Jean Snedegar, Author at West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Verna Gibson – She Broke the Glass Ceiling

Verna LeMasters Gibson, a native of Elkview in Kanawha County, broke the ultimate corporate “glass ceiling” in 1985 when she became the first woman CEO to…

Verna LeMasters Gibson, a native of Elkview in Kanawha County, broke the ultimate corporate “glass ceiling” in 1985 when she became the first woman CEO to earn the top spot at a Fortune 500 company, The Limited Stores. She ran The Limited for six years and during that time it became the nation’s first billion dollar specialty retailing chain.

Today, at 68, Gibson is a director of Chico’s FAS, a fashion retailing company, where twice in the last five years she has been brought in to turn failing divisions around (and she succeeded). She is also the Chairman of the Board of Governors at Marshall University, her alma mater.

Verna and her husband Jim now live part-time in Huntington, where they both serve the university and students in various ways.

Mark Williams – “Mr. Fuel Cell”

Randolph County native Mark Williams is a visionary engineer and scientist who was the first person to see the commercial potential of fuel cells to run…

Randolph County native Mark Williams is a visionary engineer and scientist who was the first person to see the commercial potential of fuel cells to run everything from heart pacemakers to power plants.

Every fuel cell in commercial production today can – in some way or other – be traced back to Mark Williams. Working with the Department of Energy and private companies, the 58-year-old conceptualized and patented some of the most efficient energy conversion systems ever conceived, and he has worked tirelessly to introduce fuel cell research and development programs across the United State and the world. He is also an adjunct professor at three universities, including West Virginia University.

At the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown – the world center for solid oxide fuel cell research – Dr. Williams is affectionately known as “Mr. Fuel Cell”.

Mark Williams grew up in the tiny Tygart Valley community of Mill Creek, the fifth of six sons.

Judy Sheppard – Businesswoman and Entrepreneur

Judy Sheppard is currently West Virginia’s most honored businesswoman and entrepreneur. In 2011 she was named the state’s Small Business Person of the Year as well as Distinguished West Virginian of the Year. Sheppard is founder, president and CEO of Professional Services of America, Inc, a multi-million dollar business based in Parkersburg. With more than 200 employees, PSA, as it’s known, provides services for some of America’s largest corporations – DuPont, GE, Pepsico, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Mylan Pharmaceuticals and others – as well as 32 government agencies.

This Roane and Ritchie County native has come a long way for her success. Native American on her mother’s side, Judy grew up with what she calls “nothing” – no electricity, no running water, no telephone, no television, no toys. Every day she walked three miles each way to catch the school bus. Sheppard is grateful for what she has overcome – we travel with her back to the home place where she lived, way up a hollow. “I tell people I don’t want to forget – I want to help other people overcome those obstacles.”

Lew Cantley – Harvard Biochemist and Cell Biologist

Back in 1985 Dr. Lewis Cantley, a native of Big Chimney in Kanawha County, discovered an enzyme called PI3-Kinase. At the time his scientific colleagues…

Back in 1985 Dr. Lewis Cantley, a native of Big Chimney in Kanawha County, discovered an enzyme called PI3-Kinase. At the time his scientific colleagues thought he couldn’t be right. How could a chemist discover something so fundamental to biology?

But Cantley was proved right and PI3-Kinase turned out to be revolutionary in cell biology. It explains cell growth – for example, how a child grows into an adult. It plays a major role in how the body regulates glucose, central to our understanding of diabetes. But PI3-Kinase also explains the growth of a variety of cancers, so is central to the development of new drug treatments targeting cancer.

“The Cantley Lab” at Harvard Medical School continues to work at the cutting edge of research into PI3K and its role in diabetes, obesity and cancer. Cantley’s work on sugar’s link to some cancers was recently featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes. And many of Cantley’s colleagues say he is a likely future winner of the Nobel Prize.

At the end of 2012 Lewis Cantley became the new Director of the Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York Presbyterian Hospital. In 2013 Cantley was one of the inaugural winners of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Science with an award of $3 million, it’s the world’s largest prize in the sciences.

Kim Weaver – Astrophysicist and Pioneer in X-ray Astronomy

When Kim Weaver looked up at the stars from her father’s campground in Monongalia County, she was inspired to find out what was out there. By her early…

When Kim Weaver looked up at the stars from her father’s campground in Monongalia County, she was inspired to find out what was out there. By her early 20s, this WVU graduate had already discovered a galaxy. She was also among the first scientists in the world to study Black Holes, using an X-ray telescope built at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Her discoveries helped to launch whole new fields of astronomy.

Dr. Weaver is the author of The Violent Universe: Joyrides Through the X-Ray Cosmos, which explains more about the universe to a general audience. And for many years she’s been the public face of NASA at Goddard, appearing in many films and television programs.

We travel with Weaver back to her father’s campground, where she spent her childhood summers working – sweeping floors, riding her bike, and most of all, looking at the night sky.

Homer Hickam – “Rocket Boy”

McDowell County native Homer Hickam, Jr. is best known for his book Rocket Boys, the story of how six teenagers in a 1950s West Virginia coal company town went on to win the National Science Fair in 1960. One night in October 1957, Hickam’s life changed forever when the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 – the world’s first artificial earth satellite – flew over his hometown of Coalwood.

“I knew at that moment that somehow, some way, I wanted to be involved in this movement into space.”

And indeed he was. We join Homer Hickam at the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama and hear how he designed the Underwater Astronaut Trainer there and his work on the Space Lab at the Marshall Space Flight Center next door.

Then, following a very successful career as an aerospace engineer, Hickam launched an even more successful career as a writer. To date, Hickam has sold more than 2.5 million books. The story of the Rocket Boys was made into a successful Hollywood film, October Sky, and the stage musical Rocket Boys, the Musical.