being regulated is any type characterized by “aggressive spreading behavior.”

Current Fairfax County code regulates grass height to not exceed 12 inches, but whether or not Fairfax County opts to regulate bamboo the same way is still up for consideration.

At an environmental committee meeting on Feb. 12, Weyant said locations around the country have a variety of approaches, from requiring property owners to maintain or contain bamboo to a full-on ban that requires owners of existing bamboo to get rid of it.

So far, Weyant said Fairfax has focused on education and has a flyer in the works explaining the hazards of the plant that will be ready for release sometime within a month. But the county is looking at how a hypothetical bamboo ordinance could be put into place.

“Any potential ordinance would be complaint-driven,” said Weyant. “We need to talk about whether or not to prohibit the planting of new bamboo and how to enforce that. We could allow it to remain but require the property owner to maintain it and we could issue violations to someone who we did get a complaint.”

Running enforcement for bamboo complaints could be complicated and costly, and according to staff documents, there are concerns the fines imposed as penalties to violators would not be significant enough to support the inspection and enforcement process. There are also risks that control of bamboo could lead to unintended damage to the nearby trees, which efforts to remove invasive plants are designed to protect in the first place.

“The last thing we want to make clear is that don’t want to get the county into taking measures to remove bamboo such as we do with a grass ordinance,” said Weyant.

Mason District Supervisor Penelope Gross, chair of the environmental committee, said the county would continue with education and move into regulations only if necessary.

“This is a thorny one to try and address,” said Gross. “Going to education is often the first and least onerous approach. Let’s do the education and see what happens.”

Photo via City of Fairfax

Despite being tucked around the back of an office building at 8500 Leesburg Pike, Italian Gardens is already a popular local lunch spot.

But new plans to bring beer and wine to the store could make it a go-to spot for a midday drink.

The restaurant isn’t visible from the main street, but is frequently crowded around lunch. The relatively inexpensive menu offers a variety of subs, wraps and pizzas.

Italian Gardens filed an ABC permit last November. If the permit is approved, an employee at the restaurant said the current plans are to add wine and beer to the menu and hopefully develop a system to deliver beers like any other food delivery.

The ABC status is listed as pending, with no word yet on when beer delivery could start up.

Feeling inspired by the Fairfax Fire and Rescue Department’s recent rescue of a fallen mule or last year’s dramatic crane rescue from a Tysons construction project?

The Citizens Fire & Rescue Academy (CFRA) is now accepting applications for Fairfax residents who want to learn more about what it’s like to be a local firefighter. The CFRA is open to persons 18 and older who live in Fairfax County

According to the Fire and Rescue website:

Each session will cover different aspects of the organization, providing an in-depth overview of the department and its uniformed and civilian workforce. Program topics include: fire suppression, emergency medical services, training, recruitment, special operations, and other interesting topics.

Applications will be accepted until March 8, with classes beginning on March 21 and ending May 9. The class is scheduled to meet for eight consecutive Thursdays from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Each class is scheduled to be approximately three hours long.

There is no charge to attend. The department also emphasizes that the class will not teach you how to become a firefighter.

Photo via Fairfax Fire and Rescue Department

A new sidewalk was recently completed in a McLean suburb, connecting the newly renovated Dead Run Stream trail to the nearby residential communities.

The new five-foot wide sidewalk runs for 400 feet. The project also added new curbs, gutters, curb ramps and pavement modifications.

Part of the improvements included improving the area’s drainage system to meet requirements related to the local watershed and to support the installation of the nearby walkway.

In addition to pedestrian improvements, new signage and pavement markings were added to enhance vehicle and pedestrian safety. Dense overhanging limbs of nearby trees were trimmed down too to improve visibility at the intersection.

Have you seen the new #walkway on Baron Road? The County installed #sidewalk from the Dead Run trailhead to Douglass Drive, which had been a dangerous segment of roadway for pedestrians. This awesome project provides a connection to downtown #McLean for nearby neighborhoods. pic.twitter.com/TjeAf7U6bR

— John Foust (@johnfoustva) February 19, 2019

Sidewalk photo via Twitter. Map via Fairfax County Department of Transportation

When hackers try to break into a website, they probe the site for vulnerabilities.

Mohamoud Jibrell, CEO of Tysons-based startup NormShield, says that’s where his company comes in. NormShield searches a company’s website and infrastructure for those same vulnerabilities, so it can shore up defenses later.

Yesterday, the company announced that it had secured $3.5 million in seed funding that will allow the company to expand the scope of it’s operation and begin targeting sales.

“The majority of that funding is going to give us ability to scale,” said Jibrell. “None of our competitors in the market can do what I did. But our reach is limited, we didn’t have the sales people and engineers. So one way this is going to help us is expand our reach and we can sell to more customers.”

While NormShield isn’t the only company testing vulnerabilities, it’s a pretty standard part of the industry, Jibrell said NormShield’s strength is in combatting access through vendors or suppliers.

When Target was hacked in 2013 in one of the largest data breaches to ever hit a retailer, it wasn’t through the main company’s infrastructure. Jibrell said the hackers targeted a tiny company that handled heating and air conditioning service for the store. The hackers were able to access Target through a connected network and steal access to millions of credit cards.

Jibrell said larger companies often use hundreds or thousands of suppliers for various jobs, and NormShield is able to relatively quickly scan those websites and report back which ones are most vulnerable.

“Capital One, for instance, has thousands of suppliers,” said Jibrell. “It doesn’t make sense to run scorecards for all suppliers. But if they have 50,000 suppliers, with us we can run that every night and can only alert Capital One when there are [serious problems].”

Currently, Jibrell said the company is able to run anywhere between 10,000 to 15,000 checks overnight. But as the company grows, he says there are larger clients with larger needs.

“We need to expand our reach and improve our name recognition,” said Jibrell. “But at the same time, as customers increase, we don’t want to create a bottleneck. Today, 15,000 scorecards overnight. Want to be able to do 150,000 overnight or a million a week. So far, we’ve been trying to be frugal and didn’t want to spend on infrastructure for that level of scale. That money will allow us to create that so as we get more customers, we have the capacity to support.”

Jibrell said the company currently works with around 50 clients, ranging from small non-profits to larger banking and technology companies. But Jibrell also said it’s been the founders who have been making most of the sales calls, so the company is going to start looking to hire a new sales team and begin to exhibit at tech conferences.

Most of the half-dozen new jobs will be split between the company’s Tysons and Boston locations. Jibrell said they will be looking specifically for accountants and salespeople.

For Jibrell, Tysons is home, so it’s important to keep the company rooted here. But the location also gives NormShield access to talent at several local technology incubators, like MACH 37.

“[This area] has that community so that’s a big advantage,” said Jibrell. “That comes with talent, a lot of cyber talent in this area. It’s easier for us to grow and hire more technical people here than we would in Silicon Valley or New York.”

Image via NormShield

For over a year, the One Tysons East project was one on a long list of plans in the works but without any firm timeline established.

But now, it seems the project is picking up steam. No staff report is available online yet, but the project is scheduled for a Planning Commission hearing on March 27 followed by a Board of Supervisors review on April 9.

The plans call for the addition of a towering glass office building to the corner lot at 1690 Old Meadow Road, featuring a distinctive curved glass design.

The project is planned to include 250,000 square feet of office space and 12,000 square feet of retail, part of the growing Tysons East network that includes the Scotts Run complex and the Capital One headquarters.

Image via Akridge