Polymer Alliance Zone President Keith Burdette speaks at a Select USA event in Brussels, Belgium, earlier this month. Select USA is a federal program led by the Department of Commerce to facilitate job-creating investment in the United States. (Photo Provided)

DAVISVILLE — Headquartered in Wood County, the Polymer Alliance Zone works to recruit businesses domestically and internationally to West Virginia along the Ohio River.

“We’re the largest regional economic development group in the state of West Virginia,” said Keith Burdette, Polymer Alliance Zone president. “It’s all focused on trying to find new jobs and new investments for the 10-county zone.”

The most recent success stories are SOMAR, a Japanese company that set up shop at the Zone’s industrial park in 2024, and Amazon, which opened an operations facility last year on property it purchased from the Zone for $2.96 million.

SOMAR started hiring in the spring of 2025 and was in full production by the end of the year, Burdette said. They anticipate having 20-40 jobs at the local facility in the first year to two years.

“SOMAR makes an epoxy resin insulation that is used in engines and batteries,” Burdette said. “We’re pleased to have them.”

The area and West Virginia made such an impression that SOMAR President Futoshi Sotani helped organize a visit to the state by a delegation of 18 Japanese business leaders in December 2024.

The Polymer Alliance Zone has also recruited a Columbus-based company to establish a location in Wood County. The name can’t be released yet, Burdette said, but “they’ll be in production fairly quickly.”

The Polymer Alliance Zone was created by executive order of then-Gov. Gaston Caperton in 1996. It initially encompassed Wood, Jackson and Mason counties but now stretches from Ohio County south to Wayne County. The concentration of chemical and plastics companies in the region was a driving force, and while that is the organization’s focus, those aren’t the only companies with which officials work.

Burdette said he and other representatives identify properties in the zone that would be attractive for industrial development and assemble detailed information on utilities, transportation and infrastructure that prospective companies need to know.

“I talk to them about the virtues and the strengths of being in West Virginia. And then we route that down to those 10 counties,” he said. “West Virginia is a low-cost-of-operation state for many, many types of businesses.”

Lower housing costs here contribute to low turnover of employees, Burdette said, noting 79% of the homes in the state are owner-occupied. And West Virginia is a net exporter of energy, so prices for commodities such as natural gas are extremely competitive both in the United States and abroad, he said.

“Part of the challenge is getting their (prospective employers’) attention, because a lot of people are trying to get their attention,” he said.

Burdette previously served as president of the West Virginia Senate and state secretary of commerce under former Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin. In the latter role, he said, he was involved in recruiting Procter & Gamble to the Eastern Panhandle. A representative of the company told him that even though other states offered more incentives, West Virginia gave them attention and a path to get answers that larger states didn’t offer.

Rather than wait for companies to inquire about West Virginia, Burdette said the Polymer Alliance Zone goes to them. Already in 2026, he’s been to events in Japan, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands, and he traveled to multiple cities in the U.S. last year, meeting with companies at events such as the World Chemical Forum and Select USA Roadshows.

“We can’t wait for somebody to find us. We’ve got to go find them,” Burdette said. “We’ll spend weeks, maybe months, doing followups with all of them in hopes that … we’ll find another company to come join us.”

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.