West Virginia's real anchor isn't coal anymore -- the corporate headquarters left the state even where the mines didn't -- it's the FBI's national biometric infrastructure. The CJIS Division in Clarksburg runs the country's fingerprint, iris, and criminal-records systems around the clock, and West Virginia University built a real biometrics research partnership with IDEMIA directly off that federal presence, the same way San Antonio's cyber cluster grew out of its own defense base. Toyota's only combined engine-and-transmission plant in North America sits in Buffalo, WV, and the Kanawha Valley still runs a real, if shrunken, chemical industry that traces back to Dow and DuPont. West Virginia's mountain-biking reputation isn't incidental either: the Canaan Valley, near the state park of the same name, hosted the 24 Hours of Canaan from 1992 to 1998 -- the first sanctioned 24-hour mountain bike race in the world, promoted by Laird Knight's Granny Gear Productions -- and helped earn the state its name as one of the toughest, muddiest mountain-biking destinations on the East Coast during the sport's own founding era.
Region Stats
Total firms
28
VC / investors
3
Companies
21
Schools
4
Known For
Biometrics
Manufacturing
Appalachia
West Virginia