A place where patients and surgeons are actual heroes

The fast-growing living donor liver program at Hume-Lee was revived in 2019 on the hiring of Vinay Kumaran, M.D. (right) from a health system in India. VCU Health’s living liver surgical director, Kumaran has performed more than 800 living donor liver surgeries in his career. He is pictured with Seung Duk Lee, M.D., who has performed hundreds of robotic liver surgeries and has more than a decade of training using robotics.

Since 2020, Kelley & Co. has served as a close partner to VCU Health Hume-Lee Transplant Center. Our task is to tell the stories of the donors, living or deceased, and the recipients of those organs. One organ donated is one life saved.

The stories are filled with heartache, happiness, tragedy, and triumph. We interview families whose loved one has been saved by organ transplantation, brothers or sisters who have lost a parent or sibling and donated the organs, and everyday heroes, still living, who have the strength and honor to give part of a liver or an entire kidney to a friend, family member, or complete stranger.

The stories are raw and powerful. For Hume-Lee, these articles not only tell the stories of their patients and their people, but also spread the word about living donation and help others who may be facing such surgeries to understand what is to come. Many of these stories also begin within the VCU Health website, only to find their way into more mainstream news outlets. Here’s a sampling of our work.

• Transplant rarity: Family donates loved one’s heart to a friend

• Brisket delayed: a Thanksgiving one Hampton man will never forget

• Tapping the robot for partial-liver transplantations

• Two mothers, one heart: a transplant journey

Video Production: Virginia’s Auto Franchise System

In advance of the Virginia legislative session at the start of 2023, the Virginia Automobile Dealers Association, which represents more than 400 franchised new car and truck dealerships, wanted a video to explain how the so-called “franchise system” works.

We had one month, and needed to pull together a small production team, coordinate schedules, film, and post-produce this piece. It was used to help educate lawmakers and the public on the relationships between auto manufacturers, dealers, and consumers. The video was but one piece of educational materials we helped to build for VADA, which ultimately was able to pass its legislation, unanimously. Theirs was also the first bill out of thousands to make it to the Governor’s desk for signing.

Showcasing Innovation in Central Virginia

Each year, we take the reins to manage production and write the stories for a printed annual report for VCU TechTransfer and Ventures, the commercialization arm of Virginia Commonwealth University.

It’s a relationship that actually dates back to the mid-2000s, when principal Jeff Kelley was a business reporter covering inventions borne out of the region’s largest university. Since then, staying in touch has kept us on the forefront of innovative stories coming out of Virginia. For the annual report, Kelley works with Outer Banks-based graphic designer Brent Nultemeier and serves as the client point of contact. We handle all copywriting, proofing, and work with the client — VCU — to centralize comments and streamline the gargantuan editing process. It keeps their focus on the work, and allows us to bring their vision to life.

The final result is a top-quality report delivered ahead of schedule. Here’s the full PDF.

Supporting GreenCity and assisting localities with communications demands

Despite Richmond’s Navy Hill project running aground — a project we’re still proud of, despite, suppose you could say, some challenges — a portion of the development team behind it has been able to salvage parts of that plan and bring them to the adjacent Henrico County. There, just off Interstate 95, the County is proposing an entirely new part of town tentatively known as “GreenCity.” Launching a project like this one requires coordinating a consistent and accurate message between the locality and the developer, and working with media to ensure they have images, video, and all the specific details to report their stories.

We have been honored to continue the good work and support the good hearts of the development team as they look to bring an exciting new neighborhood — and new revenue — to Henrico.

Renderings. People love renderings. Here are some renderings.

Adaptive reuse of the former Best Products headquarters will be designed and operated to Living Building Challenge standards, and will seek that certification. Tenancy will be promoted as Class A commercial office space, emphasizing its sustainability features, including connections to outdoors, atrium, and usable green rooftop. The 1930s Art Deco eagle sculptures rescued from New York’s now-demolished Airlines Terminal building will remain and more prominently incorporated into the overall site design.

Careful coordination also goes into assisting the County in its mission to ensure information is distributed to its residents. The County’s communications team built an ever-changing website dedicated to GreenCity to keep people informed of progress; we worked closely to provide them with Frequently Asked Questions (with Answers), Fact Sheets, images, and more.

Creating A Real Estate Website and Media Campaign — Quickly

Days before the scheduled vote to approve a real estate development in Colonial Beach, Va., our longtime partner at Dodson Development contacted us to make us aware of the project. The initial request was for a press release, which we drafted and had approved within a day’s time. Yet as we learned more, it because clear they also needed a web presence, especially to inform residents and tourists in an area with few remaining community newspapers to cover the town meeting.

Though the development’s name and branding is still in the works, we were able to quickly reserve a generic URL and, using SquareSpace, built a website within just a few hours.

The website is very much a digital brochure, with one added value: a lead-generation form captures the names of those interested. As the project progresses, the developer now has a list of names to keep informed. These are residents who want to give voice to the project, as well as potential home buyers, business owners, and investors to bring the project to fruition.

Though it’s always ideal to have a few weeks to build and plan, when you work at the speed of business, sometimes that’s just not possible. You have to stay flexible. There’s no time for deep strategy and whiteboard sessions — you trust the experts to get it done, the right way.

Total time: Four hours. Total value: Priceless.

Among other media outlets, the story also found its way to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the state’s newspaper of record, thanks to our own relationships with Virginia reporters and editors. It was the most-read story of the day.