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College Recognizes Accomplishments, Distinguished Service, Achievement During Homecoming Banquet

Pictured from left: Alumni Board President Jay Courrier, Kevin Clark, Tara Hulsey, Charles Bishop, and Campus President Jennifer Orlikoff.

Pictured from left: Alumni Board President Jay Courrier, Kevin Clark, Tara Hulsey, Charles Bishop, and Campus President Jennifer Orlikoff.

Kevin Clark Awarded Young Alumni Award

Kevin Clark, Class of 2009, was honored with West Virginia University Potomac State College’s “Young Alumni Award” in recognition of his accomplishments.

Clark has served as the executive director of the Mineral County Development Authority since 2014. He directs all aspects of the development authority’s operations including strategic planning and implementation, program development, marketing, industrial park acquisitions and development, brownfields clean up, and coordination of incentive packages.

While in this role, Clark has coordinated a complete restructuring of the development authority’s operations resulting in a significant increase in revenue and growing the department from one to three employees. He also implemented an IRS 170 Charitable Exchange Transaction to negotiate the purchase of a warehouse appraised at $11 million for $1 million. Additionally, the warehouse had monthly revenue of $56,000. Clark also implemented a business retention and expansion program resulting in 830 new jobs and an investment of more than $100 million.

Clark is currently the co-owner of JBAK LLC, a Subway franchise in Fort Ashby, W.Va., and owner of Clarkments Student Housing and Clark Construction, both in Keyser, W.Va. He served as manager of Whisner Construction in New Creek, W.Va. from 2010 to 2013. He was a partner of Premier Homes and Development LLC that he started in 2016 and sold in 2017. He served as a project manager for Ridgecrest Investments, in Frederick, Md., from 2009-2010, involving the redevelopment of a former hospital with 340,000 square feet into commercial units. 

Clark is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma Economic Development Institute. He plans to take the Certified Economic Development Professional (CEcD) exam in the spring of 2020.

He is also a 2009 graduate of WVU Potomac State College having earned a Bachelor of Applied Science (BAS) degree in business management.

Clark is actively involved in the community serving in the following capacities:

Vice chair for the Potomac Highlands Airport Authority Board of Directors; Community Trust Foundation, Mineral County Advisory Committee; WVU Medicine, Potomac Valley Hospital Board of Directors; Mineral County Chamber of Commerce member; Mineral County representative for the I-68 Regional Economic Development Partnership; West Virginia Economic Development Council member; Greater Cumberland Committee Economic Development Committee member; District Consortium Education/Economic Development member; Ag Action committee member for the Eastern Community and Technical College; Mineral County Day Planning Committee member; Local Emergency Planning Committee member; Region VI Workforce Investment Board of Directors; Mineral County Farmland Preservation board member; and Keyser Rotary Club member.

Clark and his wife, April, are the parents of Jack. The family resides in Keyser, W.Va.

WVU’s Dean Hulsey Recognized with Distinguished Service Award

West Virginia University Potomac State College recognized Tara Hulsey with the Distinguished Service Award during Homecoming at the awards banquet.

Tara Hulsey PhD, RN, CNE, FAAN is the vice president of Health Promotion and Wellness for West Virginia University and the dean of the WVU School of Nursing. 

During her tenure as dean, enrollment at the WVU School of Nursing has doubled, and as a result, Dr. Hulsey signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Potomac State College in June 2017 to offer the Bachelor of Science in nursing degree on the Keyser campus.  In July 2018, the College received final approval for the BSN degree, with the first cohort of students offered in fall 2018. 

Dr. Hulsey worked closely with the College, visiting Potomac State throughout the process as she often observed the progression of the high-tech simulation labs and classrooms.  During the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Dr. Hulsey acknowledged her excitement and commitment to WVU’s BSN program being offered on the Keyser campus and the opportunity it creates for students.  She also oversaw the move of the WVU School of Nursing campus from Montgomery to Beckley.

Under Dr. Hulsey’s leadership, the School is adding a number of new nursing programs on the Morgantown campus, including an MSN/MBA; a post-masters mental health nurse practitioner; a post-masters adult-gerontology acute care nurse practitioner; and a Doctor of Nursing Practice in Anesthesia. Additionally, test scores are on the rise for first-time test takers of the national nursing certification exam (NCLEX).

Dr. Hulsey was appointed by the Governor of West Virginia to serve on the West Virginia RN Board of Examiners and was elected to serve two terms as board president. She has also been appointed by the Governor to serve on the board of the West Virginia Center of Nursing.

Among her many honors and awards, Dr. Hulsey was named an AACN- Wharton Executive Leadership fellow; received the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse fellowship; and is a past board member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society for Nursing.

Prior to joining WVU, Dr. Hulsey served as the dean and professor at the College of Nursing and Allied Health, Charleston (SC) Southern University; and the associate dean for Academics and the associate dean for Faculty at the College of Nursing, Medical University of South Carolina. In addition, she has held a number of teaching, leadership and nursing positions during her career. She has served as the principal investigator on more than 20 research projects and has written numerous published articles, book chapters and abstracts.

Bishop Recognized with Alumni Achievement Award

West Virginia University Potomac State College recently recognized Charles H. Bishop, Jr., PhD (1958), with the Alumni Achievement Award in acknowledgement of his accomplishments.

After attending Potomac State College for a year, Dr. Bishop transferred to the Morgantown campus where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology.  He earned a PhD, also in psychology, from the University of Georgia.

Dr. Bishop is the founder and CEO of The Profitability Formula, LLC a worldwide consulting firm in Chicago that specializes in marrying human capital with financial capital to assist organizations to be more innovative, productive, humane; and, ultimately more profitable.

He has authored the book, "Making Change Happen One Person at a Time" which was cited by the University of Michigan School Of Business as being ‘one of the 10 best books on change in the past 40 years.’

Dr. Bishop has previously served as the vice president of Leadership Development or as the chief human resources officer in a number of highly visible Fortune 100 firms who were experiencing substantial changes, including FedEx, Baxter International, Bank of America, and ADT Corporation.

Dr. Bishop has been cited for his work by some of the most respected CEOs and business leaders in American Business in a variety of industries…here is what they had to say:

· Fred Smith, the CEO of FedEx: One of the highest rated CEOs in the World, according to the Forbes Annual Survey: ‘The necessity for change is now a universal business mantra. Charlie Bishop provides an excellent blueprint for making change a reality rather than a slogan’.

· Dr. Will Ferniany, the CEO of the renowned UAB Health System: “I can say without a doubt that ‘Charlie Bishop’s approach is the most significant intervention to change a culture; at the University of Pennsylvania Health System we were able to take a good system to great; at the University of Mississippi Health System it was a critical step to affect the significant turnaround we had to make’.

· Laura Shapira Karet; the CEO of Giant Eagle Corporation--Pittsburgh: The Profitability Formula by Charlie Bishop significantly changed how our senior leadership team thinks about leadership and organization capabilities. A refreshing and simple approach, distinctive, immediately practical…a difference maker!