Hometown Hinton: Creating a New Economy

By Jeff James

Hinton, WV is perched beautifully at the intersection of the New, Greenbrier and Bluestone rivers. It is also sitting at the intersection of the past, present and future of West Virginia.

One of the leaders of Hinton’s exciting transition from old economy to new economy is entrepreneur Ken Allman. In many ways, Ken’s story of persistence, overcoming obstacles and hometown loyalty may lay the groundwork for West Virginia’s future prosperity.

Coincidentally, I journeyed to meet Ken in Hinton on the day community members celebrated his recent recognition as the West Virginia Small Business Administration Business Person of the Year for his work as founder of PracticeLink and MountainPlex. It would seem taking time for an interview on his day of honor would be the last thing in which he would want to participate. Yet, as I soon learned, Ken seems to have time for everybody.

Hometown Hinton 

It is difficult to move a few yards down the main streets of Hinton without someone stopping Ken to chat, offering an idea or asking a question. He seems to be a human magnet who draws people into his circle of optimism. During our afternoon together, a harmonica-playing printmaker, a retired technology professional from San Jose, CA and former Mayor Cleo Matthews spent warm moments chatting with him to share ideas and learn what exciting new things may be on the road map for the future.

Hinton’s restored, circa 1929 Ritz Theatre Cinema & Performing Arts shows movies and serves as a meeting space for businesses.

Ken’s roots in Hinton run deep in the historic railroad industry that first put Hinton on the map. His father was a conductor for the Chesapeake & Ohio, and his uncles were employed in the industry as well. His father also had a unique interest in computers and electronics during Ken’s childhood in the 1970s and 1980s, which proved a valuable influence later in Ken’s life.

Like many young people facing graduation in West Virginia in the 1980s, Ken felt the pinch of limited economic options in West Virginia. “Hinton was a great place to grow up during my childhood,” he says. “We had a thriving downtown and a great high school, but that all began to dry up around the time of my high school graduation.”

Indeed, the new Interstate 64 bypassed Hinton, siphoning away valuable customer traffic. The G.C. Murphy store and Kroger store that anchored the downtown shopping district built new buildings in a new shopping center on the other side of town on the Hinton High School football and baseball fields. Ultimately, the high school and hospital were both moved out of downtown, and dozens of once-prosperous small shops and restaurants soon closed. The downtown area of Hinton was effectively gutted.

Becoming a physician seemed like a promising path toward a prosperous livelihood, and after high school, Ken completed a pre-med course of study at Alderson Broaddus University. It was while he was attending graduate school in Ohio that he found out how much his mind likes to wander. “I realized I had too many interests to focus on the educational requirements for a career as a physician.”

He ultimately ventured to St. Louis to enter the field of business management consulting, helping other companies with their operations, and it wasn’t long before the idea of starting his own business seemed more compelling. In 1994, in a nod to his prior interest in health care, PracticeLink was founded as PhysicianPracticeNetwork, a subscription-based information service for physician recruiters and physicians.

Tom Acosta paints a mural in downtown Hinton.

At first, it was a struggle, but then the miracle of the Internet arrived. “That changed everything,” says Ken. Tapping into his technical experiences with his father during his youth, he set up some servers in his apartment, and the first known online career job bank for physicians was born.

Although the Internet gave his new business national access to a lucrative market of professionals, the costs and challenges of a startup business weighed on him. “I was self-financed, and I realized that a startup with a lack of capital could either pay $450 a month for office space in Hinton or $4,000 a month in St. Louis. The decision to move the bulk of my early operations for PracticeLink.com was a compelling economic decision as much as it was a sentimental one. In my mind, West Virginia was a better place to take a risk.”

PracticeLink established its call center in Hinton in 1999, which primarily interviewed and supported physicians seeking their next career move. The initial employees were all from West Virginia, and they helped grow the business quickly to establish itself as a leader in the industry.

After overcoming several typical startup difficulties, including bankruptcy early on, the firm now has more than 40 employees in West Virginia, Louisville and St. Louis, the majority of which are in Hinton. Today, more than 5,000 of the nation’s health care facilities use PracticeLink for physician recruiting, and its self-titled PracticeLink Magazine won the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors top award, Publication of the Year.

A Community Ready for Innovative Growth

As the company grew, it wasn’t long before Hinton’s low-cost, small town environment, which was such an advantage in PracticeLink’s early days, began to offer its own challenges. Like many small towns, some of the amenities required to attract and retain quality employees were lacking.

“We literally didn’t have adequate lodging for business guests or vendors to stay when they came to visit us,” says Ken. “Because downtown Hinton had hollowed out, dining options within walking distance of the growing headquarters were limited, as were entertainment options other than those found in the great outdoors surrounding Hinton.”

Although Ken began to position the overall amenities from Beckley to Bluefield to Lewisburg to prospective and current employees, it was clear that someone would need to make some investments in the quality of life in Hinton in order for him to keep growing the business there.

With the same patience and persistence Ken has demonstrated with PracticeLink, he launched MountainPlex in 2007. MountainPlex is dedicated to the restoration and sustainability of the Hinton Historic District and has had a distinct impact on the community.

The Market on Courthouse Square is located in the Hinton Historic District.

“While Hinton offered great affordability and available space, we really lacked some of the infrastructure and quality of life offerings that we needed to grow,” says Ken. “We decided to take that on with MountainPlex, first as a way to pave the way for PracticeLink’s growth but now as a sustainable business in its own right. Most importantly, we made a conscientious effort to do it in a way that would benefit the community and appeal to guests and travelers who pass through the area.”

MountainPlex has launched a dizzying array of symbiotic projects in downtown Hinton, including:

• The Market on Courthouse Square, a gourmet deli, general store and gift shop, which, as a nostalgically appropriate point of fact, was the site of Ken’s parents’ first date when it was Jack’s Diner.

• The Guest House Inn on Courthouse Square, a Trip Advisor 5-Star non-hosted bed and breakfast and conference center that includes a 120-foot mural by renowned artist and McDowell County native Tom Acosta.

• The restoration of Hinton’s 310-seat, circa 1929 Ritz Theatre Cinema & Performing Arts, which shows first-run movies every weekend and serves as a large-scale meeting space for PracticeLink and other businesses.

• RadioAM1380.com, Historic Hinton’s Hometown Radio, and Hinton’s regional FM station, 102.3 WMTD, “The Ticket,” which is an ESPN affiliate that serves the Hinton, Beckley and Princeton markets.

• The renovation of Hinton’s three-story Rivertown Building into a boutique hotel, art gallery, live performance venue and coffee shop, which will begin soon.

• Construction of the Hinton Plaza, an outdoor public gathering and event space located at the epicenter of the redevelopment efforts, which is currently underway.

• The restoration of the exterior and first floor of the five-story Hotel McCreery, a 1907 building that is listed by the West Virginia Preservation Alliance as one of the most endangered historic properties in the state, which is nearing completion.

The Hotel McCreery property will feature a new Hinton Historical Museum, complete with a miniature model of Hinton and the train station that originally put Hinton on the map. The model was meticulously relocated from an 83-year-old collector’s home in Florida. In another testimony to Ken’s patience and focus, it took four days and four separate trips to Florida for him and his team to carefully disassemble and relocate the exquisite model.

Looking to the Future

During West Virginia’s legacy as a rural, industrial economy, the types of amenities required to fulfill the needs of workers were a bit simpler: a general store, a local bank and some welcoming churches. Today’s modern community, which seeks to attract and retain knowledgeable workers in a global, innovation-driven economy, must compete on additional levels of infrastructure. High-speed Internet access; quality, locally grown foods and places for their children to grow and learn are just a few of the checkmarks today’s workers evaluate when considering where to live, work and perhaps start a business like PracticeLink.

As other West Virginia communities consider their own intersection with the innovation economy and its new requirements for quality of life, Ken’s advice to other potential entrepreneurs and community leaders who are considering a similar ambitious turnaround is simple.

“Invest first in people, long before you invest in buildings and businesses. Some of us with roots in West Virginia have faced many challenges, and we have to overcome a history of false starts and stalled projects. There can also be a lack of resources and know-how to overcome these obstacles. If anything, I hope what we’re doing here shows that it’s possible and well worth it to be persistent, focused and work together. What’s happening in Hinton can happen in other historic towns across West Virginia.”

The beautiful rivers of the New, Greenbrier and Bluestone continue to flow through Hinton, as they have for generations. These days, however, opportunities in the form of knowledgeable workers and tourists are along for the ride.