Company to Bring 500 to 600 High-Tech Jobs to W.V., Official Says
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. Va. (WCHS) — A company official announced Thursday that a new company will bring 500 to 600 high-tech jobs to West Virginia.
The jobs will be created by American Medicines Co., where Crystal Mersh is the chairwoman of the board. She is also the chief executive officer for QxP.
Mersh, a Calhoun County native, made the announcement at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s 2022 Women’s Leadership Summit at The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs.
“My team looked at me and said, ‘We want to go to West Virginia and the reason we want to go to West Virginia is two things: workforce and our opportunity to work with the state economic development authority here, the governor’s office and just the general state of West Virginia,'” Mersh said.
The company that will make everyday medications to help with things like heart disease, blood pressure and diabetes is still looking for an exact city to locate.
“There are options for existing facilities,” she said. “There are options for greenfield options.”
In terms of what kinds of jobs they will be hiring for, Mersh says people can expect a way range of skillsets from manufacturing to lab work.
“We’ve got a broad variety of skill sets that we will need there. We’ll also need laboratory analysts, chemists, microbiologists leaders, managers, executives, the entire gamut,” Mersh said.
If Mersh looks familiar, the CEO of QxP, a pharmaceutical consulting company, is also the same woman who helped purchase the old Calhoun County High School with plans to turn it into a community center.
Although American Medicines Company looked at several large cities to locate, she said it was surreal moment that everyone was all on board for her home state.
“The sense of community is still here and there’s a big business value in that that you don’t get in an area like Research Triangle Park or Boston where everyone is a transplant,” she said.
Mersh says they will continue looking at potential properties all next week.
Original Article by Lauren Talotta, Jeff Morris, Anna Saunders March 31, 2022 on Eyewitness News
