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Young
Guns
“I chose to stay in West Virginia because there’s
a real generational opportunity with the shale
gas resource here. If I can be one small part of
creating jobs for West Virginians, I’m all in.”
Maribeth Anderson
In the five years since Maribeth Ander-
son, director of government relations for
Antero Resources, appeared on the cover
of West Virginia Executive magazine’s
Fall 2013 issue as a member of the Young
Guns Class of 2014, much has changed
for this go-getter. Leaving her role as
senior director of government relations
at Chesapeake Energy, she accepted the
position of director of community and
government relations at Southwestern
Energy before joining Antero. Through
these changes, her commitment to both
her community and West Virginia’s energy
industry have remained the same.
As a woman succeeding in a histori-
cally male-dominated industry, Anderson
admits this path wasn’t her first choice. “I
enjoyed a 14-year career in TV news before
getting involved in the energy industry,”
she says. “When a big shale operator came
to town and wanted to tell their story, I got
on board with them. I left the TV station
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WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
that day thinking about how much I liked
those natural gas people but that no other
career could ever be as exciting and fun for
me as TV news. I was wrong.”
Since joining the energy industry in
2008, Anderson has watched it evolve
and expand in the Mountain State. “It’s a
much more collaborative industry today
than it was when I got involved 11 years
ago,” she says. “The natural gas industry
was used to being quiet and keeping to
itself, but the nature of drilling shale
wells means we must communicate with
landowners and others affected by gas
development. West Virginia is now on
the global energy stage with the largest
natural gas processing facility in North
America being located here.”
In 2016, Anderson was elected president
of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas
Association (WVONGA), making her
the first woman to hold that position in
the history of an organization that has
been around for more than 100 years.
She made the most of her time in this
leadership role by helping bring positive
change for both its members and the
industry as a whole.
“In the two years I served as president,
we got some important things done, par-
ticularly at the Legislature, as we needed
to get some old regulations updated,”
she says.
When Anderson was chosen as a Young
Gun, her level of community service made
her stand out among the nominees. De-
spite the demands of her job today, she
continues to be active with organizations
and associations whose missions are
important to her. Currently, she is a board
member for WVONGA, West Virginia
Manufacturers Association, Ohio Oil &
Gas Association and United Methodist
Foundation of West Virginia, Inc. She is
also on the executive committee for the West
Virginia Chamber of Commerce, and she
plans to be active with the West Virginia
chapter of Women’s Energy Network.
Anderson could take her time and
talent anywhere in the world, but this
West Virginia native believes she is ex-
actly where she is meant to be. “I really
do think it’s a case of right place, right
time, right people,” she says. “I graduated
from Marshall University and chose to
stay in West Virginia because there’s a
real generational opportunity with the
shale gas resource here. A vast supply
of inexpensive natural gas entices man-
ufacturers to locate here because they
use it as feedstock. If I can be one small
part of creating jobs for West Virginians,
I’m all in.”
Anderson is excited about the future of
energy in West Virginia and the oppor-
tunities it will create for her neighbors
and coworkers. “We will always keep
evolving and improving,” she says.
“What’s been important to me—and
important to our industry—is the way we
use water and take care of the land, the
way we hire more and more local people
and the way we take our place as a leader
in the future of West Virginia’s economy.
There’s no place I’d rather be.”
MAGGIE MATSKO
RICK LEE