Russ Rogerson, the new president and CEO of the Morgantown Area Partnership, is a big picture kind of guy.
“You have to look at things from a big picture standpoint,” said Rogerson, 60, who assumed his new post in mid-April. “You’re not just selling a widget.”
Indeed. Rogerson, a Wheeling native and graduate of Bethany College, was head of the Iredell County (Charlotte area) Economic Development Corp. in North Carolina when he learned about the Morgantown position. He said he was interested because the job incorporated three different entities under one umbrella organization: The Morgantown Area Chamber of Commerce, Sunnyside Up and IT’S MORGANTOWN.
“Morgantown always had a neat vibe to it with the university here,” he said during a recent interview in his office. “Wheeling has some good things going on and Morgantown has some good things going on. I first reached out out of curiosity. They shared a good bit of information about what they were trying to accomplish.
“Once I read the material, I knew I wanted more.”
Because the Morgantown area is a bright spot in West Virginia and has good economic bones along with the fact local business leaders wanted someone who believes in taking an all-inclusive approach to economic development and marketing, Rogerson signed on.
So far, it’s been the right fit for both sides.
“Russ stood out from the rest due to his strategic, financial and development knowledge that allowed him to successfully lead four economic development organizations from the ground up, including a merger of organizations similar to MAP,” said Mark Nesselroad, chief operating officer and chief legal officer of Glenmark Holding Limited Liability Corp. Nesselroad was a member of the search committee that helped hire Rogerson.
“In executing customized economic development strategies, Rogerson has worked on securing well over $1 billion in private investment and thousands of announced jobs. He understands the public/private interplay and the details necessary to get projects accomplished. He is also well-versed in workforce development, marketing, recruitment, retention and new business attraction.”
Rogerson got his start in economic development in Findlay, Ohio, as executive vice president of Greater Findlay Inc. It was there he helped develop a 42,000-square-foot building for Microsoft. After two years, however, Microsoft left Findlay and moved its workers to its corporate headquarters in Redmond, Wash. That left Rogerson with a problem, he needed to find a replacement tenant for the building.
Microsoft held onto the building for a year before deciding to sell, he said. There was talk about splitting the building up into separate offices, but Rogerson convinced local leaders to hold off for a couple of weeks before pulling the trigger.
“I went to a growing local company,” he said. “I told them the building was all about them and they had to be in there.”
From Findlay, Rogerson, his wife Kyle, and their son, Joshua, moved to North Carolina where he held various economic development positions in Mooresville, Statesville, Fayetteville and the Greater Charlotte area. Last year alone, Rogerson helped bring $300 million in development and 1,500 jobs to Iredell County.
He said he had no plans to leave until the opportunity to return to West Virginia and be closer to his parents in Wheeling opened up.
“I came from a very good place, where I had a lot of good friends and contacts,” said Rogerson, when asked why he left North Carolina. “I wasn’t running from anything. I was running toward something.”
The Morgantown area and north-central West Virginia as a whole is in a great position to grow, he said.
“Our location is ridiculously central in a good way,” he said. “Something going on in Fairmont is good for Morgantown. Something going on in Morgantown is good for Fairmont and Clarksburg and other areas.
“We need to look at ourselves as a community from a county perspective and beyond.”
Economic development, he said, is 50% science and 50% art, something Rogerson said he enjoys. In building a local economy, it’s important to be diverse.
“When one area of the economy is not doing well, other areas are. They balance each other out.”
The key to bringing in new business and keeping the existing companies will be workforce development.
“Workforce is the number one reason a company will select a site,” he said. “Companies used to ask what the unemployment rate was. … You would also hear there are more job openings than people looking for a job. But, they are not qualified for the job. That is what workforce development is all about. Also, how do we cast a net around WVU and keep those graduates in the community.”
Rogerson said he recently sold his home in North Carolina and is looking for a home in Morgantown with his wife, a real estate agent in North Carolina. Their son, Joshua, 29, lives in Japan, where he teaches English in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program.
Kyle Rogerson — who met Rogerson at Bethany College — said her husband will be a great fit for the Morgantown area.
“He is a West Virginia native, born, raised and educated here, with continued ties and the knowledge and the willingness to make a difference,” she said. “I too am looking forward to new opportunities and challenges. That is a quality that Russ and I have never shied away from, we are always open to new beginnings.”
Kyle said she would like to continue her career as a real estate agent in Morgantown.
“I am a newbie to the field, with less than a year of experience but I have found it to be interesting so far and I have met some really wonderful people in the process,” she said.
The Rogersons both like to travel in their free time and were in Japan last summer to visit their son, who is in his last year of the JET program.
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