West Virginia Regional Technology Park celebrates 15 years of growth and innovation

SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. –The West Virginia Regional Technology Park, a premier hub for innovation and research, is celebrating 15 years of service to local and national businesses.

Tech Park officials, tenants, community leaders, partners and elected officials gathered Wednesday evening at the Hendrickson Conference Center on the technology park’s campus on Union Carbide Drive in South Charleston to celebrate the park’s 15th anniversary.

The technology park originally opened in 1949 as the Union Carbide Corp. Technology Center. In 2001, it was acquired by Dow Chemical. Dow donated the park to the state of West Virginia in 2011, marking the beginning of its service as the West Virginia Regional Technology Park.

The park offers ready-to-use laboratories, pilot plants, offices, warehouses and industrial facilities.

West Virginia Regional Technology Park CEO and Executive Director Matt Ballard said the park is operating at 85% capacity, with 32 companies employing more than 1,000 people from 21 West Virginia counties.

“It’s a wide variety of private companies, companies like AVN, companies like ALS Innovation, DOW is still here on our campus, then we have governmental partners and workforce partners like BridgeValley Community and Technical College is here, the Higher Education Policy Commission, and even a federal asset with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service,” Ballard said on MetroNews Midday ahead of the event Wednesday.

Since the park’s opening, more than 30,000 patented discoveries have been made there, generating an estimated $18 billion in economic impact. Ballard said one example of a patented innovation developed at the park is memory foam.

He encouraged local and national companies to consider locating at the technology park.

“Other companies in West Virginia that want to come, companies out-of-state and around the world, it’s pretty unique facilities that we have here, and it’s been very much a fabric of this region, but we’re welcoming companies from around their world to come to the technology park,” Ballard said.

One of the technology park’s partners is West Virginia International Yeager Airport in Charleston.

Airport CEO and Director Dominique Ranieri said the airport works to provide services for visitors traveling to West Virginia to do business at the technology park.

“Because it is such a symbiotic relationship between the tech park and the airport,” Ranieri said. “You know the tech park is attracting international scientists, tenants, investors in our state and we always want to put our best foot forward because we know more people, more tenants using the tech park, means more travelers and passengers for the airport.”

She said the airport uses the activity at the technology park when working with its airline partners to pursue additional services and routes.

Ranieri said it also gives the airport an opportunity to showcase what West Virginia has to offer to visitors traveling to the state for business at the technology park.

“Even if you’re just visiting for a business meeting and you’re doing a quick in and out, and you’re seeing all of the things that our state has to offer it’s planting a seed in your mind like this is a great place to bring my kids, my family and come back and enjoy, and then they come back and enjoy all of those amazing tourism offerings that we have and they’re like maybe we could live here,” she said.

Madhur Bedre, CEO and founder of Atlas Prediction Control LLC, is one of the tenants at the technology park. Bedre launched the company in February 2019 while working for Dow. The company specializes in advanced process control, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence solutions for the chemical and plastics industries.

His company has been a tenant at the technology park since 2023.

Bedre said the technology park provides a strong sense of community for businesses located there.

“It’s close to a community where there are other people in the ecosystem who are very supportive, the facilities are good, the facilities are affordable, especially from a start-up perspective, it was a great help,” he said.

Bedre said being surrounded by other innovators is invigorating.

He said tenants have a peer network that allows them to share their successes and discuss the challenges they face each day.

“And I think at times it’s a source or a force of power for all of us, and other times it’s a companion, or someone that I can bounce my ideas or share my pinpoints,” Bedre said.