THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 26, 1995 TAG: 9506240265
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Talk of the Town
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
Newport News Shipbuilding Employees Credit Union intends to expand its membership. Officials at the 60,000-member credit union decided last week to accept employees of other companies as members.
Membership rolls will open later this year for the Peninsula shipyard's contractors and vendors. Also eligible: employees of area companies employing 200 workers or less and relatives of the shipyard's employees.
Membership has been limited to shipyard employees, former employees and immediate family members, said Marilyn Bennett, marketing director at the credit union.
NNSCU has assets of about $250 million and remains ranked among the larger financial institutions based in Hampton Roads despite the smaller workforce at the Newport News shipyard.
The shipyard employs about 19,500 workers, down from more than 30,000 in the '80s.
Hampton Roads' retail roll continues. Richard L. Jacobson, senior vice president of S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co. of Norfolk, attended last week's International Council of Shopping Centers convention in Reston. ``They're looking at us and basically saying that we're a market they need to be in,'' he said.
Jacobson counts only one vacant site in the nearly 600,000 square feet of retail space he handles around Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach.
``It's never been that way before,'' he said. ``And more is coming. More stores. More shopping centers. Absorption in the higher traffic areas is the highest it's ever been.''
Let Us Produce, a Norfolk fruit and vegetable wholesaler with annual sales of about $6 million, said it gave the Oklahoma City Red Cross 1 percent of gross revenues the last two weeks of April. Company owners David and Denise Millison lauded the contributions of participating customers. ``A heart warming display of the Tidewater restaurant owners' can-do attitude when disaster strikes,'' he said.
Hampton Roads happenings: American Stripping, a sand and water blasting business in Norfolk, now sells Rhino Lining, a tough plastic material coated on pickup truck beds. . . Sweet City International Inc., the Virginia Beach candy store franchisor, launched Sweet City Express - candy machines in other stores. . . Wallace Law Registry of Hartford, Conn., opened a Norfolk office. by CNB