http://www.probityappraisal.com/

Probity Appraisal Group, 375 White Oak Road, Fredericksburg, VA (2026)

10/21/2026

🌱🏙️ Greenbuild 2026: People, Planet, and Profit!

I cannot believe this is my first time attending Greenbuild! This has been one of the most substantive, intellectually engaging, and inspiring conferences I have ever had the privilege of attending.

I have met absolutely brilliant professionals in architecture, engineering, design, and construction who are doing the hard work of integrating sustainability into every aspect of our built environment.

Across our four companies, our work focuses on the financial side of sustainability: economic feasibility, project budgets, EBITDA, asset and intangible valuation, tax considerations, and the financial metrics necessary to make sustainable practices commercially viable.

The extraordinary professionals I have met are advancing the broader Triple Bottom Line: People, Planet, and Profit, demonstrating how environmental responsibility, human well-being, and economic performance must work together.

💚 One of the most meaningful parts of this experience has been sharing it with my oldest and youngest daughters!

Caroline is dedicating her career to working across our four companies, helping connect financial expertise, valuation, and sustainability.

Annabelle, who is applying to college, has spent years researching and demonstrating sustainability practices as a member of The Green Mission Inc. Youth Coalition. Watching her engage with the ideas and professionals shaping this industry makes me incredibly proud.

Sustainability is not just about the buildings and communities we improve today but preparing the next generation to lead tomorrow, which is why we will continue to expand our Youth Coalition.

I am learning so much from this extraordinary community and look forward to collaborating with many of these leaders to advance economically viable, measurable sustainability solutions.

What an incredible conference and an even more exciting future! 🌎♻️

10/18/2026

🏙️ From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Future of Regional Economic Development! 🌱

What an incredible few days in Lynchburg, Virginia, participating in the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce InterCity Visit!

Lynchburg is a region that understands the value of its assets, from historic architecture and natural resources to advanced manufacturing, entrepreneurship, higher education, and emerging energy technologies.

Our visit provided an opportunity to see firsthand how regional collaboration, strategic investment, and innovative leadership are shaping economic development.

🏛️ History, Preservation & Revitalization

We began with a historical walking tour led by Ted Delaney of the Lynchburg Museum, followed by a wonderful evening at Amazement Square. Thank you to Megan Lucas, Marjette G. Upshur, Mort Sajadian, Susan Spears, John Hewa, and Tyrone Logan for sharing their perspectives on Lynchburg's history, community, and future.

We also enjoyed a unique culinary experience featuring Christine Vrooman of Ankida Ridge Vineyards and Kaitlyn Kirkland of Copper & Lace Catering.

🚀 Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Manufacturing

Megan Lucas and the Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance provided an excellent overview of the region's economic development priorities.

We explored the entrepreneurial ecosystem with Elise Spontarelli of Vector Space and Stephanie Keener of the Lynchburg SBDC, followed by an opportunity to meet Jason Golden Rony of Experimental Sweets.

Our visit to Aerofin offered a fascinating look at specialized manufacturing, engineering, and workforce development. Thank you to Jeff Spaeth and the Aerofin team for demonstrating the importance of skilled trades and advanced manufacturing to regional economic growth.

⚡ Energy, Infrastructure & Economic Opportunity

One of the most interesting discussions centered on Lynchburg's growing energy and nuclear technology sector.

Thank you to Megan Lucas, Larry Jackson of Hurt & Proffitt, and Jeff Whitt of the Virginia Nuclear Hub for sharing insights into energy infrastructure, data centers, innovation, and regional industry partnerships.

These conversations were particularly relevant to my work through GM-ESG Solutions, where we examine the intersection of environmental responsibility, financial performance, energy, and long-term business strategy.

🏗️ Placemaking, Tourism & Community Investment

Our visit to The Water Dog and the Riverfront Amphitheater highlighted how thoughtful investment in community spaces can transform downtown districts.

Thank you to Dave Henderson of The Water Dog and William Cook of Jameson Lewis Construction for sharing their experiences and vision for Lynchburg's riverfront.

We also explored the region's historic tourism assets at Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest, with insights from Alyson Ramsey, and concluded with workforce and education discussions at Liberty Mountain Snowflex.

The conversations with Dr. Scott Hicks, Christine Kennedy, Ashley Wilson, Jason Ferguson, Alisha Meador, and Dennis Coan reinforced how important partnerships among educational institutions, employers, and community organizations are to a region's future.

🤝 Bringing Ideas Back to Fredericksburg

As someone working across accounting, appraisal, deconstruction, sustainability, and community leadership, I found this visit especially valuable.

Economic development is not simply about attracting new businesses. It is about recognizing the value of existing assets, investing in people, preserving what makes a community distinctive, and building the infrastructure necessary for future growth.

Thank you to the Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance, the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce, and all the business and community leaders who made this experience possible!

♻️ More to Come!

I will be sharing another post soon taking a deeper dive into two areas that particularly caught my attention:

🏛️ Historic renovation, architectural salvage, and deconstruction — how preserving and recovering existing building materials can create economic value, support adaptive reuse, and contribute to sustainable redevelopment through the work we do at The Green Mission Inc.

⚡ Green energy, sustainability, and ESG strategy — exploring how emerging energy infrastructure and regional innovation connect to the work we are advancing through GM-ESG Solutions.

There is much we can learn from communities that recognize their history as an asset while investing in their future! 🌱Jessica Irving Marschall Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce

10/12/2026

Celebrating the indigenous population today and every day!

10/02/2026

A week in Charlottesville: where business growth and sustainability meet

Our team spent last week in Charlottesville, meeting with tax clients and seeing firsthand why this region keeps drawing attention. It's a booming business economy, and it's also a community that takes sustainability seriously.

That combination shows up in our work. Alongside tax planning for growing businesses, we're seeing both residential and commercial deconstruction and decommissioning projects. Property owners are choosing to take buildings apart carefully rather than send them to the landfill. They're keeping valuable materials in circulation, supporting local nonprofits, and often capturing tax deductions (when applicable).

Both the City and the University of Virginia are setting the pace:

🏛️ City of Charlottesville

Community emissions are 40% below 2011 levels, against a goal of 45% by 2030
Municipal operations are down 41%
New High Performance Building Standards were adopted in 2026 for all city and school buildings
Fire Station 1 earned LEED Gold, the city's eighth LEED project
A new small business energy efficiency incentive program and expanded downtown EV charging
🎓 University of Virginia

Scope 1 and 2 emissions are down 44.5% since 2010, even after adding 3M+ square feet
Coal is being eliminated at the Main Heat Plant
A new $65M geothermal energy plant runs with zero combustion
$3.7M in utility savings in FY26 alone from building efficiency
90 LEED-certified projects, one of the largest portfolios in the country
The ReUSE Store has redistributed over one million pounds of furniture and goods, and campus trees are being milled into usable lumber
When a community grows and builds responsibly at the same time, it creates opportunity on both the financial and environmental side. That's exactly where we love to work.

Thank you to everyone who welcomed us last week. We'll be back soon! 👋

09/21/2026

We appraise a lot of donated building materials from the Northeast, partly because of its older building stock and the high-value materials often found inside: antique lumber and brick, marble, granite, limestone, and other architectural elements.

But taxes also affect the economics of deconstruction.

A Tennessee donor with a 16% marginal federal rate might receive roughly 16 cents of tax benefit from an additional $1 of allowable charitable deduction. A New York donor with a 28% federal rate and approximately 9% state rate could potentially approach 37 cents, before applicable limitations. In New Jersey, the calculation changes again because the state does not offer individuals a comparable charitable contribution deduction.

That helps explain an imperfect system: the economics of saving the exact same materials can vary significantly based on where the donor lives, income, tax situation, whether they itemize, the FMV and basis of the property, and deconstruction costs.

For now, we work within that system by providing IRS Qualified Appraisals for donated building materials when the requirements are met.

Our larger hope is a deconstruction industry with a stronger labor force, smoother supply chain, greater demand for reclaimed materials, and an economic model where reuse increasingly makes sense on its own.

Until then, we will just keep valuing.

09/21/2026

The secondary retail market has the potential for great gross margins, but the challenge is what remains after the costs of actually running the business.

Thrift retailers generally report gross margins of 30–50%, with apparel reaching 45–70%, yet net margins may ultimately be only 5–15%. Labor alone can consume 18–25% of revenue before rent, transportation, processing, utilities, insurance, storage, and equipment.

Our latest article looks at how omnichannel sales, pooled inventory, and faster turnover can change those economics. In one hypothetical example, increasing revenue from $1 million to $1.3 million while keeping core occupancy and labor costs relatively stable increases operating profit from $30,000 to $105,000. That is a 30% increase in revenue creating a 250% increase in operating profit.

Pooled inventory matters too. One reuse store may have six matching doors, another twelve, and another twenty-two. Individually, none can fill an order for forty. Together, they can.

And sometimes the economics are simple: if a family can find a great five-year-old Sub-Zero for $5,000 instead of buying a new one for $20,000, we should be making that choice easier.

That is where sustainability and economics meet, and where the secondary market has enormous room to grow.

Read our latest article, “Operating Leverage in the Secondary Retail Market” in comments

09/21/2026

Back to Philly for some exciting reuse and tax projects for The Green Mission Inc., GM-ESG and MAS LLC this week!

Tackling this work with two of our incredible team members, our Director of Communications, Amy Bria, and our COO, Caroline Marschall.

And speaking of reuse, Amy just published the latest installment of her Past Meets Purpose series, this time taking us to Louisville, Kentucky, where historic buildings, adaptive reuse, sustainability, and even bourbon intersect.

From former factories and warehouses to churches and historic commercial buildings finding new life, Louisville offers some great examples of what we talk about every day at The Green Mission Inc.: the most sustainable material is often the one we already have.

Check out Amy’s latest article, Past Meets Purpose: Beyond Bourbon in Louisville!
..and yes, Amy does indeed have a black eye. She is a marathon runner who took a fall a few weeks back but we are grateful she is on the mend!

Read the full article in comments!

Jessica Irving Marschall

09/20/2026

Fell In love with this treasure of a store.

On our way out of Madison, WI to Milwaukee we stopped off in Wales, WI.

I met with the owner who is a US vet who now operates this store with his family. They carefully curate the collection and have hundreds of square feet of extra storage space with additional inventory. All clothing is laundered and they have an excellent inventory system.

He kindly showed me the additional inventory in one of the storage areas.

And who else gets the literary King reference display?

As an IRS Qualified Appraiser and CPA I slightly freaked out at a few of my finds that are photographed.

So grateful for entrepreneurs like this who create secondary resale treasures like this!

Stay tuned next week for our latest research in the operating and profit margins for secondary retailers. Let’s keep pushing for the secondary market to become the primary for consumers!

Finders Keepers Jessica Irving Marschall

09/16/2026

This powerhouse brilliant woman, Pepper Bethel, invited me to a meeting for the NOVA Small Business Resource Center. I said, “I’m in. Can I bring my daughter?”

I walked into a room full of brilliant women whose businesses ranged from biomedical engineering and AI app creation, to doctors tackling inequality in teacher benefits, to a gourmet Turkish chef and baker, to a 69-year-old running businesses in both engineering and fine art. There was a student, a woman opening a sober living house, and a woman to my right who built, ran, and sold a manufacturing operation in an insanely expensive zip code and has a 5-year-old in her spare time.

Pepper, I do not know how you found and brought this group together, but I was HONORED to be included and wish I could have soaked up some of the brilliance from the brain cells in that room.

Pepper presented five pillars for women: Financial Confidence, Entrepreneurship & Business, Career & Leadership, Well-Being & Harmony, and Mentorship. She made a strong case that we need all five...I have only the first and am quite sure my F grade in the others will remain.

I brought my daughter so she could learn to be a better business leader than me as she finishes her MS in Accounting and prepares for the CPA exam.

I was never meant to own one business, much less four. I prefer sitting behind a screen (actually walking on a treadmill) working 12-15 hour days uninterrupted by human interaction. Give me complex tax models and tax policy on a weekend and my body actually relaxes.

While there may be zero hope for me and the Five Pillars, I hope my daughter can plow a better path forward as a woman in business.

Twenty-six years ago, I was forced to open my own practice because I dared to get pregnant at 24 while in grad school and working as an auditor. My maternity leave was four weeks unpaid. I took a midterm 12 hours after giving birth to #2. I took all sections of the CPA exam at once while my 6-month-old waited in the car with my mom because I wasn't allowed to stop and pump. Apparently, the baby might have slipped me the manual calculations for Dollar Value LIFO. I made $35k and after #2 daycare would be $18k.

Things are better for women CPAs now, but we still have a ways to go.

Here’s to women like Pepper who bring women together and insist on the success of ALL generations of women.

09/14/2026

Love our Fredericksburg business community and 100% believe it is the professional and personal relationships that make our region flourish.

One of my favorite local friends and colleagues is Susan Spears, President & CEO of the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber and Executive Director of Leadership Fredericksburg. She has spent more than two decades serving and strengthening our region. She joined the Chamber in 2004 and became President in 2010 and her work has focused on leadership development, strategic planning, governance, advocacy, coaching, and organizational management, along with extensive service on boards and community organizations throughout Virginia.

Susan and I have been working alongside each other in FXBG for over a decade. We share the belief that a strong business community is about more than economic growth, it is about creating a culture of kindness, collaboration, support, and genuine connection for the families and businesses that call this region home.

We live in a fast-paced region area (literally and figuratively with I-95 shooting right down the middle) with lots of families and businesses coming and going. We need long-term local businesses and organizations to continue rolling out the welcome mat to new businesses AND their families.

Here is to another decade working alongside Susan and building up our region and community!

Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce

Probity Appraisal Group

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