Sam Dean | Roanoke Times

Tech students touring downtown Roanoke.

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• What does it take to keep grads in the region?

ROANOKE -- Valley View Mall, the airport and the Greyhound bus terminal: they may not be the jewels of Roanoke tourism, but for many Virginia Tech students, these three destinations are the only reasons they know to drive roughly 40 miles northeast.

The city of Roanoke is trying to change that.

City Special Projects Coordinator Stuart Mease is teaming with various groups and classes at Virginia Tech to showcase the Star City and some of its employers.

"All that we're trying to do is instead of the company going to Virginia Tech and recruiting, we're trying to get the student down here to see it and feel it," said Mease, who lives in Blacksburg.

"This is important because maybe 25 years ago, people went where the job was, now they're beginning to see where the location is."

On Friday, Mease led two groups of students on a tour that was part job expo and part field trip.

Just before 8 a.m., about a dozen graduate engineering and architecture students boarded a Smart Way bus, dressed in business casual attire and toting resumes.

Some said they were wondering about local job or internship prospects. Others were just interested in getting to know the city.

"I wouldn't come out here for any other reason, so it's nice to get the exposure," said Curtis Wilkerson, who is earning a master's degree in aerospace engineering.

"There appears to be more opportunities in Roanoke than most people are aware of. I lived in Virginia my whole life and I hadn't heard too much about Roanoke."

Before Friday's tour, Wilkerson said he'd been to the city only a couple of times, and only to go to the movies.

"Oh, there is a little something over here," Wilkerson exclaimed as he stepped off a Market Square Walkway escalator and got his first glimpse of downtown.

Tingting Yan, who is working on a master's in geosciences at Tech, said she's been to Roanoke just once or twice. The draw for her? The bus terminal.

Yan said she figured the tour would help fill the gaps in her city awareness.

What she didn't expect was to hear about jobs in her field.

But after hearing presentations from five companies with current openings, Yan said she was pleasantly surprised.

After all, the native of Southeast China likes Southwest Virginia and said if the right job prospect surfaces, she wouldn't mind sticking around for a few years.

That's good news for participating companies such as Luna Innovations and Hayes, Seay, Mattern & Mattern, who said they considered the tour a recruitment effort -- not just for their companies, but for the city as well.

"I think it's very important to make sure people are aware of the fact that there are very good high-tech positions in Southwest Virginia," said Lori Engebritson, vice president of human resources for Luna Innovations.

"It's important to the growth of our company to be able to keep the student population, and it's important to the growth of the area to keep young professionals in this area."

Engebritson said of Luna's 150 to 160 employees, 17 came to work straight out of a Virginia college or university.

"We employ a lot of Virginia Tech grads and our Charlottesville office has a number of University of Virginia grads," she noted. "We recruit from all over the U.S., but it's much easier for us to recruit people who know the area."

Cindy Wilson, a human resources professional with Hayes, Seay, Mattern & Mattern, said area familiarity -- even if it's newfound familiarity -- can really help with company promotion.

"I think that probably the majority of these students would never even see downtown Roanoke or some of the projects that some of these companies have designed or built, if it weren't for this tour," Wilson said.

"Everything they do is probably in Blacksburg, so I think it's a huge opportunity for these companies."

And there were opportunities Friday even for those students who make regular trips into Roanoke.

Gaurav Chaudhari, who is working on a Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering, said he makes the 45-minute drive every other week to eat at city restaurants.

But even with regular visits to Roanoke, Chaudhari said he didn't know about available jobs there.

"I'm not graduating anytime soon, but I'm thinking about settling down somewhere in Virginia," he explained.

"Right now, I'm thinking in Richmond because I'm aware of job opportunities there. I wasn't aware of any job opportunities here."

By mid-morning, however, Chaudhari had gotten some information about a position in manufacturing and engineering and said he may get in touch with recruiter Coy Renick closer to his graduation.

Such connections are the point of the tours, said Mease and Drew Lichtenberger, who helped organize the tour.

"It's strategic partnerships," said Lichtenberger. "Roanoke falls within Tech's reach. We have a lot of highly educated, very smart people, and we'd love for them to stay in the area and in Virginia."