During challenging economic times, business owners and individual taxpayers alike must be aware of the bottom line. The Charleston Area Alliance and Dixon Hughes Goodman have teamed together to bring you expert analysis and insight on critical issues that impact the region’s businesses. 

 “Reduce Your State & Local Tax Burden,” the next session of a new professional development initiative called SUCCESStrategies, is scheduled from noon to 1:15 p.m. on Wednesday, June 8 at the Alliance offices, 1116 Smith Street.

Registration is $15 for Alliance members and $25 for future members and increases to $25 and $35 starting June 6. Register here.

The program will feature prominent tax professionals who will share tips about tax strategies, tax credits, filing and avoiding penalties at the state level. The roundtable will be moderated by Rick Slater, Managing Partner at Dixon Hughes Goodman. Speakers include:

• Craig Griffith, West Virginia Tax Commissioner
• Bob Kiss, Partner with Bowles Rice McDavid Graff & Love, and
• Lydia McKee, Senior Manager with Dixon Hughes Goodman

“This major education initiative is a great benefit to local businesses –both small and large. It is critically important that we keep current in this ever changing environment,” says Rick Slater, Regional Managing Partner at Dixon Hughes Goodman, LLP.

SUCCESStrategies is raising the bar for professional development programming in the Charleston region as evidenced by the first program, which focused on health care reform and what it means to West Virginia employers. This new series showcases high level speakers addressing issues of real substance to business leaders in the area and will be held at the Alliance office every other month through the end of 2011.

This story appears in this morning’s Charleston Gazette.

By Eric Eyre
Charleston Gazette

The U.S. economy is “kind of sputtering along,” but that’s not a bad thing, BB&T CEO Kelly King told Charleston business leaders Wednesday night.

“That’s the way an economy has to rebuild itself during recovery, especially after a recession that was so deep and so broad,” said King, who heads the nation’s eighth-largest commercial bank.

Speaking at the Charleston Area Alliance’s “Annual Celebration” at the Clay Center, King said Americans shouldn’t expect a robust or “boomerang” economy during the next three to five years. Instead, he said, they’ll see slow, steady growth.

“What we need is jobs, jobs, jobs,” he said. “The recession is over. We are in recovery.” (more…)

This story appears in today’s Charleston Daily Mail.

By George Hohmann
Daily Mail Business Editor

If the federal government hadn’t overreacted to the 2008 financial crisis, “which whipped the country into a panic frenzy, we would have survived fine,” said Kelly King, chairman and chief executive officer of BB&T Corp.

“Several big firms would have failed, we would have had 30 days of anxiety, then we would have moved on,” King said. “We would have had a tough recession,” but not a catastrophe.

King delivered the keynote speech Wednesday at the Charleston Area Alliance’s Annual Celebration. More than 400 business leaders from the region attended the event at the Clay Center.

Given that the federal government did create a panic, “there were days you could see the whole system collapsing,” he said. “Given that we were in that situation, you had to step in. In that context, TARP (the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which pumped money into banks, General Motors, AIG and some other companies) was a good thing. But it did not have to happen.”

Although TARP gave the banking business a black eye because people still refer to it as the bank bailout, “when the dust settles the whole TARP program may actually turn a profit,” King said.

The federal overreaction was unfortunate, King said, because “when you have a big panic and the government steps in, it so undermines the system. The system is built on confidence. Before this, we bankers were fairly well thought of. Right after this we were down there with the lawyers.” (more…)

Downtown ArtWalk continues its 2011 season Thursday.

More and more downtown businesses are joining the effort to revitalize and reawaken downtown. ArtWalk brings people downtown, and once they see what it has to offer, they keep coming back.

Before the May 19 ArtWalk, Charleston Catholic High School students will be creating sidewalk art in front of ArtWalk venues for viewing this evening.

ArtWalk is the epitome of why more and more people are going downtown – to be part of a rich culture. Charleston offers food, ideas, expressions, shops and customs not found anywhere else, and we identify with the charm.

Visit www.CharlestonArtWalk.com for more information. ArtWalk runs from 5 to 8 p.m.

ArtWalk Locations

Art Emporium
Stray Dog Antiques
Gallery Eleven
Annex Gallery Taylor Books      
Good News Mountaineer Garage
Chet Lowther Studio
The Purple Moon
Modern by Design
Romano & Associates Law Gallery
Visions Day Spa
Studio 1031
White Oak Photography & 
    KD Lett Photographic Productions

 
Art Walk Highlights

White Oak Photography
& K.D. Lett Photographic Productions

New work by K.D. Lett & Michelle Krompecher will be shown in the front gallery and the permanent exhibit will be on display in the back gallery. 
 

Art Emporium 

Art Emporium presents Traci Higginbotham’s “Visual Navigations,” original acrylic paintings on canvas. The exhibit runs through June 11. An artist reception is scheduled during ArtWalk.  
 

Modern by Design

Modern by Design will feature works from California artist Leo Possillico and Charleston artist Joe Bolyard.

Leo Possillico, a native of Long Island, New York, has been a successful, award-winning artist for more than 30 years. His work is known and praised nationally and internationally and is widely recognizable through his signature brush stroke characters. He works in series.

The “Gallery” series, from which the pieces showing at Modern by Design have been chosen, expresses the various art works that one can be exposed to while in the gallery, or museum and is both humorous and serious.

Joe Bolyard is a West Virginia artist who moved back to Charleston in 1998. Joe works in acrylics, mixed media, ink and also produces pieces with metals, such as pewter, brass and aluminum. Joe’s work varies from small gallery pieces to large commission pieces for peoples’ homes and offices. Joe’s work usually explores depths of colour and texture, with styles ranging from the abstract to ethereal and even spiritual.

Taylor Books

The Annex Gallery will present “Modus Operandi: New works on paper by Natalie Gibbs Burdette and Kristen Zammiello.” This show features dry point etchings, graphite drawings, linoleum block prints by two talented young women from the Marshall Graduate program.

Purple Moon

The Purple Moon is pleased to present new works by Sharon Lyn Stackpole in a show opening during ArtWalk.Born in 1969, Sharon is a native West Virginian who studied painting and art history at Fairmont State and West Virginia University. After art school, she worked for some time as a newspaper reporter and columnist in West Virginia, and still maintains a daily blog. She is a strong supporter of arts in education and lobbies for the restoration of art instruction at the primary grade levels in West Virginia.

Romano and Associates

Miranda Fields, a West Virginia-based artist who specializes in photography, will be the featured artist at Romano and Associates. She is teaching Beginning Photography at Marshall University, where she graduated with her Masters in Art in 2010. She has displayed images from her series Six in numerous local galleries, as well as the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art and, most recently, was chosen as one of ten international students to exhibit in the third annual Breaking Boundaries exhibition in Pingyao, China.

Gallery Eleven

Cross Lanes artist Gloria Jean Pennnington will be the featured artist for the May ArtWalk at Gallery Eleven, 1033 Quarrier Street, Charleston. Her eclectic style will be evident in this show which features an new genre of paintings and collages of fish, corral, sponges and anything “Under the Sea”. Also included are some fish made of clay, Pennington’s love of the ocean was renewed following a snorkeling trip to the Virgin Islands and several of the new works reflect a Caribbean theme.

Good News Mountaineer Garage

Good News is pleased to present “Works by Kate Long.”Kate Long likes to paint pictures that tell stories with titles such as “Giant squashes barricade Capitol. Legislators flee,” and “Outraged sunflower.” In her photographs, she finds ways to frame ordinary details of life – a butterfly’s tail, an ice puddle – in an extraordinary way.

“I try to take pictures that make me – and other people – see ordinary things in new ways’,” she says. Long, a Charleston resident, writes for The Charleston Gazette and produces for public radio. This is her first public showing of her paintings and photos.

The head of one of the nation’s largest financial holding companies will share his insights on the nation’s economic meltdown and what lies ahead at the Charleston Area Alliance Annual Celebration, to be held Wednesday, May 25, at the Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences. 

Jackson Kelly is the event’s Title Sponsor.

A keynote address on “After the Crisis” by BB&T Corporation Chairman and CEO Kelly King will highlight this annual tribute to the people, businesses and organizations that have helped build a more vibrant community and prosperous economy.     

The Annual Celebration will feature an engaging, fast-paced presentation, including remarks by King and a salute to the 2011 College Summit Scholarship recipients and Leadership Kanawha Valley graduates, in the Maier Performance Hall. The formal program will followed by a spectacular reception in the stunning lobby of the Clay Center.

A VIP invitation-only reception for event sponsors will kick off the evening’s festivities. 

VIP Sponsor Reception (invitation only):  
4:00-5:00 p.m.
Annual Celebration Formal Program: 
5:00-6:15 p.m.
Gala Reception: 
6:15-8:00 p.m. 

Tickets are $200 Alliance members/$250 future members.

Click here to register.

“The Annual Celebration, the Alliance’s largest fundraiser of the year, is your opportunity to share in the pride for the Kanawha Valley and sustain the Alliance’s vital work in creating jobs, enhancing our community and investing in people,” said Alliance President/CEO Matt Ballard.

“We invite you to join the more than 500 business and community leaders who will attend for this business event of the year. With your participation, we will truly have something to ‘celebrate’ on May 25 – and beyond,” Ballard said.

We are unable to invoice for groups with fewer than 10 or issue refunds for cancellations received less than 48 hours prior to the event. Thank you.

Online registration for the May 12 Business After Hours at City National Bank ends at noon Thursday!

Join us for the annual Business After Hours block party. It runs from 5 to 8 p.m.

Click here to register.

Enjoy great food, drinks and the start of summer.

Business After Hours also is an excellent networking opportunity.

Registration for is $15 for Alliance members and $25 for future members. 

Prices increase to $25 and $35 at the door.

We are unable to invoice for groups with fewer than 10 people or issue refunds for cancellations received less than 48 hours prior to the event. Thank you.