The regional chairman of GO Virginia — an initiative designed to bring more jobs to the commonwealth — admits that recent statistics revealed about Southwest Virginia’s economic climate were “somewhat of an eye-opener.”
“When you actually see it in black and white, you see where we have some serious challenges here in Southwest Virginia that we need to address,” Mike Quillen, the former CEO and chairman of Alpha Natural Resources, told the Bristol Herald Courier.
GO Virginia, also known as the Virginia Initiative for Growth and Opportunity in Each Region, is a bipartisan, business-led economic development initiative. Its objective is to promote private sector job growth through regional collaboration and targeted incentives across the state. GO Virginia divided the commonwealth into nine regions with Southwest Virginia deemed Region One.
