Diana Barnette. “It will also open doors for us to provide a
bright future for our employees and our community.”
Huntington Bank Donates $2 Million to
West Virginia University’s Business Startup Facility
Javier Reyes, dean of WVU’s business school; Chad Prather, Huntington
Bank’s regional president for West Virginia; and John Chambers.
Huntington Bank has committed $2 million to help fund the
new Startup Engine business accelerator at the West Virginia
University (WVU) John Chambers College of Business and
Economics. A charitable grant of $500,000 through the
WVU Foundation will be used for the operation of the busines
accelerator, and the provision of $1.5 million will be used for a
venture capital fund managed through Mountain State Capital
on behalf of the accelerator program.
The Startup Engine houses WVU’s first startup accelerator
program and is designed to attract, select and accelerate startup
businesses focused on the sectors and industries identified in the
West Virginia Forward report, helping those startups hone
their ideas, access seed capital, develop mentor relationships
and partner with existing businesses. The ultimate objective of
the program is to support the diversification of West Virginia’s
economy and move the state into the innovation economy.
“This is an exciting project—not just for the business school,
WVU and the City of Morgantown but also for the entire state
of West Virginia,” says Javier Reyes, Milan Puskar Dean of
WVU’s business school. “Huntington Bank understands what
the mission of the Startup Engine is and wants to take a lead-
ership role in continuing this wave of change.”
Bethany Welcomes
McMaster as New CFO
Bethany College has wel-
comed Denny McMaster,
former vice president and
senior leader at Washington
and Jefferson College, as the
new chief financial officer and
vice president of finance.
Denny McMaster.
“I am excited to welcome
Denny to Bethany’s senior
team during this historic time of forward-thinking and strategic
planning on our campus,” says Rev. Dr. Tamara Nichols
Rodenberg, Bethany’s president. “Denny’s more than two
decades of experience in executive fiscal management and
leadership across higher education and several industry sectors
will help propel our vision and prepare the way for an even
more innovative future at Bethany College.”
SLS Expands Drone Fleet with
Global Drone Surveying Acquisition
SLS Land & Energy Development, a surveying and engi-
neering firm with offices in Charleston and Glenville, WV,
has acquired Buckhannon-based Global Drone Surveying &
Inspections.
“SLS and Global both possessed elite drone fleets capable
of optical gas imaging, mapping, security and surveillance,”
says SLS President Sarah Smith. “SLS has strong, regional
relationships in the energy industry, and Global’s specialty was
pipeline inspections. Joining forces made sense.”
The company’s collection of drones includes a sleek, light-
weight, durable OGI system equipped with a top-of-the-line
camera and sensors that deliver high-definition images and
collect spectral data. The SLS mapping drones, meanwhile,
deliver data directly to cloud-based storage. Those numbers
create measurements, share annotations and compare maps
with drawings and schedules. The 3-D technology is deeper
than laser-scanned images, offering a precise location for
reconstructed space.
Sikora Joins Fairmont State University
as the First-Ever General Counsel
Fairmont State University has
welcomed Jacqueline Sikora as its
first-ever general counsel, where
she will aid the institution in any
matters requiring legal guidance.
Sikora is a graduate of West
Virginia University (WVU), where
she earned an undergraduate
degree from the P.I. Reed School
of Journalism and then gradu-
ated from the WVU College of
Jacqueline Sikora.
Law in 2003. Since then, Sikora
has served as a law clerk for two
circuit court judges and worked for both small and large law
firms before transitioning into higher education.
Leidos to Locate at WestRidge
and Create 110 New High-Tech Jobs
Rendering of the Leidos campus at WestRidge.
WestRidge has begun construction on the 33,000-square-
foot Agile Center of Excellence in Morgantown for technology
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