Fairmont IT company honored at Small Business Week Award luncheon

FAIRMONT, W.Va. (WBOY) — Small businesses from across West Virginia were honored on Wednesday by the Small Business Association (SBA) at its Small Business Week Ward luncheon in Fairmont.

During the luncheon, the SBA awarded ”West Virginia Small Business Person of the Year” to the team behind Agile5 Technologies Inc., a government-contracted IT company based in Fairmont. The award of  “West Virginia Veteran Owned Business” was won by Hasten Services LLC in Morgantown.

SBA Mid Atlantic Regional Administrator John Fleming was in attendance and spoke about the challenges of growing a small business in West Virginia. “I would say, because it’s a smaller population, it’s tougher to start out so you have to look outside of the state for a lot of your customers,” he said.

Fleming said that another obstacle for small businesses is that there are fewer lenders in West Virginia. He emphasized that small businesses are essential to the economy of West Virginia with and that they are responsible for 64% of employees in the state.