The Roanoke Times

File 2006 The Chocolate Spike owner Genie Ranck (foreground) and employee Claudia Mullins fill Easter molds with chocolate at the Christiansburg location. Ranck will move from her current downtown Blacksburg location to the First & Main development. The Christiansburg store will remain open.

Come the end of May, The Chocolate Spike will leave its current location in downtown Blacksburg. But that doesn't mean you won't be able to get your fix of handcrafted chocolates and truffles.

Owner Genie Ranck said the business' Christiansburg location will remain open and she will sell chocolates at the Blacksburg Farmers Market throughout the summer.

In the fall, Ranck said she will open a newer, larger Blacksburg shop in the First & Main development under construction along South Main Street.

"I'm not renewing my lease here in Blacksburg because I just wasn't making it there," she said. "Hopefully with more exposure over at First & Main, I'll do better."

"I'm doing alright during the holidays," Ranck added. "But in between holidays I'm just not making it so I need more traffic."

In addition to increased visibility, Ranck said the space at First & Main offers almost double the square footage she occupies in Blacksburg now, allowing her to open a cafe there. The cafe, she said, would sell sipping chocolate, coffee and baked goods.

Pamplin College to host talks

David Callahan, an author who has written about American history, business and public policy, is the featured speaker at the Conference on Business Ethics on Monday.

The conference is organized by the Business Leadership Center of the Department of Management in the Pamplin College of Business.

Callahan will deliver his talk, titled "The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead," at 7 p.m. at Virginia Tech's Burruss Auditorium.

Three days later, on April 10, Michael Munger, a political science professor at Duke University, will discuss "The Justice of Exchange" as the featured speaker in the BB&T Distinguished Lecture Series on Capitalism.

The talk, hosted by Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business, will be held at the Inn at Virginia Tech in Latham Ballroom C from 3:30 to 4:40 p.m.

Both talks are free and open to the public.

Student investors recognized

Eight members of Radford University's Student Managed Investment Portfolio Organization recently won second place in a growth fund competition at a Reinventing Investment Strategy Education symposium at the University of Dayton.

The students, who competed against groups from more than 200 universities, were recognized for their 2007 portfolio strategy. In 2007, SMIPO, a roughly 20-member student group that manages more than $500,000 of the Radford University Foundation endowment, generated a return of 12.67 percent, compared with the 3.5 percent return of the benchmark S&P 500 index.

Names and Changes

ROBERT WEEKS, of Citizens in Floyd, has become a strategic partner with Return to Roots, a program managed by Virginia Economic Bridge whose mission is to help bring home Southwest Virginia's native sons and daughters.

Virginia Business has named MAGNETIC TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION of Wytheville as a Western Virginia finalist in its 2007 Small Business Success Story of the Year. Magnetic Technologies, which will soon change its name to MTC Transformers Inc. designs, manufactures and services dry electrical transformers for industrial use.

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