A letter to a billionaire sparked a W.Va. economic windfall
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Driving back home from a West Virginia University research and technology department session, Sen. Glenn Jeffries, D-Putnam, was inspired to write a longshot “come to West Virginia″ letter to nine global billionaire investors, including Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett.
“It started out with - since pick-axes first struck coal in 1810 in Wheeling - energy has always been the lifeblood of Appalachia. Fifty-three years later, born out of the strife and blood of the Civil War, West Virginia was created,” Jeffries said. “Our state’s fortunes and challenges have always been directly linked to those energies, namely coal. We now have some technology that has to do with rare earth minerals. I asked him to come to West Virginia, come and see our mountains, it’s a beautiful place.”
Jeffries said he nearly fell to his knees when top Berkshire Hathaway executive Bill Furman gave him a call and told him Buffett had read his letter and said “get on this.” Jeffries also did just that.
“After I sent the letter, I started getting legislators involved, officials involved and we put together a team,” Jeffries said. “We started going out throughout the state looking for areas that we could have some impact in. I actually drove them all around West Virginia, and we ended up with Jackson County. When Bill looked at the site, he made the determination right then - that we can do something.”
That longshot letter culminated in a $500 million Berkshire Hathaway investment. The Fortune 500 leader will develop a 2,000 acre, first-of-its-kind renewable energy microgrid-powered industrial site where the old Century Aluminum plant employed hundreds for decades.
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