WV Chamber of Commerce gears up for annual Business Summit

The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce is getting ready for its annual meeting and Business Summit, which will take place Aug. 29-31 at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs.

This year marks the 76th year for the annual meeting which typically attracts several hundred of the state’s top business, government and community leaders. 

Chamber officials have said early registration for this year’s event is going strong.

The event’s keynote speaker will be Dana Perino, a Fox news contributor and former White House Press Secretary for President George W. Bush. She will speak to business leaders at 10 a.m. Aug. 31. 

She will follow Rex Repass, pollster and president of R.L. Repass Partners, who will unveil the latest findings of a West Virginia Poll at 9:30 a.m. This year marks the second year Repass will present findings about West Virginians’ attitudes and opinions based on polls conducted in the state. 

Other topics to be discussed at this year’s event include the challenges and opportunities facing manufacturers in West Virginia, a look at efforts to attract and retain young professionals in the state and a symposium on ways to improve the state’s education system.

The manufacturing segment will take place at 1 p.m. Aug. 29 and feature Tom DeWitt, president of Swanson Industries; Joe Eddy, president of Eagle Manufacturing; and Timothy Duke, president and CEO of Steel of West Virginia. The discussion will be moderated by Jeff Fritz, the manager of DuPont.

That segment will be immediately followed by the discussion about retaining young professionals, which will begin at 2 p.m. Aug. 29 and feature members of Generation West Virginia, a statewide coalition of groups representing West Virginians in their 20s, 30s and 40s who are committed to living, working and raising families in the Mountain State. Generation West Virginia is made up of 12 regional groups located in Beckley, Charleston, Greenbrier County, Huntington, Mercer County, Morgantown, Pendleton County, Putnam County, the Mid-Ohio Valley, the Upper Ohio Valley, the north-central region and the Eastern Panhandle.

The educational symposium will begin at 8 a.m. Aug. 30. It will include statistical analysis by Tom Witt, professor emeritus at West Virginia University’s

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