29-05-2025
Economic development consultant presents plan for brighter Marion County
FAIRMONT — After a year of developing a strategy for economic development, Marion County's economic development consultant said the county was ready for its development marathon.
But to reach the finish line will require teamwork.
The county hired Murray, Ky.-based Chuck Sexton, CEO of Strategic Location Advisors, last July to develop an economic development strategy for the county. He delivered that plan at Wednesday's meeting of the Marion Regional Development Corp. The county approved the first part of Sexton's plan at its meeting earlier in the day Wednesday, when it moved to earmark $150,000 over the next three years to create a new 501©3 that will be called the Marion County Economic Partnership. But while the next task in front of the county is to hire an executive director for the new organization, that may not be its biggest challenge.
'I think the biggest obstacle is getting everybody on the same page, singing from the same song book,' Sexton said. 'To say, this is the direction we're gonna go.'
Sexton's strategy calls for the new 501©3 to not just attract business development to Marion County, but to actively pursue it on a global stage. Once the county hires an executive director for the entity, it will be the director's job to attend industry shows and aggressively court business and build relationships to put Marion County in the eye of industry whenever a business is looking for a new place to open up shop.
Sexton said he will work in concert with Marion County's existing economic development agency, the Marion Regional Development Corp., which is important, because while the Marion County Economic Partnership can aggressively pursue business development leads, it can't sell property to the companies it brings in to do business in Marion County.
Bruce McDaniel, executive director of the Marion Regional Development Corp., said that's where his organization comes in. Once a business is speared and reeled in, MRDC can have whatever property the business needs prepared and ready to sell to the business. MRDC's main focus is developing real estate into business ready pads, complete with utilities, companies can move into and start developing right away.
Sexton said for successful economic development both the industrial development arm, like the MRDC, and the traditional economic develop arm, in this case the new 501©3, are needed.
Fairmont City Manager Travis Blosser asked Sexton if the City would be paying twice for economic development, once for MRDC and again for the Economic Partnership. Sexton clarified that no, the idea is to pay into one entity and then have funding pass through to the other entity. But, there's still a ways to go before the new partnership can go on safari for businesses to bring back to Fairmont.
'Economic development is not a sprint, it's a marathon,' Sexton said. 'It's getting everyone on the same page and willing to be patient and get the right professional here.'
Part of that marathon will be building up an annual operating budget for the new 501©3. Sexton said the target budget for the economic partnership organization should be between $500,000 to $600,000. McDaniel said that amount was way too much for either the City or County to provide on its own, but that the long term goal was to foster support among the county's other stakeholders, such as banks, credit corporations, businesses or even other counties, with an eye toward eventually having the half a million dollar budget be split between multiple entities.
Sexton warned that without cooperation from every party involved in developing Marion County's economic development apparatus, the strategy would be doomed to fail. He said corporate leaders can tell when a county, town and other leaders aren't on the same page, dissuading business from setting up shop where they're prospecting.
McDaniel was impressed with Sexton's presentation.
'It's a very comprehensive strategy,' he said. 'Something we've never done here in Fairmont, Marion County or West Virginia. So it looks like the pieces are there. Now it's going to be up to everybody in this community to work together to make it happen.'
During his presentation, Sexton said he rarely sees representatives from West Virginia at industry conferences he goes to. With any luck, that'll soon change.
During the county commission meeting, Commission President Ernie VanGilder said with the county losing jobs due to industries closing or moving away, having an economic development plan in place is more important than ever. Novelis, a major employer in Fairmont, announced in March plan to close by mid summer. However, VanGilder said he sees opportunities in the growing aerospace sector anchored out by the North Central West Virginia Airport.
'I think it's unreasonable to believe that manufacturing will be our biggest thing to go after it,' VanGilder said. 'Heavy manufacturing is really tough to bring into an area like that. What we have around this area is support groups, like our relationship with the airport, Pratt & Whitney, Mitsubishi and Boeing. Those facilities, they need manufactured parts, they need the ability to transport parts. If we can create those partnerships with those companies, that should create jobs.'
Another aspect VanGilder brought up and Sexton emphasized was the importance of workforce development, namely improving the career technical education system in West Virginia beyond its current level. VanGilder said he wants to open partnerships with educational institutes like Pierpont Community and Technical College to help bring the region's workforce to where it needs to be.
County Commissioner Linda Longstreth, who expressed concerns earlier this year about the lack of information on Sexton's progress in coming up with the strategy, said during the commission meeting Wednesday that she appreciated him coming in and briefing MRDC on the particulars of the plan.
The next step now is to hire an executive to helm the new entity. Part of Sexton's deliverables included putting together a search entity whose task is to find the right person to lead the new entity. Sexton has done so, and with that his services to the county are at an end. All the pieces the county needs to move forward are in place.
'I want to encourage the people who live here to understand that their leadership has taken the steps to try to make a bigger and better difference for this community going forward,' Sexton said. 'If they can all work together collaboratively to do that, 10 years from now this community is going to change a lot in a good way.'
