Independent start-ups can find success in West Virginia

Trilogy Innovations Inc. in Bridgeport started as a two-person company in 2010, but quickly grew after assisting another company on a Red Hat contract for the FBI in 2016.

Red Hat is an alternative operating system to Microsoft Windows that provides mission critical cybersecurity defense to government agencies, corporations and individuals who need it most, said Brandon Downey, president and CEO of Trilogy.

Since then, the company has had numerous contracts with various federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons.

The company started in Morgantown but has expanded to two locations, one in Cheat Lake and another in the White Oaks Economic Development District in Bridgeport.

At its founding, Trilogy had only two employees — founding members Downey and Vice President Randy Cottle.

As of 2024, Trilogy employs approximately 60 people, some of whom work in the two physical offices in West Virginia, as well as remote workers across the continental United States. This structure has given the company the ability to take on a large number of contracts, Downey said.

Moving into the future, he sees the expansion of both employee types as on-site employees are necessary depending on the classification level of the project. But there are difficulties in recruiting people to join the physical sites as not everyone is ready to make the jump to West Virginia, he continued.

West Virginia has a skilled, often underrated, workforce, Downey said.

“We have talented people, more so than just natural resources to pull from the ground,” he said.

In order to further encourage entrepreneurship, Downey works with students to help develop their business ideas into an actionable plan “at least two or three times per week,” both online and over lunch, he said.

Part of the company’s founding philosophy is the goal of keeping more money in the state, Downey said.

“We want more economic diversity and more progressive technology investments in West Virginia. We find the work and we keep the work here,” he said.

Another tech start-up that began in Morgantown but continues to find success across the Mountain State is Iconic Air.

Iconic Air’s co-founders Kyle Gillis and James Carnes met at West Virginia University and founded the company in 2020 as a STEM education company.

The pair used numerous resources at WVU in order to get the company off the ground, Gillis said.

After a number of pivots, Iconic Air is now focused on servicing businesses, especially those in the energy sector with their carbon accounting platform that allows them to calculate, manage and reduce their carbon footprint, he said.

Initally only the founders worked for the company, but now Iconic Air has a total of 13 employees, including one in every North American time zone. Three, including one of the co-founders, reside in West Virginia.

“We like to call ourselves a remote-first company. The world has changed a lot post-COVID, [and] a lot of people want to [work remotely],” Gillis said.

However, Gillis credits much of the company’s success to its founders being born and raised in West Virginia.

“I think a lot of the West Virginia culture and roots that was embedded in us by our family is what allowed us to get our first revenues and first customers. Most people find it very, very hard to go from zero to one,” Gillis said.

Iconic Air still has a Morgantown-based office at the Vantage Ventures space at WVU, Gillis said.

“You never can guess where you’ll end up, and that’s part of the fun. It’s a little bit like signing up for a roller coaster ride. I encourage anyone who feels like they want to be an entrepreneur to do it. It leads to a very exciting life as long as you’re built for it. And I think a lot of West Virginians are,” Gillis said.

Allegheny Science and Technology Corp. of Bridgeport was founded in 2009 by West Virginia Native Arria Hines.

AST provides custom software development for mission support and project management to government agencies and oil and gas companies among other clients. AST’s first contract was with NASA’s Independent Verification and Validation facility in Fairmont.

Although founded with one employee besides Hines herself, AST now has a staff of approximately 140, although this figure changes month to month, she said.

Hines credits her business’s growth to the culture of West Virginia, which includes employee commitment and loyalty as some employees who started at the company in 2009 are still employed by AST.

There is also a high retention rate at AST, which Hines credits to local people not wanting to leave the Mountain State.

While accounting, finance, human resources, recruiting and public relations are headquartered in West Virginia, AST employees are spread across the country but are primarily located in Maryland and near the D.C. Metro Area, Hines said, in order to be near the company’s government clients.

The next leap for AST includes project development for the Appalachian Region Clean Hydrogen Hub initiative.

“We’re basically managing all the community benefits and the communications. We’re also going to be supporting the project management office,” Hines said.