Ahead of July Opening, Secretary Of State Officially Announces Office Of Entrepreneurship 

State leaders are shining a light on small businesses this week, with plans to offer more help soon.  

Secretary of State Kris Warner was at the Bridging Innovation Week and Entrepreneurship Conference in Morgantown Tuesday to officially announce the West Virginia Office of Entrepreneurship. The conference — organized by the West Virginia Entrepreneurship Ecosystem — bills itself as a week-long catalyst for economic growth and creative collaboration across the state. 

The Office of Entrepreneurship was created this year by the passage of Senate Bill 878 and aims to support existing businesses and guide startups through the earliest stages of launching a business. Several other states have established similar offices, but Warner said West Virginia is unique.  

“It’s the first in the nation that reports directly to a statewide elected office holder, which is the most direct form of government of the people being able to oversee the government that they take a part in every day,” he said. 

The new office will help all of the state’s small businesses, which Warner said currently employ 85% of the state’s workforce. 

“So often the state is accused of helping those very large corporations — 600 to 800 jobs. This is going to help, whether it’s a mom-and-pop operation or a brand-new tech company getting started to be able to provide them what they need,” Warner said. “That’s a matter of coordinating public and private resources, streamlining governmental processes, working with the entrepreneurs to find out what in government is preventing them from either expanding or having success and then being able to report that back to the West Virginia legislature so they can make the changes that need to be made, so that entrepreneurs and their businesses can flourish.” 

Warner said his office is actively looking for a coordinator to run the new office before its launch July 1.