Community, Connections, & Commerce Episode 11 with Jason Wilson

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome back to Community Connections and Commerce. I'm your host,
Breake Watson, has always with Wendy Anderson the co host,
and we are joined today by our special guest, Jason Wilson,
owner of Wilson Furniture Wilson Funeral. Jason, it's a pleasure
to have you on this morning. We really appreciate you
taking the time out of your busy schedule to come
help us out and speak to us.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
And we couldn't be more thrilled to have you. Well.
Thank you, Thank you, Drake, thank you, Wendy. It's good
to be with you.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Good to be I'm glad you're here. You have a
lot to talk about.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
My mom told me that for years did she as
well as my wife has said that.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Okay, so let's just get right into it. So give
us a few of your titles.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Oh, most importantly father, Yes, brother, uncle, but I think
I know what you mean. I love that though, yes,
you know. Interestingly enough, my family is over one hundred
plus years one hundred and twenty seven years actually been
in business in the High Valley Wilson Furniture. I've worked

(01:17):
at Wilson Furniture since I graduated from Ohio State in
nineteen ninety two. So I am the owner. My wife
and I are the owners of Wilson Furniture. But after
my dad passed, I took over Wilson Funeral Homes in
partnership with my brother, my younger brother, Jarrett. So I'm
the owner of Wilson Funeral Homes. Also, I'm a proud

(01:37):
U Haul dealer. Not everybody knows that, but we have
the U Haul dealership on the outside in our parking
lot of Wilson Furniture. So I'm a U Haul dealer.
And then our family is also in commercial real estate.
So we own the Advanced autoparts stores in Bridgeport in Weirton,
West Virginia, and did that back in the late nineties
with in partnership with my dad and my other brothers,

(01:59):
and so, you know, we've been in real estate. We
do that. We you know, we do try to be
entrepreneurial and see opportunities. And one of the things people
probably remember is both my father and I served the community.
My father as State rep State Senator and US Congressman
Charlie Wilson, and of course I was State Senator Jason
Wilson for a period of time and back in seven

(02:20):
to twenty eleven, and then I went on to work
for Governor Kasik in the Governor's Office as the Director
of the Governor's Office of Appalachia until twenty nineteen. And
then most recently, we opened the Ashley Home Store at
the Highlands here in Tridelphia, West Virginia.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yes, you did, so. You literally have no grass growing
under your feet because you are so busy.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
We're never too busy, but we're active. We have a
lot of you know, God bless our employees, our family
people are very understanding. Leah. My wife and I have
three kids, one just graduate college, one in college, and
one in high school. So yes, so it's pretty active,

(03:05):
but we you know, see opportunities. We've tried to, you know,
work strongly and actively with our core business, which is
our funeral and furniture business, and we do some other
little things around the sides of it.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Okay, so let's start talking about the fire. Yes, so
you want to give us a little synopsis of what happened,
the date, time and all that.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Sure, Well, approximately November eighteenth, at about nine pm, luckily
all of our employees had left for the evening, locked
the doors, the Wheeling Christmas Parade was happening, and my
wife and I were actually having dinner with some friends
at Kent State University and up in Kent, Ohio, so
a little bit out of town, and my phone started

(03:47):
blowing up and people started calling me, including the fire
chief at Bridgeport, and said that Wilson Furniture was on fire.
And for many, many years we had had the volunteer
fire department go through the building charted it out in
the event something ever happened. And the first thing I
said to the chief when he called me, I said,
please do not go in that building. I don't want

(04:07):
anybody to get harmed in this building. It's an old building,
it was built in the eighteen seventies. There was a
lot of furniture in it, a lot of walkways, a
lot of little cubby holes, a lot of stuff you
never want to be in the dark. And it's unfortunate
that it started, probably in electrical something to do with
one of our furnaces, because we had like nine of
them in that building, because it was super inefficient, big

(04:29):
and old, and unfortunately, I think it was going on
for at least an hour or two according to what
the fire department said, So it was burning while we
were there, while people were in the building, but luckily
everybody left for the evening and it just took time
for it to burn through the ceiling. And then people
from the parade were calling me because they could see
it up in the sky. They could see the flames

(04:50):
and things coming, and unfortunately it burnt down. There's no
doubt I mean it burnt. When I say burnt, there
was nothing left, yeah, I mean we had hundreds of
piece of furniture in there. We found very few pieces
of furniture. So what we know as the Three Gainers
Restaurant or the restaurant side I was gone, completely gone.
The building that stands today, which was the original furniture store,

(05:10):
the two twenty seven North Lincoln, is still standing but
is destroyed inside, so the whole structure will eventually be removed.
So Friday night, my wife and I and our employees
and lots of volunteer fire departments and a lot of
people stood out there and watched tragedy happen. And it
was sad and we cried and we thought, oh my god,
what would my dad say? You know, but you know,

(05:35):
we like every trauma. You have to take a moment,
take a breath, listen, you know, you know, kind of
make sure you're there. We went, I think we said.
We got back to the hotel late early whatever, three
in the morning or something, and by eight o'clock the
next morning, we were back trying to sweep up, clean up,
figure out what we were going to do. You know,
I think it was important that the next day we

(05:58):
got together as a family, had dinner, and my wife
and I charted out a plan for what we were
going to do from here, and we wrote it on
the hotel wall. They had a whiteboard in the hotel
to Hampton in and we wrote on the wall what
we were going to do, and what we were going
to do is come back. We were going to not
you know, walk away. We weren't going to be destroyed

(06:19):
by this, you know. We made a commitment that we
were going to move forward. And over the next several days,
some of my two brothers that lived out of town
came in town, as well as many family members. I
had people volunteer to just come and help. What can
we do to help? We had numerous people pick up
food and drop it off. Community members called wrote, stopped

(06:40):
by honked all the things that you would want, and
it really was. The community was very supportive of us.
A guy you know out Kenny out in Bridgeport who
has a pizza shop, brought a couple of pizzas and
he even said, hey, I brought some pizzas. I know
you guys are working. What can I do to help
put on some gloves and help carry some stuff and
move some stuff, and proudly to say Black Friday, which

(07:03):
was the Friday after we were open at ten am.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
That's incredible. Yes, that's incredible.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
And we just moved down to what we call people
know it has maybe the Scott Lumber building because it
was there for a long time, but to our Wilson's
Mattress first mattress department. We took out most of the
mattresses and put sofas and love seats and sectionals and
recliners and so we have like a mini furniture store.
So we went from twenty five thousand square feet to
Wilson Furniture to about four and a half thousand square

(07:32):
feet Wilson Furniture today. So today we're a lazy boy
primarily a lazy boy dealer there with sectional sofas recliners
and then England Furniture, which is the stationary partner of
Lazyboy Furniture. So we're a Lazy Boy Comfort studio at
Wilson Furniture on the corner.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Oh okay, wow, that is an incredible story. Yes, and
you know, I'm sorry because my husband's a volunteer fire
and he was there open that night.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
And thank him.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, and you know, it was really sad to see
that because that was such a legacy in Bridgeport, especially
in Bridgeport, you know.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, well we're still there. Yeah, and people ask that
actually we're going we had some things going on for
Labor Day that we're going to talk more about it.
But we are primarily, like I say, a Lazy Boys store.
It and then what we did and did I worked
very hard at this. One year to the day, November eighteenth,
twenty twenty three, we had the grand opening of the

(08:35):
Ashley Home Store in Tridelphia, West Virginia. So one year
from tragedy, we had a new opportunity through the Ashley
Home Store in Tridelphia, and we opened on that day
and I had written the date on the wall. It's
labored on the drywall and everybody's like, well, what's that.
What's that? I said, that's the day we'll be open,
and they're like, no way, that'll never happen. You know,

(08:55):
the state guy didn't believe me. The Ashley people didn't
believe me. Were open November eighteenth.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
That's incredible.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
And how much of a challenge was that to get
that deadline, to meet that deadline that you had set.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
For yourself, Well, drake a lot, you know, you know,
probably one of those things where you know, I had
one goal in mind. I had the support of my
wife and because she, you know, she had to agree
to it or else it would have never worked. You know,
I had my kids, Frankly helping, I had everybody. I

(09:28):
hired extra people. I did whatever I had to do
to meet my goal, the deadline, and so we worked
a lot, did a lot of you know a lot
of emails, a lot of everything, a lot of dry wall,
a lot of you know, got to get it done. Yeah,
you know, so that's what I would say, we had
to get it done. Mentality and the Ashley people, the
you know, Frank and Sean, the people from Ashley Furniture

(09:50):
said that I set the record for the quickest time
to open an Ashley Home store from an empty box
which used to be bed bath and beyond to a
fully what they call seven point zero, which is their
up to date version of a Ashley Home store. Is
that that was the quickest they'd ever seen it done.
So and you know, a lot of good people to help,
a lot of a lot of you know, people who
did things, you know, local carpentry type people, electrical people,

(10:15):
you know, all the important you know. I think I
hired about ten guys to do nothing but open boxes
and put stuff together and which you know. And then
this is really interesting, but we have we have part
time employees at the funeral home, people who opened the doors,
people who were you know, in the sort of on
the side, if you will. We had a team of

(10:36):
of our funeral home volunteers or not volunteers, part me
funeral home part time people, and other people friends and
family who came in and literally did like the accessories
and put tags on things. So I had this like
army of people that we assembled for this, you know,
putting everything together, and it worked and we got it done.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
That is awesome. That's that's supporting local, supporting our own
and that's important. And I like the fact that you
have a business in Ohio and West virginiasolutely, so you
know Belma County and Ohio County, so you're keeping it
in the Ohio Valley.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Right, and just you touch on the local part of it.
I mean, we've always been a family oriented, local company
and that's that's how we exist, whether it's funerals, furniture,
U hauls or otherwise. I mean, there's nothing. I mean
we depend on the community at large to support our business.
And when we go back to how we got you know,
how we put things together. You know, again, these are

(11:33):
people that work they might work at our Martin's Ferry
funeral Home part time, but they were willing to come
up and pitch in because they saw this opportunity. But
on the on the chamber of commerce side of it,
the big you know, the business side of it, I
think the Ashley Home Store is a perfect example of
how you can bring a national brand but have local ownership. Yeah,

(11:54):
because sometimes when you have national brands, they don't consider
the local conversation about that.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
That's one of our biggest conversations.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
And when people say, well it's that, you know, it's
you know, the terminology is licensee. That's the legal term.
The legal term is Ashley Furniture is a national brand,
number one national brand in furniture in the world, by
the way, number one assisted brand in all furniture, you know,
So the number one brand and the largest producer furniture
in the world, Ashley Furniture. So that's a that's a

(12:26):
lot of first it is, but to bring it locally
and have it owned by a local business person and
bring the national design, the national pricing, the reach, the
all the things that you want. But I'm still there,
and you know, I mean and and our salespeople are,
you know, from Saint Clairsville, Dyllanville and Wheeling and Moundsville

(12:48):
and you know these types of you know, they are
all local people working in a national store. And so
it's the perfect marriage, I say, of how we want
to do business and how would be an example of
how to do it in the valley where you can
bring the new national attention to us, but have it
locally owned.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
And that's what I have an issue sometimes with some
of my members. They don't want to go to the
big box stores. But I tell them, listen, it's not
just that there's local people that own it, there's local
people that work there, and our college students that's where
they get there. They have their summer jobs, their part
time jobs. You know, we have to create that local
mentality that it's all right. And that's a prime example.

(13:27):
So thank you for doing that.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Sure, no, it's I mean, and that's why we wanted
to do it, and that's why it was a great
opportunity to do it. You mentioned that both sides of
the river. Yeah, and I you know said this. You know,
growing up in you know, the valley, went to Lindsley,
you know, so I you know, it was from Bridgeport,
but I went to school at Lendsley, and so I
got to know a lot of people at Wheeling Park

(13:49):
and Wheeling Central and John Marshall and you know, places
of this nature because I played hockey at Wheeling Amateur
Hockey WAHA, Wheeling Amateur Hockey Association. So we got to
know kids outside of outside of Wheeling, you know, in
these different places, and a lot of good friendships from that.
But we look at business. The river is not our
dividing line. It is not our divide.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
I said that we need to have that plaster it's more.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
So like the nucleus of it all, correct, is right?

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yes, the river is what brings us together, yes, not
separates us. And so when we look at it today
and well, you know, at Wilson Furniture for the last
you know, thirty plus years, I mean, we have great
customers up and down the river from you know, Moundsville, Glendale, Wheeling, Trieddelphia,
Saint Clairsville, cat Is, you know, all the way up
to basically East Liverpool, and and today even more so

(14:40):
because now that we're up here in Trieddelphia on the hill,
we're doing business in you know, Avella, PA. You know, Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, Morgantown.
You know, our reach is even bigger than it was before. Sure,
and and we again we go all the way to
East Liverpool and up to that area and into Pittsburgh,
in the city of Pittsburgh so much, but you know,

(15:02):
on the outskirts. Because I didn't realize there's a number
of people from the PA area that don't want to
go to Alleghany County. They just they won't, they won't
go into the city. They like our Walmart. That's what
they tell me up here. That's what I've heard.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
I've heard that.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
They like the minards up here. They like you know,
they like, yeah, they'll come from Pa into the West
Virginia side to do business right and shop and we don't.
You know a lot of times, you know, different reasons.
People will say, well, how far is Bridgeport from here?
And we'll say it's like fourteen minutes. Yeah, I know,
you know, it's it's not far, you know, but people

(15:37):
act like it's like, you know, Utah, or we get.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
That same thing in Saint Clair's, Well, well, how far
is the Highlands? Like oh my gosh, we say like
fourteen fifteen minutes. It's okay, you.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Know, so it's go and shop. But that whole but
the Ohio Valley, and that's one of the reasons, you know,
when when looking and planning this Ashley Home store, they
looked at the Ohio Valley and what that means the
Eye Valley you know, from if you will, from Washington,
PA to Cambridge and from frankly New Martinsville to East Liverpool. Yeah,

(16:11):
and that's a big valley.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
That's huge.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, that's a big space.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Do you think that was part of their consideration for
for where I mean, how did the what was the
process of choosing the location? You settled obviously on the
Highlands and that's kind of a central location for the
entire valley that you just described. Do you think that
was something they were mindful about.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
Is they want to be in the middle of it all? Yeah,
I mean they target these things. They look at the demographics,
they look at the numbers, they look at the density,
they look at the houses, you know, they look at
all those things. Economics and when we looked at it,
you know, when they looked at it, you know they
have you know, technology that you know kind of helps
pinpoint these things. Is that, you know, the Highlands made

(16:50):
a lot of sense. And when we looked at and
having learned this now, is that when you see a
company like bed Bath and Beyond that vacates a space,
there's a lot of national people that watch for those things.
So today in the world, people are watching some of
these stores being vacated by right AID. Right AID is

(17:10):
leaving a lot of footprint they call it buildings footprints,
and the space available that there's going to be a
lot of national people try to enter into those right
AID spaces because they're leaving the market in many places,
and they're good locations. They're typically on a corner, the
buildings are you know, fairly new. You know, there's a
lot of positives for re you know, filling those spaces

(17:31):
in with other retailers. And that's exactly what Ashley has
done with bed, Bath and beyond locations all over the country.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
And oh okay, not just here here, this is what
they're looking at.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
This was actually the Trinelphia, West Virginia Home store was
the first bed and Bath that had been converted from
bed and Bath to Ashley. But I can tell you
they've replicated that probably twenty five times since last year.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Well they know around the country.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah, oh yeah, because they now they have the layout,
they have the footprint's kind of all those buildings are
the same.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
What kind of cost do you save when you know
you don't have to build a new building every time,
you don't have to buy a big piece of land.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
You're just taking this very significant factor in the business.
D like very significant because you're looking at probably ten
to fifteen percent of the entire revenue. So you know,
that's a lot over a time period, you know, twenty years,
that's a lot. That's a lot of money. It's also
a lot of you know, opportunity, a lot of savings
that you can put your money into the advertising, into

(18:27):
the employees, into the you know what you're displaying, and
you're not spending it on a structure that exists. So no,
it's it's been a crucial element. And when we look
at vacancies in real estate, really what we're looking at
is opportunities. And so you know, when one thing leaves,
that just gives it an opportunity for something else to
fill backfill its space, which is great opportunity.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
What I didn't realize was what you said about folks
who are maybe on the outskirts of Pittsburgh and that
Cannonsburg Washington area and they don't want to go into
the city and go and shop or whatever, so they
come here to spend their money. I think that's that's
incredible and a huge, you know opportunity for the valley
to put some of the best around here that it
can have and bring those people in.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Well, Drake, I know, you know in our conversations, you know,
I have a really unique position because I get to
talk to people when they come in and you know,
we always say, you know, are people looking for furniture. Well, yeah,
they're looking for furniture in this sense, but they're also
looking to solve a problem. Yeah, you know, we're moving houses.
We have a problem. We don't have enough furniture. We

(19:31):
have old furniture. We want some new furniture. We're gonna
have kids. We want to have some stuff for the
you know, the baby and this, or hey, our kids
are getting older. I don't want that, you know, piece
of furniture we had. We know kids are growing up.
We want something else. So I always say they come
with to us with an issue, a problem, not a problem,
but a challenge, right, you know, Hey we need to
do this. Or I've got family coming in from out

(19:53):
of town. We need a sleeper sofa, you know, these
types of things. But what it also does gives me
a chance to say to people, oh, so where do
you live? Oh really, well, why do you live there?
Oh really? What do you do? You know? So I
kind of get to have my own little survey if
somewhere and talk to people. And that's where I've learned
about the number of people who come from Pennsylvania. What
what brings you this way? You know, because you know

(20:14):
a lot of times people would say, oh, you're in Pittsburgh,
Oh Pittsburgh. You know there's a South Hills mall, you
know all this, and why wouldn't you go there and there?
And their very quick answer is it's too traffick key.
We don't like to get you know, we don't want
to spend an hour going up there or or longer.
There is actually some construction going on near the Ross
Park Mall, which you know, I wasn't overly familiar with.

(20:38):
I mean, I know where it is, but but people said, oh,
there's construction on Route nineteen or Ross, but we're not
going up there, like because they're not going to sit
in traffic for another half hour forty five minutes.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
It takes time to get here, which is further.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
It's much easier to get here, and it's a straight
shot on the highway. And then you know, and I'm
wanna say, there's no construction, but it's much easier. There's
no congestion and there's nothing, I mean, there's nothing, and
that'll get rid of traffic quicker than traffic as people
won't go where they know there's a little red line
on the red on their owhyeah. Yeah, And they'll say, well,
I'm not going there. They'll they'll literally turn around and

(21:10):
drive the other way. But you know, so I've gotten
to see, you know, what's going on up in the
in the sort of the Pittsburgh suburbs. You know why
people live up there, what people do up there, what
brings them this way. And usually when they come this way,
they're coming as a family, you know, versus what I
would say. One of the big differences that I say
when when we had our independent store in Bridgeport only

(21:33):
is that we saw singular people. We saw the wife
and she would go and scout yes, or we'd see
the husband on a Saturday morning, Hey, I'm going to
go do this before I have to go to a
ball game or before I do that, you know, so
you would see them in separates. What we see now
is people together. So we'll see mom, dad, two kids,

(21:53):
and they'll come in the store because they're together on
a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon or a Monday evening.
And so it's it's actually a much better opportunity for
us to serve our customer because we have the decision
makers in the conversation, not well, I need to get
back to you next week because my husband's out of
town or my wife's working, and you know, we're not

(22:16):
together today, but we need to get a mattress. And
how do you sell a mattress to two people when
they're not together? Right? It's hard. Yeah, you can, I
mean you can try, but get in trouble. Yeah, exactly,
somebody's picking the wrong thing. So talk to.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Me a little bit about your time in Columbus serving
the state as a representative.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
I think that's really interesting. Yep. Well, I had the
opportunity to go to Columbus as a state senator in
the fall of two thousand and seven, and then I
was there through twenty eleven when I left to go
to the governor's office. But it's always a great opportunity
to serve you know, your community or people your state
in this regard. So I was one of thirty three

(22:54):
state senators really got involved in the oil and gas business. Obviously,
our area was, you know, the sort of the center
of oil and gas. And being a person who grew
up my grandfather my mom's side was a junk dealer
and people think of junk dealers or scrap dealers. Well,
we spent a lot of time into mines because that's

(23:14):
where a lot of the scrap came from, as well
as steel mills. So I was used to being what
they call a dirty fingernail kind of guy. So when
it came to oil and gas, I was like, yeah,
let's do it because I knew it was an emerging
industry and an opportunity for our area because the devise
or decline of steel and coal and things, we needed
an infusion. There it was, and I was I had

(23:37):
the opportunity to be the dual cose sponsor of the
bill that revitalized the oil and gas bill that hadn't
been done in twenty twenty five years, and we saw
what was happening in West Virginia and Pennsylvania because it
was kind of like a sort of like a cloud.
If you were you know, you could see it coming,
you know, coming towards us as the industry involved. So
I was happy to be involved. Did a lot of time,

(23:58):
work with a lot of people, did a lot of
oil and gas you know, you know, research knowledge because
obviously we want to be informed when you make a
bill or make a law. Did a lot of good things.
I think there's been a few updates since so we
didn't do it perfectly. That's what legislation's about, is modifying
things as the world changes, and people forget that a

(24:19):
lot of times people want everything, you know, one time
that's it. Well, you know, in politics, or I shouldn't
say politics, but public service, you know, laws, you know,
things like that, they evolved, they change or they become
different and you have to be educated and mature about
it and explain to people why and how. And I
did a lot of public meetings where I drank water,
which people were like, they were uncomfortable with, but I

(24:43):
wanted people to be assured that I was wanting to
drink the same water that they were drinking, you know, like, yeah,
you know, we're not going to destroy your water and
then walk away where you know, if there's an issue,
we'll address it. If there's probably, but you can drink
the water they came out of the ground and it's
not ruined and thankfully knock on wood. I mean, you know,
there's always some challenges, but I think generally the industry
has been pretty good to work with. They've done they've

(25:05):
you know, provided a tremendous amount of money into the market.
There's there's a lot of folks that have owned land
and worked in the oil fields who've been able to
provide for their family and make money that they've never
had been able to do before. And it's a real deal.
I mean, we've seen very significant investments in our area,
and I think we will for the next several years.

(25:25):
But that's one area. You know, Obviously representing your area
and trying to do good things my job and I
think my dad and I work together on this from
the day we started in nineteen ninety six that we
went to Columbus. We went to do these types of
things to bring industry and to bring opportunity back to
the Ohio Valley. You know, it wasn't there was no

(25:46):
selfish reason other than the selfish reason of if we
have people in our area that can work, live, raise
a family, then people will be here to buy furniture,
people will be here to be served by our business.
So we were selfish in one regard, but we did
it in direct you know, indirectly to say, if if
you're comfortable in you're buying a house, and you're living

(26:07):
here and your famili's here, then we'll benefit ultimately, you know,
from it. We'll have the opportunity to serve you. So
it was really about economics and getting our area recognized,
bringing people back to the area from the area. You know,
looking at one of the projects I did was when
we knew Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel was going to go out
of business, was using those properties to do something in

(26:27):
the future. And we don't know necessarily what they all are,
but those are those are a lot of great There
are the many good buildings. You know, rail access, water access,
you know, all the ingredients you need to have an
industry or develop an industry. It always takes longer than
you think, you know, just like in rail and Ohio,
they're building buildings. They're building a very big building over there.

(26:48):
I personally don't even know what it is, but I
know that that property is in private hands. They're building
a building. There's somebody intends to do something there. I'm
not sure what it is. You see that. You saw
what happened up in Steubenville and the things that are
happened there. Mingo Junction has had an infusion of you know,
investment there and they're actually doing steel work in Mingo Junction,

(27:09):
which is great. And there's there there's some people building
some things, so it's not dead. It's not weeds growing
in a field. There's actually production happening and opportunities that
are becoming about in the near future. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
And I'll actually be in Raylan and Stumanville in that
area today and I go up that that corridor a
good bit up Route seven and you do see a
lot of like what looks to be run down, and
it's it's always something that I've thought about that, you know,
I hope that you know, somewhere somebody's making the right
decisions to make sure that you know, this area doesn't

(27:41):
get left behind because it latched onto something that was
profitable maybe fifty years ago. And you know, I hope
somebody has the has the you know, the awareness to
make sure that something in the future can keep this
moving along.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
And we'll stay let me let me share you this
with you, Drake, because we're probably talking about your parents,
grandparents and probably your great grandparents. Is that you know
those industries, whether they be wheeling, Pittsburgh, steel, weird and
steel there. I mean, there were wonderful industries that provided
for many many people, for many families for many years.
But when we you know, if we just take Raylan
for example, and when Raylan was operating making tin plate

(28:16):
and doing the duc delights and you know, which is
the duct work in buildings and houses and stuff like this,
is that's what they were making. Today they're not making it.
There's nothing there. But if you looked at it, and
let's just use round numbers, there were five hundred people
that work there. That was five hundred you know, people
that made a living, five hundred people that shopped, five
hundred people that might have bought a car, you know,

(28:36):
and that's what all economies are built. But if we
look at that five hundred people at that in that space,
one of the problems, and this is difficult for people
to understand, is we're not going to have a one
company five hundred people so much anymore in the future.
But if we had ten companies that employed fifty people, right,
that equals five hundred obviously. But that's what we have

(28:59):
to focus on. We have to focus on a company
that you know, mixes, you know, product for the oil
and gas industry, which you can see them dotting around.
You can see them in railand as a matter of fact,
right by the school there's one sitting right there. But
you know, you can see you know, a paper bag manufacturer,
somebody who bends or paints metal. You know, on and
on and on and on these types of things. But

(29:20):
when we have allowed our industries or these industries have
matured and have gone away in some regards. We can't
give up on the idea of we have the right people,
we have the right access on highway, rail, water, all
the things, the ingredients that you need to succeed. But
what what we need to do is get to the
right people and bring them to the table and give
them opportunities to create businesses.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Well, I hate to stop you there, we're about out
of time. This has been a super informative. I think
I've learned the most today. Then I have an official
but yeah, we really appreciate you coming on and appreciate
your insight and and we're thrilled to have been able
to talk to you this morning.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
Well, I will tell you my father was an OU
graduate at the what what was then considered probably what
the OU Belmont branch. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Michael mctigue.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
That was instrumental in getting it to you know, move
to Saint Clairs.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Well, I believe absolutely. And my dad was a non
traditional student, meaning he went to school for two years
at OU on the main campus in Athens. But life
got in the way with getting married, having my two
older brothers, and you know, being involved in a business,
and he had to leave school to go to work, right,
and but he had the branch or OU, you know,
to go back to. And he is a proud graduate

(30:35):
of OU and had told everybody about the Harvard on
the Hawking when he was there. And so, you know,
so our family are proud o you alums within our family.
And it's a great institution both here in Belmont County
and in Athens and other places that they have locations.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
Isn't it the leadership that Charlie Wilson leadership.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
That is correct? And that was one of the things
when my father passed away, our family, you know, was
able to put some money aside. I'd for OU because
my dad was a firm believer that. You know a
lot of people think that, oh, I just go to
the branch or, I just go to OUE. No, you're
at a high university and you are an important person.
I give you credit, Drake for you know, taking on

(31:15):
the show and doing things, and he wanted to make
sure and we had this conversation when he was in
the hospital, what what would you do different? You know?
And that a great time to ask that question. And
my dad said, I want to help young people become
better leaders. Oh that and that's where the inception of
the Charlie Wilson Leadership Program, which we haven't fully developed

(31:36):
all its opportunities, but we wanted to take some of
the you know, the money that we were able to
put together over the years and put it in a
place where people could use it and hopefully develop people
like yourself, Drake and many others. I hope so.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
And I appreciate your your time and and everything that
you've you've given us today and we're about out of time,
but for for myself, Wendy Anderson and Jason Wilson, thank
you for listening.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Any connections and comments,