By Stephen Smoot
One of the biggest efforts under previous Secretary of State Mac Warner and the current official in that role, Kris Warner, has been in making the office’s work with businesses more efficient, easier, and more customer friendly. Establishment of the new Office of Entrepreneurship last month advanced that mission considerably. Senate Bill 878 from the 2026 West Virginia State Legislature laid the legal groundwork for it.
Secretary Warner called the new initiative “pretty exciting” and shared that “we hired a new director, Lesli Taylor. She comes to us from the Higher Education Policy Commission. She’s an entrepreneur herself, comes from an entrepreneurial family.”
“I come from a long line of entrepreneurs,” shared Taylor. She described how her first job came “in Paw Paw’s hardware store, running the cash register when I was young.” Taylor noted that in smaller communities, such businesses serve other functions. She remembered how her grandfather’s store was also “a hub of community” providing “a sense of togetherness.”
“It’s so hard to explain to someone who hasn’t lived it,” she added, saying that the store workers knew which customer would come regularly on which day. “If we didn’t see that customer” for a week or two “we’re making phone calls to see if they’re okay.”
Secretary Warner stated that one of the primary goals of the first 100 days lies in “putting together a playbook for anyone starting a business in West Virginia.”
He explained that “We heard from people saying, ‘I just feel like I’m in a gotcha moment. I registered with the Secretary of State’s office, and then everything else is a gotcha moment.’” Some might relate that “I didn’t know that I had to have a city permit or I didn’t know that I had to have a health permit or I didn’t know that I had to have a food handler’s permit.”
“There’ll be links in that playbook,” he said, further adding that “You plug in your address, and they’ll tell you that there might be different requirements if you live inside the city limits of Morgantown versus you’re outside the city limits, or some communities might have different standards based on the type of business.”
“This playbook will basically take you through everything your type of business needs to do” prior to starting. The entrepreneur is then informed about the challenges and compliance requirements so that he or she can either prepare to face them or even decide to go in another direction before taking the risk.
Taylor discussed how the first step towards this office came in the one stop business center, established in 2017. Every business must register with the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office and also submit a yearly report. The effort then expanded to work to include every state agency involved with taxation and regulatory compliance, bringing all the information into one place for both entrepreneurs just starting out and also established businesses to access. Taylor had special praise for Mark Burdette from the small business center and Emily Cramer from the West Virginia Tax Office for their help in bringing the vision together.
The Office of Entrepreneurship will also have a hotline for questions that lead to human voices on the other end. “When people want information, they want to talk to a real person,” Taylor noted.