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The J. Burness Frith Economic Development Center, designed to be a one-stop shopping center for work force training and retraining, assessment and services for business and industry, was dedicated Friday, October 22, 1999.

Mary Kathryn N. Frith, wife of the late J. Burness Frith, donated $1.5 million to build the center at Patrick Henry Community College (PHCC). It houses electronics classrooms, offices, lecture hall, computer labs, the Philpott Manufacturing Center and a small business incubator.

Jeff Taylor, vice chairman of the State Board for Community Colleges, said this was more than a dedication of bricks and mortar.

"A lot happens here that the community has needed for a long time. This is an opportunity for all resources to come together," he said.

Taylor said the PHCC and Frith Economic Center are becoming models for other community colleges in Virginia. He gave Mary Kathryn Frith and her sons a framed certificate of appreciation from the State Community College Board.

Max Wingett, PHCC president, said the center will provide career opportunities and work force development.

"Martinsville, Henry County, Franklin County, and Patrick County now have a strong focal point for furthering the expanding services of the community college," he said.

William Murphy, chairman of the PHCC board, added that the center provides facilities for students' classes as well as economic development activities.

"It was done right," he said of the construction.

"What better way to end one century and begin another," added Joe Philpott, PHCC Foundation chairman.

The Friths' son, Jim, described how the center combined many of his father's interests. "At the groundbreaking, my brother Jay explained Dad's interest in education on many fronts, with special emphasis on his love and involvement of this community college and why this building was the right one for my mother to place his name," he said.

The original mission statement of the facility states: The J. Burness Frith Economic Development Center is committed to positively impacting economic development by building strong networks with existing and new business and industries throughout the college's service region.

"Well, the last 35 years of his life were devoted to doing just that � being at the forefront of efforts to recruit and expand the local industrial base," Jim Frith said of his father, who died in 1995.

He summarized his father's accomplishments: Frith was founder and president of Frith Construction Co., which continues under his sons. He also was a founding director of the Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce, was a co-founder of Patrick Henry Community College Foundation and a long-time supporter of the college, and active in the Patrick Henry Development Council, the area's industrial and business recruiting agency.

"He was a personal living testimony to the free enterprise system and the entrepreneurial spirit, being willing to place at risk his personal resources, for profit, with a clear and focused objective of creating jobs," he said.

Frith shared the history of local economic development and said his father was more than a volunteer who provided time to achieve an end.

"Burness Frith volunteered much more. He frequently financed or built on speculation facilities needed for industrial growth. On many occasions, he personally financed local industrial expansion that might not otherwise have been done" he said.

Frith explained how his father bought, leased, or offered to purchase projects for development and to help close these expeditiously.

Burness Frith had the vision to make local industrial developments happen, Jim Frith said.

"My father, through his construction company, through his personal drive, through his foresightedness, put under roof during his career in excess of 10 million square feet of industrial space.

"He believed in people, whether they were the entrepreneuring business leaders, the utility companies who supplied the life-line of growth, the elected local and legislative leaders, and all the other volunteers who gave their time, talents and resources to see this area thrive."

Click for Previous Article - Donation of Frith Center, January 5, 1997