Doc’s Tea, LLC
BY MAGGIE MATSKO.
Located in Inwood,
WV, Doc’s Tea, LLC
brews organic, ready-
to-drink tea that has
been growing rapidly in
popularity since its start in 2012.
The founder of the company, Dr.
Ken Banks, wanted to make
sure he could focus his time and
attention on both his full-time job and
his passion, so he situated his dental prac-
tice and tea-brewing facility side by side.
“Our family is born and raised in West
Virginia, so it only made sense to start
this venture in our home state,” says Sarah
Langford, Doc’s Tea’s operations manager.
What makes this tea stand out from its
competitors is that it is made exclusively
from organic rooibos, which is caffeine
MX Sports, Inc.
free, and sweetened with monk fruit,
which is sweeter than sugar. The entire
line is micro-brewed at the Inwood facil-
ity, and each batch is handcrafted and
flavored independently. The entire line
of teas has less than 1 gram of sugar per
bottle and contains 10 calories or less.
Doc’s Tea products are sold in retail
locations varying from Whole Foods
Market to local West Virginia farmer’s
markets. The company distributes to
New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Maryland, Ohio and Virginia and exports
products to China, Canada and the Turks
and Caicos Islands. In honor of its ex-
porting success, Doc’s Tea was awarded
the Governor’s Commendation for In-
ternational Market Entry Award by the
state of West Virginia in 2018.
Lakota Software Solutions, Inc.
BY JEAN HARDIMAN. Some of
the most cutting-edge work in
biometrics is being done right
here in West Virginia at Lakota
Software Solutions, Inc.
Established in 2007 in
Bridgeport, Lakota offers bio-
metric software products and IT
services to government agencies
and businesses serving all 50
states and Argentina, Dominican
Republic, Greece, Mexico, Netherlands,
Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. Lakota got
its first contract through a grant from the
National Institution of Justice and has
since become a key service provider for
nearly all the nation’s large-scale biometric
identification systems, working with
the FBI, Department of Defense and
Department of Homeland Security. It has
reinvested in research and development,
creating some of the most advanced bio-
metric software development kits and
biometric applications on the market.
Lakota’s Ani—a cross-platform software
library that enables an application to read,
write, edit and verify formatted biometric
files, allowing biometric systems to com-
municate with one another—is among
the company’s most popular products.
The FBI uses Ani to read approximately
112
WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
175,000 biometric submissions per day,
and Northrop Grumman uses it in its
mobile biometric handheld collection
device, BioSled, to combine information
on fingerprints, face images, iris images
and transactions into a single file.
Lakota’s Whorl product is the most
advanced biometric transaction editor on
the market while the company’s new bio-
metric kiosk, RapID, will allow anyone
to pay a fee to search fingerprints against
the FBI’s criminal repository and receive
a certified letter directly from the FBI
regarding the findings. RapID can be used
to verify that someone who is working
with children does not have a criminal
record or identify why an individual was
denied a firearm purchase. According
to Aaron Wilson, president and CEO at
Lakota, West Virginia is the perfect place
to be doing this work.
“West Virginia is the Silicon Valley of
biometrics,” he says. “Two of the nation’s
largest biometric systems are located in
North Central West Virginia. Having
Lakota’s headquarters here has been a
huge benefit by allowing us the oppor-
tunity to work directly on these large
biometric systems and providing critical
insight into the technology gaps.”
Photo by MX Sports Archives.
BY BLAIR DOWLER. Founded in 1982, MX
Sports, Inc. is an industry leader in off-
road and action sports race promotion. A
second-generation, family-owned business
headquartered in Morgantown, WV,
over the years it has orchestrated some
of the most prestigious motocross events
across the country, including the High
Point Pro National Championship in
Mt. Morris, PA, and the Grand National
Cross Country (GNCC) series and its
Snowshoe GNCC on Snowshoe Mountain.
“By traveling to these other
states, we have the opportu-
nity to introduce new fans
and racers to our sport,”
says MX Sports CEO
Carrie Russell. “If we
do a good enough
job, they will fall
in love too and
follow the series
to other states and
ultimately back to
West Virginia.”
MX Sports also owns Racer TV, LLC,
an online broadcast production company,
and publishes Racer X Illustrated, the
most prominent racing publication.
While most MX Sports events are
located outside of the state, West Virginia
will always be home base. “In the early
years of our business, there was a big
push to move west, as that is where the
majority of the motorcycle industry is
based, but we weren’t interested,” says
Russell. “West Virginia is friendly to
motorcyclists, and we look forward to
bringing more events back home.”