In the world of publishing, we are
driven by deadlines. As soon as we send
one issue to the printer, we are immedi-
ately in full production on the next one.
The three months since we published our
summer issue have been some of the bus-
iest. In addition to adjusting to being a
full-time working mom and getting into
the swing of raising my daughter, Quinn,
who is now eight months old, the staff
and I have had full travel schedules thanks
to all of the great conferences that have
been hosted in West Virginia.
In September, we attended AlignHR’s
inaugural West Virginia Small Business
Conference and West Virginia Market-
place at the Morgantown Marriott at
Waterfront Place in Morgantown; hosted
our Celebrate New River Gorge Area party
at Adventures on the Gorge in Lansing;
attended another company retreat, this
time at the Resort at Glade Springs in
Daniels; and returned to Morgantown
for the 2018 Governor’s Conference on
Tourism.
On top of all these exciting conferences,
Melanie Boyd, our graphic designer, and
I spent three days on location in Hun-
tington with our photographer, Tracy
Toler, for the Young Guns Class of 2019
photo shoot. A lot of planning goes into
the execution of photographing 10 dif-
ferent people in approximately 30 loca-
tions over three days, and I am beyond
grateful to the people in Huntington who
helped us pull it off.
As you can see, September was chock-
full of events, and October showed no
signs of slowing down. I managed to
sneak away to Ocean Isle Beach in North
Melanie Boyd, Kensie Hami
lton
Fauber and Natalie Roper take
a spin on the Camden Park
carousel in Huntington.
Carolina for a week of downtime with my
family, and when I returned, we were right
back on the conference circuit. Our staff
attended the West Virginia Energy Expo
at the Hazel and J.W. Ruby Community
Center in Morgantown, and this year
was our first year attending the annual
Governor’s Energy Summit, hosted by
the West Virginia Department of Energy
at Stonewall Resort. The energy confer-
ences were of particular interest to us as
we look toward our annual energy and
manufacturing issue that will launch in
May 2019. We also had the opportunity
to be a sponsor for the brand-new Small
Communities, BIG Solutions Conference,
which was organized by the Alliance for
the Economic Development of Southern
West Virginia and held at BridgeValley
Community & Technical College’s Ad-
vanced Technology Center. We were
especially excited about this event
because of its mission to encourage
new partnerships and explore economic
development opportunities for the south-
ern part of the state.
The Executive Ink staff at
the Celebrate New River
Gorge Area reception.
Quinn’s first family trip to Ocean Isle Beach.
4
WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
While being on the road for days at a
time for several weeks adds an additional
level of complication to our already tight
deadlines and the challenges we face as
a small staff, we are committed to being
present for these events and being in-
volved in the important conversations
that happen at them because it helps us
deliver a better product to you, our read-
ers. Our goal is to continue to be an asset
and a source of pride for our great state.
If you know of an event coming up
in West Virginia that you feel would be
an important source of information for
both our staff and our readers, be sure to
let us know. Send me an email at kmh@
wvexecutive.com, and we will help get
the word out.
Kensie Hamilton Fauber
Editor in Chief