Coming Home to the Mountain State

Founded in 1979 in Wheeling, The Health Plan is leaving its corporate headquarters in Ohio to return home to the Mountain State, bringing jobs and economic growth to West Virginia.

Jim Pennington, president and CEO of The Health Plan, at the announcement of THP’s plans to move their corporate headquarters back to West Virginia.

By Patrick Gallagher & Maggie Matsko

In 1979, The Health Plan (THP), a small yet determined not-for-profit community health organization, became a West Virginia corporation by putting down roots in Wheeling. Six years later, the company unceremoniously uprooted its corporate headquarters and moved across the state border to St. Clairsville, Ohio. Even though the organization has maintained its corporate headquarters in the Buckeye State, THP has remained a West Virginia corporation for the past 36 years. Today, significant changes are on the horizon for the growing organization of more than 400 employees, including a return to its roots in Wheeling.

In December, THP announced plans that will have a direct impact on the Mountain State: in 2017, the community health organization will be moving its corporate headquarters and more than 300 employees back to West Virginia. The company will begin construction this spring on a new, four-story, 53,000-square-foot, $16 million building in the center of downtown Wheeling.

“The Health Plan is coming home to West Virginia,” THP President and CEO Jim Pennington stated at a news conference in December attended by a standing-room-only crowd, including West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, state Senate President Bill Cole, Wheeling Mayor Andy McKenzie and dozens of other community and economic development leaders. “We feel a very strong need to be in West Virginia. We want to be part of the revitalization of downtown Wheeling, and being downtown is very important for the future of The Health Plan.”

Due to the diligent efforts of the state of West Virginia, the city of Wheeling and the Regional Economic Development Partnership (RED), THP’s relocation project will bring jobs and economic growth to both West Virginia and Wheeling. When THP completes construction of its new building at the corner of Main and Market streets, it will be the first privately built office building to open in downtown Wheeling since the Century Equities building on Main Street in the mid-1980s.

“This is a huge win for downtown Wheeling and our revitalization efforts to restore the core of the business district,” says Don Rigby, executive director of RED. “When you count the 18-month construction period and the impact of adding more than 300 new workers to downtown, it will be a multi-million-dollar total economic impact on the area. We are counting on this development to be the impetus for future economic growth in the city. It is a fact that in the very near future there are going to be more people working in downtown Wheeling than ever in the city’s history.”

While relocating its corporate headquarters from Ohio back to West Virginia has been an extraordinary accomplishment, this is not the only expansion project the health care company has seen this past year. With its growing presence in West Virginia, THP made the move into larger office spaces in 2015 at both its Charleston and Morgantown locations. The Charleston office expanded from 10 employees in 2014 to more than 50 employees today.

THP has also shown its commitment to West Virginia by securing new Mountain State customers, including University of Charleston; Murray Energy Corporation; Shoney’s Restaurants; Kanawha Stone Company; Cramer Security & Investigations, Inc.; Goodson’s Supermarkets, Inc.; Staley Communication, Inc.; Morgantown Printing & Binding; The Homer Laughlin China Company; Ziegenfelder Corporation; Wheeling Hospital and GoMart, Inc. All of these clients have been instrumental in THP working with some of the major health systems across the state, including WVU Medicine, Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

As a financially stable, not-for-profit managed care organization, THP is expected to see phenomenal growth in revenue, increasing from $450 million in 2015 to projected revenue of $600 million in 2016. With an expanded sales reach across the nation, THP’s coverage extends across 43 states in the U.S. Today, the organization has more than 325,000 members who are enrolled through their employers, state Medicaid, Medicare Advantage Plans and managed workers’ compensation programs, as well as access to more than 650,000 providers nationwide. THP has expanded its footprint by offering coverage to organizations nationwide, such as Zappos; Hydro Resources in Texas; A&A Ready Mixed Concrete, Inc. in California and Cumberland County Schools in North Carolina.

“We were lucky we had a solid foundation that allowed us to identify existing talent within the organization and accelerate their growth,” Pennington says of the last 18 months at THP. “With that in place, we then reached outside the company and added existing resources in the marketplace to our team. Then we changed our whole offensive scheme. To do that, we transformed our culture into one that became very quick and always ready to go. We pushed the envelope to get us where we are today.”