• Entrepreneur applicants must register online by 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 12. Must be 18 by Dec. 5 to apply.
• Applications are reviewed by an independent panel of judges who will select finalists to be featured at Thrive.
• Leading up to the event, finalists meet with University of Charleston Innovation Center business coaches to get tips and suggestions for their respective business plan presentations.
• Finalists pitch business plan to promote their idea and outline need for capital investment at Thrive.
• Top vote-getting entrepreneur will take home cash prize to scale-up operations.

• Community members pay a $25 entry fee to attend Thrive, which gives them the opportunity to vote for an entrepreneur to support for capital investment.
• Community member attendance fees are combined with seed capital from event sponsors for the top vote-getter's capital investment. 

Community members and Charleston Police Department officers will come together for National Coffee with a Cop Day at 8 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 4 at the Charleston Area Alliance, located at 1116 Smith St. 

Coffee with a Cop brings police officers and the community members they serve together–over coffee–to discuss issues and learn more about each other. In a short time, community members and police officers get to know each other and discover mutual goals for the community they work in and serve. 

The event gives police officers opportunities, outside of crisis situations, to relax and chat with citizens in the community, while it provides community members access and opportunity for distraction-free conversations with local officers.

Coffee with a Cop began as a grassroots initiative in March 2011 in Hawthorne, Calif. to better understand the needs and concerns of community residents. Since then, Coffee with a Cop’s mission of breaking down the barriers between police officers and the citizens they serve has successfully spread to all 50 states and nine countries.

National Coffee with a Cop Day is a day dedicated by the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services Office to encourage communication and positive interactions between law enforcement agencies and the public. The Day began as part of National Community Policing Week in 2016 and now continues each year the first Wednesday in October, furthering efforts nationwide to bridge the gap between the community and the law.

Leadership Kanawha Valley is a program to develop, support and connect emerging talent throughout the region. From young professionals to senior executives, the program gives participants the tools, knowledge, experiences and connections to enhance their community impact.

Sponsored by Frontier Communications and Thomas Health System, Leadership Kanawha Valley builds strong connections across private, public and nonprofit sectors and helps graduates find their place in the community. 

Through the eight-month program, participants learn about the issues shaping the community from the experts working on them, form lasting bonds with classmates who are active leaders and strengthen professional skills with a leadership development curriculum. The program works to inspire participants to become more impactful leaders and maintain involvement in the social, business and political fabric of the community.

Since 2004, more than 325 have joined the Leadership Kanawha Valley alumni network. 
 

• Best Overall
• Best Use of Product or Merchandise
• Best Theme
• Most Original
• People’s Choice

Winner of the Holiday Window Display Contest People’s Choice Award will receive an advertising package from WCHS-TV.

Participating businesses are encouraged to use white LED lights – tying into the Charleston Convention & Visitors Bureau’s Light Up Charleston initiative – to bring the window vignettes to life. For more information on Light Up Charleston, contact Samantha Carney, Charleston CVB sports and special events manager.  

Click here  for Holiday Window Display Contest guidelines. 

• 1031 Quarrier St., Charleston, WV 25301 The Atlas Building
• 37 Downing St, Charleston, WV 25301
• 1108 Kanawha Blvd. E., Unit 404, Charleston, WV 25301
• 814 Virginia St., Charleston, WV 25301 The Virginian
• 601 Morris St., Charleston, WV 25301 Charmco Building             

• 180-182 Summers St., Charleston, WV 25301, presented by Goldman Associates
• 209 Hale St., Charleston, WV 25301, presented by West Virginia Commercial
• 232 Capitol St., Charleston, WV 25301, presented by Capitol Center
• 135 Summers St., Charleston, WV 25301 Summers Square, presented by Berkshire Hathaway
• 123 Summers St., Charleston, WV 25301 Capitol Theater, presented by Berkshire Hathaway
• 118 Capitol St., Charleston, WV 253001, presented by Melanie McClellan and Real Estate Resources
• 817 Quarrier St., Charleston, WV 25301, presented by April Epperly and Real Estate Resources
• 1031 Quarrier St, Suite C, Charleston, WV 25301, presented by Riggs Corporation
• 716 Lee St., Charleston, WV 25301, presented by Rusty Webb
• 170 Summers St., Charleston, WV 25301 Dupont Hotel, presented by the City of Charleston

Dr. Julie Robinson, chief scientist for the International Science Station, will share how the ISS is yielding results across fields as diverse as astrophysics, nanomaterials, combustion, microbiology and human psychology and highlight some of the research facility’s most dramatic discoveries that benefit us all at the Alliance's Elevations luncheon Wednesday, Oct. 19 at The Clay Center. 

Presented with title sponsorship support from Dow Chemical, the Elevations professional development series incudes speakers who represent the diverse interests valued by the Kanawha Valley’s professional women. 

Robinson counts her experience as a delegate in 1985 at the National Youth Science Camp, located near Bartow, W.Va., as vital in helping contribute to her successful career path. Since then, Robinson has stayed connected to the prestigious Mountain State STEM program, operated by the National Youth Science Foundation, serving as a presenter to encourage the future science leaders.

Flying more than 200 miles above Earth's surface, the 357-foot-long ISS facility is an engineering marvel, home to the only U.S. National Laboratory in a microgravity environment. With six resident crew members representing a variety of nations, ground teams around the globe stand ready to support station activities on a daily basis.

As the chief scientist for the ISS, Robinson has overseen the transition of the laboratory from the assembly period, with just a few dozen active investigations, to full utilization, with hundreds of active investigations. She represents all space station users, including NASA-funded investigators, the new community of investigators using the station as a National Laboratory, and the international research community. 

Robinson has an interdisciplinary background in the physical and biological sciences and her professional experience has included research activities in a variety of fields, including virology, analytical chemistry, genetics, statistics, field biology, and remote sensing.  She earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Utah State University in 1989.  She earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology from the University of Nevada Reno in 1996. 

She began her career at NASA Johnson Space Center (working for Lockheed Martin), in the Image Science Laboratory and later led a major NASA-sponsored scientific project to facilitate a distribution network for global maps of coral reefs in the world.  She has collaborated with ecologists and conservation biologists in incorporating remote sensing data into their projects, and most recently published the textbook Remote Sensing for Ecology and Conservation Biology. She joined NASA as a civil servant in the Office of the ISS Program Scientist in 2004, was named Deputy ISS Program Scientist in 2006, and ISS Chief Scientist in 2007.  She received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal in 2011.

The National Youth Science Camp was founded in 1963 as a part of West Virginia’s Centennial Celebration as a summer forum where two delegates representing each state exchange ideas with leading scientists and other professionals from academic and corporate worlds. The camp’s extensive alumni network is one of its major strengths – the program encourages students to go further than they think they could and encourages them to serve as West Virginia ambassadors throughout their careers.

We communicate our business every day, and it reflects our work ethics, our capabilities, and our motivations. But the tools of our trade do not come with a manual. Wouldn't it be great to know the standards and best practices to make better connections?

This basic workshop helps you, your office manager, and your sales personnel to write better emails, communicate expectations, know when to pick up your phone, and how to avoid being 'that guy' in meetings.

German native and Mountaineer by marriage Jens Kiel is the founder and CEO of Made in Germany, a marketing and creative strategy consultancy. He is a consummate professional with significant national and international experience in corporate communications. His business, located in the Charleston Area Alliance Small Business Incubator, is helping professional, technical, and scientific service companies to communicate to their audience with impact.

Registration is $15 for Alliance members and $20 for future Alliance members and includes a boxed lunch. Seating is limited.