WHITE SULPHER SPRINGS, W.Va — The 88th annual Chamber’s West Virginia Business Summit is getting ready to kick off from the historic Greenbrier Hotel.
The meeting, hosted by West Virginia University, serves as the largest gathering of business, political, educational, and financial leaders from across the state, with this year’s lineup featuring more than 60 of those leaders as guest speakers. The three-day event is put on in an effort to see economic growth in the state through the exchanging of ideas and networking.
The business summit begins Wednesday, August 28, and will run through Friday, August 30. The meeting will get started Wednesday with speeches from U.S. Representative Carol Miller, Governor Jim Justice, U.S. Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, and Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, among others.
West Virginia Chamber of Commerce Vice President Brian Dayton says, with the variety of personalities attending, this is the premier event for the state.
“It’s truly everybody in every sector that’s coming together to really have these discussions,” Dayton said. “There’s no other time or place in West Virginia that you can do that, so that’s why this has really become the premier event.”
Dayton says the event will bring the best minds together with the focus of moving West Virginia forward.
“It brings together all the decision-makers in West Virginia for three days, and really allows a lot of ideas to come to fruition about how to move the state forward,” Dayton said.
Some more of those decision makers that will speak in throughout the week include U.S. Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito, as well as WVU President Gordon Gee and Marshall President Brad Smith.
This year’s meeting has a particular theme, and that is centered around united the business community for the betterment of the state.
“The theme this year that we’re really going for is, uniting the business community and the united business community ignites prosperity,” Dayton said. “That’s our theme this year is just how to go ahead and continue to grow West Virginia into new bounds and take us on to the next step.”
Historically successful business that helped grow the state will also be in attendance, as Dayton says people will walk away with knowledge on how to grow within this state.
“This year we’re going to be featuring some of the businesses that really have built West Virginia, those longstanding companies that have been here, some of which over 100 years,” Dayton said. “It’s an opportunity to let them talk about what they’ve been successful (with) and how they’ve continued to grow. Those discussions, we put a lot of time and energy into those just to make sure that they’re meaningful and give people something to walk away with.”
A host of companies will be on hand for the meeting for the first time, where they’ll have a chance to network and build relationships with some of the most experienced men and women in the state in each respective field.
Dayton says bringing in companies that are new to West Virginia is always exciting and often makes for yearly participants.
“We’ve been excited in the past several years to welcome new companies to West Virginia, we’ll be doing the same this week as week as well,” Dayton said. “Those are always really exciting because one year you’re welcoming them at the business summit, and then in successive years, they’re back and they’re participating, and they’re engaged, and they’ve created jobs. It just really creates a great energy.”
The meeting is set to have a record attendance and record number of sponsors.