LOGAN - How do you turn around a society that is suffering from one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, the lowest educational attainment levels nationwide, widespread drug addiction, an aging population, slumping tax revenue and the loss of an industry that acted as one of the sole economic drivers of the region for more than a century?
Those are the questions that West Virginia business executives, economic development officials, local entrepreneurs and government leaders met to discuss Friday at the Chief Logan Lodge during a "community roundtable" on the state's economy.
Most of the economic problems facing West Virginia aren't new, but with the coal markets struggling in the state and around the world - for various reasons - the weaknesses of West Virginia's workforce and economy have taken on new urgency.
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and other state leaders are in the unenviable position of needing to find businesses to fill the employment gap left by the decline in the coal industry, which most people believe will never return to the where it once was.
That's why the governor, officials with the state Department of Commerce, representatives from the education system and a variety of other people who are trying to tackle these difficult issues gathered in the heart of Southern West Virginia.
The time of waiting to see if the coal industry will rebound has all but gone. Even if many residents hold out hope that federal regulations on carbon pollution can be overturned - which still might not resurrect slumping demand for coal - the economic reality of the Southern part of the state requires that new ideas for economic growth be discussed.
"I am sure that coal is still going to continue to play a major role in our economy in West Virginia, and I will continue my support of miners and the coal industry, like I always have," Tomblin said. "But there has been a change, not just here in West Virginia or here in the United States, but around the world."
During his keynote address, the governor largely focused on his plan to build a large business development park on the former site of the Hobet 21 surface mine, which he laid out in his State of the State address earlier this year.
Tomblin said he hopes to aggressively move to build the roads, water lines, sewer connections and broadband fiber that would be needed to make that site - nearly equal to the size of Huntington - attractive to businesses.
"That's my dream, and that's my vision, and I think we can get it done," Tomblin said, although he admitted it likely won't be completed before the end of his term, leaving the project awaiting the next governor.
The plan would help to take care of one of the biggest impediments that development officials believe holds back West Virginia: the lack of flat land.
But it won't be able to change many of the state's other underlying workforce problems and it might be running counter to the trends of the national economy.
If the site is created, it likely will be marketed to large manufacturers, like other industrial parks in the state. That means West Virginia's leaders largely would be focusing on one of the smaller portions of the country's economic pie.
The United States economy added 2.6 million jobs between January 2015 and the first month of this year, but only 27,000 of those were in manufacturing, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.
The national jobs numbers that were released by the federal government on Friday only further evidence the fact that West Virginia's economy continues to be based around national economic sectors that aren't improving with the prospects of most of the country.
The Department of Labor announced that the national economy held strong with a 5 percent unemployment rate overall, and even better unemployment rates in many parts of the country.
But the industries that Southern West Virginia is relying on - mining and manufacturing - are losing ground. Mining shed 12,000 jobs in March. Manufacturing lost another 29,000.
That is where the discussions of the other panelists came in.
Part of the reason West Virginia officials continue to focus on manufacturing-based businesses instead of industries like health care or computer technology, which are growing at a much faster rate, is because Southern West Virginia's workforce largely doesn't have the skill sets needed to attract jobs in those fields.
The panelists were confident that can change, but it doesn't happen overnight and, as many of them pointed out, that requires changing the cultures and mindsets surrounding education.
"For too long, kids didn't need a college education to get a job," said Sarah Armstrong Tucker, chancellor of the West Virginia Council for Community and Technical College Education. "That's changed."
Throughout the discussions, one fact seemed to loom over the ideas that were being thrown out: The state likely doesn't have enough money to turn around the education, health outcomes and economic prospects of workers in West Virginia. Slumping severance taxes from coal and lawmaker's opposition to raising other types of revenue that could be put toward those efforts might limit the state's ability to respond.
That is why the $50 million that will be distributed to coalfield communities throughout the United States in 2016 played such a big part in Friday's roundtables. Congress approved the spending in December, adding to other federal measures that have sought to retrain coal miners, their families and other dislocated workers for new careers.
James McCleskey, a representative with the Appalachian Regional Commission, one of the agencies that will help distribute the money, said the agency is looking for ambitious plans for how to utilize the funding, and groups should start collaborating on grant applications.
Other ideas that were thrown around during the event included an acceptance of renewable energy and employing people through mine reclamation projects, like President Barack Obama's administration has suggested.
Tom Clarke, president and CEO of the Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund, explained that renewable energy sources aren't going away and have only continued to grow.
"Is it windy here in Southern West Virginia," he asked jokingly.
Clarke explained that a large number of people could be put back to work if a funding mechanism for mine reclamation could be found. He said those efforts to clean up what mining has left behind could last for 10 to 15 years, spurring what he coined a "restoration economy."
"It could be hundreds of people that aren't working today that could be part of that transition," he said.
None of the panels had a single solution to the economic problems of the coalfields but, as Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette surmised in his opening remarks: "It's not always the big ideas. Sometimes it's the cumulative of the small ones."
Reach Andrew Brown at andrew.brown@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4814 or follow @Andy_Ed_Brown on Twitter.
