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Board chosen to serve as West Virginia First Foundation executive director

Steps down as foundation member, drops out of state Senate race

West Virginia First Foundation board member Jonathan Board, left, and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announce Board’s selection as the first executive director for the West Virginia First Foundation. (Photo by Steven Allen Adams)

CHARLESTON — Nearly five months after first forming, the private foundation set up to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars of opioid settlement funds will have its first executive director, and it is someone already familiar to the foundation.

Jonathan Board, the vice president of external affairs for the Mon Health System based in Morgantown, was hired Thursday by the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office as executive director for the West Virginia First Foundation.

“This is a vitally important day, but this day has very little to do with one individual or even a group of individuals,” Board said during a press conference with Attorney General Patrick Morrisey at the State Capitol Building. “Today is about the people of the state of West Virginia. We have a lot of work to do.”

“This is a wonderful day for the State of West Virginia, and quite frankly something I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time,” Morrisey said. “This appointment represents many, many months and many, many hundreds – if not thousands – of hours of work.

“I have the utmost confidence that we’ve now found the single best candidate for this job of executive director,” Morrisey continued. “I believe with all my heart that you’re going to lead this foundation admirably.”

Board, who also serves as the region four representative for the West Virginia First Foundation, will step down as a foundation member in order to run the organization. The foundation voted to accept the appointment later that same day, as well as approving several motions to empower Board in his new role.

“It’s a huge relief, that that relief is not only that we have an executive director, but we have Jonathan Board as our executive director,” said Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Matt Harvey, the chairman of the foundation, following Thursday’s meeting. “It’s a great day for this foundation and it’s a great day for the citizens of West Virginia.”

Board was selected to represent region four in the West Virginia First Foundation’s 11-member governing board last summer after a series of public hearings were held in six regions of the state. Region four covers most of central and north central West Virginia.

Aside from being a hospital system executive, Board was the interim director of Hazel’s House of Hope, which focuses on homelessness, food insecurity, and substance use disorder. Board is a founding member of the Hope Hill Sobering Center, a project of Hazel’s House of Hope. He also served on the board of Morgantown Community Resources Inc.; and Mon Pathways to Success.

“We’re all neighbors, and as neighbors we recognize when there’s a problem in one place of the state, it’s a problem in another place,” Board said. “West Virginias are very good neighbors, and so we’re privileged to look out for each other. And I think that’s the point of the West Virginia First Foundation.”

The West Virginia First Foundation has been without an executive director since its first organizational meeting last November. The foundation had made a formal offer to another executive director candidate in December, but that deal fell through.

According to the memorandum of understanding that created the West Virginia First Foundation, the Attorney General’s Office is empowered with hiring an executive director for the foundation, though the hire is subject to approval of the foundation. The foundation can reject a candidate for executive director by a vote of eight foundation members.

The executive director is required to have at least six years of experience in health care, finance, and management. The executive director is responsible for maintaining all records for the foundation. The foundation can remove a future executive director by a three-fourths vote.

Morrisey, who pushed for creation of the Foundation, announced last June that his office selected DRi Waterstone Human Capital to conduct the search for the executive director at a cost of around $66,000. Morrisey said more than 100 applications had been submitted and 18 interviews conducted with potential job candidates, but he was glad that someone like Board was already in the state and willing to take on the job.

“There was a team of people in our office that went through every resume that came in,” Morrisey said. “We obviously had an executive search firm that did an awful lot of work. So, it was a lengthy process and we tried to consult with a lot of people. And I’m fortunate once again that we found a jewel right underneath us here in West Virginia; someone who’s incredible.”

“We all came away from those interviews thinking that Jonathan Board is the right person at the right time to lead us and take up the fight we were charged with doing,” Harvey said.

Representatives of the cities and counties involved in opioid litigation – as well as the Attorney General’s Office – agreed to a memorandum of understanding last year to create the West Virginia First Foundation, as well as a formula for distributing settlement awards. The MOU included all 55 counties and more than 220 cities.

Johnson & Johnson, Teva, Walgreens, CVS, Kroger, Walmart, Allergan, and Rite Aid agreed to a $940 million settlement with the state and local governments for their part in manufacturing and distributing prescription opioids to West Virginia, feeding a substance use crisis.

The West Virginia First program will divide settlement dollars from opioid manufacturers and distributors, with 24.5% going to cities and counties, 3% going to the Attorney General’s Office and 72.5% going to the West Virginia First Foundation.

Once funds from future settlements are distributed, the funds can be used by cities and counties for developing programs for substance abuse avoidance, research and education; funding for law enforcement to combat the sale and distribution of drugs; and substance abuse treatment and recovery.

Board, a Republican candidate for the West Virginia Senate’s 13th District covering parts of Monongalia and Marion counties, said he will end his political campaign. Board will also be leaving his employment with Mon Health to be executive director full-time. The details of his salary have not been released yet, but Harvey said that information will be released soon. In his new role, Board will help coordinate the selection of his region four replacement on the foundation.

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com

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