CHARLESTON — Where per capita income and gross domestic product still lag near the bottom nationally, West Virginia is running an economic development agency without its top three governmental leaders.
Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher was forced to resign this month, Development Office executive director Kris Hopkins left of his own accord and Josh Jarrell, the deputy secretary for commerce, was pushed out prior to Thrasher’s departure.
Each was deeply involved with West Virginia’s potential $83 billion investment with China Energy, as well as with potential investment in sectors such as the automotive and timber industries.
A former state development leader called the departures “quite a loss for the state.”
That team advocated for investing in speculative site developments and marketing West Virginia.
Clayton Burch, formerly second in command at the state Department of Education, was named interim Commerce secretary last week. Gov. Jim Justice said he aims to name a long-term secretary soon.
Hopkins’s vacancy has been posted, noting that the position oversees a budget of more than $400 million of state and federal funding for an agency that “leads the drive to recruit new businesses domestically and abroad, and to retain and expand industries in the state.”
Justice contends the names at the Commerce department matter less than his own relationships. He claimed West Virginia’s potential $73 billion deal with China Energy “happened through a friendship with myself and Donald Trump. … It came into being because of the relationship between the two of us and the president trying to help his friend and trying to help what he loves, and he loves West Virginia.”
In recent weeks, the China deal became muddled by tension over Trump’s tariffs.
Whether a team is in place to weather a storm like that is unclear.
Veterans in West Virginia economic development say the consistent efforts of the Commerce department do matter.
“What kills every deal and kills every relationship is uncertainty. And right now that’s what we have to battle against,” said David Satterfield, who was executive director of the West Virginia Development Office from 2001 through early 2005.
“We have to put our best foot forward. Losing those three guys will cause uncertainty, which will really put many of our large projects and much of the forward progress on hold. People looking to make investments in West Virginia are looking for absolute certainty.”
That’s because people looking to make sizable investments are banking their future on those decisions, said Satterfield, who now serves as director of asset development for the Office of Research and Economic Development at West Virginia University.
“In my mind, the most immediate challenge is not forging the new opportunities but maintaining the existing ones,” he said.
“If you and I have had conversations for five years, you’ve come to trust my expertise, my ability to say perhaps what the state climate is like, the state context, the current environment, what the state may be able to do for you.
Having a governor in the middle of his term helps stabilize the atmosphere, but Satterfield said investors need to sense “that what we said was going to happen happens.”
”The governor and his team are in place, but losing those top three officials is quite a loss for the state,” he said.
John Snider, executive director of the West Virginia Development Office from 1997 to 2001, said lower-ranking holdovers in Commerce can calm the waters.
“As long as you have the core group of that industrial development group on the working day-to -day level, it should be in fairly good shape,” said Snider, currently leading the Bullitt County Economic Development Authority in Kentucky.
“A lot of times you think the management of the organization is so super important. They’re the spokesman a lot of times for what’s going on with the agency, not the one that does the work.”
Disruption is sometimes a fact of life in state development agencies, said Ron Starner, a frequent contributor to Site Selection magazine.
“These types of situations — the sudden departure of one or more key economic development leaders at the state level — are not uncommon,” Starner said.
“In fact, it happens with regularity in most states at least once every four years, if not more often. Of far greater importance is the policy in place at the top and the responsiveness of the entire state economic development team. We’ve seen Texas and Ohio weather sudden changes at the top in recent years and it barely slowed them down.”
Game-changing projects like the China Energy investment are top priority, said Anne Blankenship, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association.
“So many good things have happened already,” Blankenship said, “and we just want that momentum to continue.”
