The Roads to Prosperity initiative promises to address some of the state’s antiquated and neglected infrastructure issues, making roadways safer for locals and more attractive to businesses considering a move to the Mountain State. The West Virginia Legislature’s renewal of the Young Entrepreneur Reinvestment Act will continue to play a major role in enabling young people to start new businesses in the Mountain State.
While we recognize these important elements of economic growth for the state’s economy and making West Virginia more attractive to out-of-state businesses and local entrepreneurs alike, it’s also important that we celebrate the ongoing success of the state’s many existing businesses. The backbone of our economy, these companies have climbed their way to the top of their industries, fueled by innovative thinking, success-driven dedication, a commitment to quality and a deep-rooted loyalty to West Virginia. They have used true Mountaineer grit to take their businesses beyond state lines and make a name for themselves around the world.
In an effort to celebrate the state’s everyday success stories, West Virginia Executive magazine is proud to present the 2018 installment of Winner’s Circle. Nominations were received from around the state, and the editorial board chose companies with unique products and histories that have headquarters in the Mountain State and distribute their products or services nationally or internationally. This year’s class of winners does not disappoint.
American Muscle Docks & Fabrication LLC
By Kevin Duvall
The success of American Muscle Docks & Fabrication LLC began with an unexpected opportunity to expand. In 2012, Follansbee Dock System in Wellsburg, WV, decided to sell its business. Valley Manufacturing, a fabrication company that has been in Wellsburg since 1963, purchased the business and founded American Muscle Docks. Within five years, the new company had doubled its sales, proving that seizing this opportunity was well worth the effort.
American Muscle Docks is a manufacturer and supplier of docks, dock hardware, gangways, floats and custom metal fabrication for marinas. The company, which is widely known for having some of the strongest products available, designs, manufactures, builds and installs docks for residential and commercial clients.
American Muscle Docks’ distribution includes all 50 states and most U.S. territories and also serves clients in Australia, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, Singapore, the Turks and Caicos Islands and West Africa.
With the success in doubling its sales in the first five years, American Muscle Docks has poised itself to hit this milestone a second time. “With our experience and new capabilities, we believe we have the ability to double our sales again within three years,” says Lucas Diserio, the CEO of American Muscle Docks. “We believe we can obtain this increase in sales because of the investments put back into our business in order to produce more quickly and because our marketing efforts are gaining us more business.”
Although American Muscle Docks’ future plans include opening an additional out-of-state warehouse to help with distribution, the company has no desire to open an office outside of West Virginia.
“Having our headquarters in West Virginia is great,” says Diserio. “Being in West Virginia allows us to compete anywhere in the U.S, as well as overseas. Our lower expenses and overhead allow us to compete even when logistics may be more expensive for us.”
Charleston Steel
By Katlin Swisher
Charleston Steel, a full-service steel company founded in Dunbar, WV, is a leading global commercial and industrial structural steel fabrication company. As a value-added steel service center, it has been manufacturing steel for the construction industry since 1989, and its products include structural steel, joists, decks, stairs, handrails, simple bridges and bridge components material handling equipment and heavy-duty weighing equipment.
Charleston Steel’s team of 33 employees includes engineers, accountants, salespeople, welders and equipment operators. The company’s steel is distributed in every state in the continental U.S. as well as Australia, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, the Cayman Islands, India, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Mexico, North Africa and South Africa.
“We have been very successful at cultivating customers all over the United States and beyond the borders,” says Scott Goetz, vice president and chief operating officer of Charleston Steel. “We do our best to quote as much work as possible and establish long-term relationships with our customers. Many of our customers do business out of the country, which pulls Charleston Steel along with them. The state of West Virginia has been very helpful in providing tools and resources to discover and develop new business markets in the international arena.”
Recent projects include Charleston Area Medical Center and Thomas Memorial Hospital in Charleston, WV; Camden Clark Medical Center in Parkersburg, WV; and the Arnold Logistics Center at the Boy Scouts of America’s Summit Bechtel Reserve in Glen Jean, WV. Charleston Steel gives back to the community through service projects with local schools, churches and little league teams.
Charleston Steel is the only bridge fabrication company in West Virginia certified by the American Institute of Steel Construction. The company also holds the American Welding Society’s Certified Welding Fabricator certification.
With the recent passage of the Roads to Prosperity initiative and resulting upcoming opportunities in the state’s infrastructure, the company hopes to expand its operations to include road and bridge construction around the state.
In the future, Charleston Steel also aspires to continue expanding its global distribution.
“Being centrally located on the East Coast, we are able to maneuver to many metropolitan areas on short notice,” says Goetz. “I am in the process of obtaining my private pilot’s license, which will allow us to go north, south, east and west on a moment’s notice.”
Kanawha Stone Company
By Jamie Null
Founded by Art King in 1973, Kanawha Stone Company has evolved from a small construction company into a force to be reckoned with in the regional construction market.
Operating from its headquarters in Poca, WV, Kanawha Stone Company provides a variety of services, including heavy highway, heavy civil and bridge construction; mass excavation and site development; and energy construction services in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia.
With more than 350 employees, Kanawha Stone Company is well-known for mass excavation, site development projects and heavy highway construction. The company strives to discover talent in the industry, often educating the next generation about construction and engineering. The goal is to show that even though Kanawha Stone is in a traditional industry, the jobs have turned high tech thanks to GPS-guided equipment, drones and software. Tom Kittredge, the company’s president, hopes it can continue to recruit talent from the Mountain State.
“West Virginians are hard working and family oriented, which is a perfect fit for our culture,” he says.
M-Rock Inc.
By Jamie Null
After enjoying steady growth for eight years as a producer of quality stone veneer products, West Virginia-based M-Rock, Inc. branched out in 2011 with the launch of its Mortarless Stone Innovations (MSI) product lines. Setting a new standard for manufactured stone, MSI is designed to be the most realistic stone on the market today. This change in direction has led to four U.S. patents and M-Rock’s inventory—MSI products, thin brick and manufactured stone veneer—being sold in all 50 states, Canada and Mexico.
According to M-Rock President and CEO Matt Mann, the company’s industry-changing products are available at Lowe’s and through a number of quality distribution companies, as well as through www.lowes.com and m-rockstone.com, which handles all of the international orders. M-Rock also sells directly to large-scale developers and builders all over the country.
While shipping is one of the company’s biggest challenges due to the cost and size of the products, it is easier to manage in today’s market and allows products to go anywhere in the world. According to Mann, M-Rock can get product to a destination quickly: one to two days on the East Coast and up to three days on the West Coast.
Mountaineer Brand
By Samantha Cart
Mountaineer Brand is creating a whole new definition for what it means to be a well-kempt West Virginian. Based in Martinsburg, WV, this family-owned, all-natural beard and personal care product company creates and sells an original beard care line as well as a variety of deodorants, body washes, shaving oils, balms and soaps for the entire family.
In January 2018, four of the company’s best-selling items from its WV Timber product line debuted in Walmart stores. The cedar and fir needle-scented beard oil, beard balm, heavy duty beard balm and beard wash are now available in more than 3,500 Walmart locations across the U.S. Mountaineer Brand products are also available in all 50 states; shipped internationally to the U.K., Sweden, Australia and Canada; and sold online through Amazon, Costco, Neiman Marcus and Target.
Founded by CEO Eric Young in 2013, the company quickly outgrew his home and now operates out of a 12,000-square-foot facility with 40 full-time staff members and additional seasonal employees. Meredith Young, Eric’s sister, joined him as vice president and chief operating officer in 2014, and together the team, known locally as Mr. and Sister Mountaineer, are taking on the challenges and celebrating the successes of rapid growth together.
According to Meredith, the company’s background is a real tribute to the idea that necessity is the mother of invention. After losing his mother and his wife to cancer, Eric was committed to pursuing a natural, healthy lifestyle for himself and his family.
“Eric was looking for a beard product he could not only feel good about putting on his face but one that would also fit in his already too-tight budget,” she says. “He created several of our first products as a crew of one, working in his kitchen at his home in Shepherdstown.”
Since then, Mountaineer Brand has patented a variety of all-natural products using only high-quality ingredients. Even with international success, the brother-sister duo cannot think of anywhere else they’d rather have their company located than the Mountain State.
“We are located in West Virginia because it is and always has been home,” says Meredith. “We come from a family of proud West Virginians, and West Virginia is very much a part of who we are. You can tell by the names of some of our products: WV Timber, WV Coal and WV Barefoot.”
Mustang Sampling, LLC
By Samantha Cart
Mustang Sampling, LLC is a Ravenswood-based company that provides custom products and services for the natural gas, natural gas liquids (NGL) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) industries. Over the past 30 years, Valtronics, the parent company for Mustang Sampling, has grown into three separate divisions. The Mustang Sampling division is dedicated to the development of products and systems for use in sample conditioning—the process that prepares natural gas for introduction into analysis equipment—and is the leading provider of Analytically Accurate systems within the natural gas, NGL and LNG markets.
Valtronics ships products to every state in the U.S., throughout the Western Hemisphere and to a variety of oil and gas-producing countries and large LNG importers. Also, in addition to its Mountain State headquarters, Valtronics has offices in Houston, TX, and Dallas, NC.
“West Virginia has been a great location to recruit and retain a loyal employee base for decades,” says President and CEO Ken Thompson. “We have benefited from employees familiar with the energy industry and have developed close ties to the power, waste water and mining markets. West Virginia also provides a solid commercial base within the Marcellus Shale region.”
SJ Morse Company
By Alicia Elkin
As a full-service manufacturer of custom architectural wood veneer panels, Capon Bridge-based SJ Morse Company distributes to all 50 states and is certified at the premium grade by the Architectural Woodwork Institute’s Quality Certification Program.
The company works on projects that range from residential and commercial to governmental and institutional, building architectural, blueprint-matched and sequenced wood veneer panels and doors while helping its customers find the right materials, plan panel construction and more.
The company has provided wood veneer panels to some of the largest projects in the Mid-Atlantic, including the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center, National Museum of the American Indian, Nationals Park and Nashville’s Music City Center.
In 2015, the company began to restructure as an employee stock ownership plan and finished the reorganization in 2018. Exceeding growth expectations as a result, the SJ Morse Company is now looking to expand its operations at home in Capon Bridge. As one of the largest private sector employers in Hampshire County, the company plans to add to its 23 employees and relocate to a new 30,000-square-foot facility at the Capon Bridge Tech Park.
“We are currently working on plans to triple the size of our manufacturing space and capacity,” says Jesse Von Fange, vice president of business development and marketing at SJ Morse Company. “This will increase our standard veneer panel business and provide the space we need to produce our new line of acoustic wood veneer panels.”
Having built many relationships over the past three decades with large millwork companies by exceeding expectations, the company’s success has led to a lasting demand that continues to push the limits of its capacity. SJ Morse Company also attributes a lot of its success to its location in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle.
“The SJ Morse Company has benefited from its location in West Virginia by having access to an incredible and committed set of employees who take pride in their work,” says Von Fange.
West Virginia Fruit and Berry, LLC
By Maggie Matsko
Founded and operated by Bob and Becky Titchenal, West Virginia Fruit and Berry, LLC offers preserves, jams, fruit wines and fruit butters that celebrate the pride and tradition of West Virginia-grown food products.
The couple began their business venture in 1995 by selling black raspberry jelly on a folding table on a street in Weston, WV. Today, West Virginia Fruit and Berry markets more than 40 products in more than 200 supermarkets, gift shops, state parks and resorts in several states, including West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC, and will soon be reaching Ohio and South Carolina. Customers can also order at www.wvfruitandberry.com from the comfort of their own home. The Mountain State-based company ships to every state in the U.S. and several countries, including Denmark, Canada and Germany.
What makes West Virginia Fruit and Berry’s products stand out above the rest is that there are no corn syrups, preservatives, additives or artificial colors or sweeteners added.
“West Virginia Fruit and Berry has done more than refine an old tradition—we’ve started a new one,” says Becky. “We fuse fruits and berries indigenous to the state with our simple, original recipes to bring you products like your grandma used to make.”
Even though the company has seen much success across the region, West Virginia Fruit and Berry’s home base remains located in the hills of Harrison County, and Bob and Becky couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
“Our headquarters is at our farm here in Bridgeport, where we have been open to the public for 15 years,” says Becky. “Our property also houses our offices, wholesale warehouse and mail-order facility. We have always been proud to call it home.”
Wheeling Truck Center, Inc.
By Maggie Matsko
Wheeling Truck Center, Inc. was founded in 1933 by C.H. Remp as a White Motor Company truck dealer. Forty-eight years later, Volvo Truck purchased the White Motor Company, and Wheeling Truck Center became a proud truck dealer for Volvo. The company has remained in the family for the past four generations.
This small, family-owned business is committed to serving the heavy-duty trucking industry while offering new and used trucks, truck parts and top-notch service. It has stood out above its competition by receiving awards for being one of the top Volvo Truck dealers in North America.
Wheeling Truck Center was already operating throughout the tri-state area for many years when the company gained the opportunity to broaden its reach. While working with the U.S. Commercial Service and the West Virginia Development Office’s International Development Division, the Wheeling-based company was able to find new customers in foreign markets. With a push in online marketing efforts, as well as traveling around the world to visit both customers and prospects, Wheeling Truck Center has been able to hit the milestone of selling truck parts in 109 countries.
Management soon discovered that distributing Wheeling Truck Center’s products around the globe comes with a different set of challenges. “Selling our products internationally requires additional paperwork, and we are also faced with many regulations that do not apply to domestic sales,” says Chad Remp, the company’s operations manager. “These regulations are critical to follow properly to ensure compliance.”
The company was able to find a way to overcome these challenges, and its success was marked with sales transactions in more than 50 countries in the first year.
Wheeling Truck Center has also been able to extend its reach in the U.S. through its e-commerce website, class8truckparts.com, which was launched in 2009. This website has helped the company expand its sales into all 50 states.
Wheeling Truck Center currently has 18 employees, but it is looking to enlarge its size and international reach. “Looking toward the future, we are working on growing our sales in all departments,” says Remp. “We will also continue to focus on our e-commerce truck parts sales and our international expansion.”
This small West Virginia business with a global success rate credits its achievements to having its headquarters in the Mountain State. “We have benefited greatly from our location in West Virginia,” says Remp. “We have a stable, highly skilled workforce and access to resources
to help our small company transform for success in the future.”
