Andy Edmunds—2016 Fascinating Person #9

RVANews Live: Fascinating People 2016 may be sold out, but you still can read all about Fan Favorite Andy Edmunds. And maybe email him or something? You might get an entertaining reply!

February 19, 2016; 12:35 PM • by Susan Howson

Photo by: El Zoid [philozei]

Meet each of the Fascinating People we’ve invited to speak for eight minutes on whatever they want. It goes down on Wednesday, February 24th. Learn more here but know that, sadly, we are SOLD OUT! Stay tuned to Twitter, though, because we will surely be enthusing all over the place about the pearls of wisdom they’ll all be casting.

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Andy Edmunds writes the best emails, and that’s saying something, because I write PRETTY GOOD emails, guys. He always has a joke, he always has a compliment, and he gets right to the point. That last one…I am not so good at.

Honestly, that right there is good enough for me, but the kicker is that Andy’s job is possibly the coolest job I can imagine. He heads the Virginia Film Office, which means he actively courts directors, producers, and movie studio executives who are looking for locations upon which to shoot their film! It’s this whole tax-break strategy system to get them here, and states basically compete, using those breaks and their natural beauty (or ugliness, depending on what the film is looking for) to woo guys like Spielberg. And a movie or TV show coming to Virginia to compete means huge money for the state, jobs for Virginians, and carrots for those schools who are helping students follow filmmaking careers.

So it’s kind of like working for the tourism department, only also in show biz and with a ton of ripple effect? Neat!

But I think even if Andy were working on the accounting team for the government of Dullsville, USA, he would still be able to speak charmingly and hilariously about it. And who knows, maybe that’s what he’ll talk about!

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Read all the stories that feature our 2016 Fascinating People!