West Virgina is beautiful with its mountains, lakes, valleys and Hawks Nest State Park. The first two visits I made to this state, I became lost on the highways, but enjoyed myself, because of the beauty that I discovered along the way.

During October 2008, the Job Search Engine CareerBuilder.com named 30 top cities for finding successful jobs and careers in the USA.

Morgantown, WV was named to the CareerBuilder Top 30 List as the Number Five City for successful job hunting. Considerations for this rank included a comparatively lower unemployment rate and cost of living, proportionately higher median/Mean wages, a healthy outlook for industry expansion/startup, and other factors.

Bizjournals.com named Morgantown the Best Small City in the US.

The Morgantown Area Economic Partnership, or MAP is an active regional group that serves all of the Greater Morgantown Area of Monongalia and Preston Counties combined. This group assists new businesses to open with special financing, employee recruitment/training, property locations, and other information.

The Greater Morgantown Convention & Visitors Bureau Innovative Programming Grant Programis another entity that assists new businesses to locate and grow in the Morgantown area. Not far from the Monongahela National Forest, Morgantown and its business incentive programs encourage the region's growing Travel and Tourism Industry, along with associated expansion in retail sales, dining, sports, recreation, and entertainment.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown is a lab for developing and exapdning clean energy for sustainability in the 21st century. Primary among these interests is the use of Clean Coal and Goal Gasification Transport (using gas produced from coal). Groundbreaking work has been done by the lab's Chris Guenther, with a summary avaiabelonline at Clean Coal Alchemy. Another of the lab's goals is top promote and develop a Hydrogen fuel cell based economy.

Visit the comprehensive website at National Energy Technology Laboratory and view their career and fellowship listings online. Videos and Congressional Testimonies from the lab are also avialable on the site.

Morgantown was founded circa 1765 - 1785 with a land grant given to several men from Virginia. Previous to that time, certain trappers and settlers lived around Decker's Creek in the same area. Native Americans and white settlers both claims lands in the same area, leading to conflict that declined and greater number of European Americans entered the region and stayed.

Zachquill Morgan created a city plan in 1785 that called for a network of roads to all points around the valley in which Morgantown lay. Today, Morgantown is a channel through which substantial traffic passes between the Midwest and Eastern States and form Southern States as well..

Settlers were confident enough by 1791 of a lasting peace with the remaining local Native Americans that they encouraged new settlers to come to Morgantown, names after one of the original men grated property rights in the community. The Native Americans left the area almost completely as Morgantown and other cities grew. From trading posts, the town grew to become a commercial and transportation hub in the Monongahela Valley. After the incorporation of the city in 1838, roads were improved and heavy traffic flowed through the river valley and the city.

Nearby South Morgantown was annexed by Morgantown a nit later and beacme the Warehouse District, which, with the industrialized Wharf District in the Great Depression, fell into economic decline right up to about 1990. Revitalization began at that time, as it has in several small and medium-sized cities across the United States.

The Morgantown Historic Landmark Commission has facilitated the rehabilitation and registry of many local and nationally-recognized historic sites around the Wharf and Warehouse Districts. Rails-to-Trails biking and hiking programs now operates along the railroad tracks near the Monongahela River, while shops and restaurants have found success in these urban areas. West Virgina State University continues to expand in this area as well, bringing in new students.

Learn more about Morgantown WVa at Morgantown History.

• Office/Administrative Support -- The industrial sectors of Healthcare, Government, and Education will likely continue to demand additional high numbers of office workers and support staff through 2016 or 2018.
• Sales positions – includes salespersons and supervisors -- At Travel & Tourism grows as an industry in West Virginia and as other jobs increase and draw new families and individuals to Morgantown, sales will climb and requrie additional workers.
• Food & Beverage Preparation and Service - all types of establishments, another part of Travel & Tourism as well as Recreation. 
• Transportation/Freight and Materials Moving
• Production/Manufacturing jobs
• Education, Training, and Library related jobs
• Healthcare Practitioners and Techs
• Primary, Secondary, and Special Education School Teachers
• Installation, Maintenance & Repair
• Management jobs - all fields and in all levels. 

For autumn 2009:

1. Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs)
2. Physical Therapists
3. Registered Nurses - RNs
4. Licensed Practical Nurses - LPNs
5. Occupational Therapists
6. Pennsylvania Travel Therapy jobs
7. Independent Beauty Consultants - sales
8. Physical Therapy Assistants
9. Clinical Associates
10. Tax Professional / Tax Preparers
11. Assistant Managers
12. Crew Members - food service

1. West Virginia University
2. West Virginia University Hospitals
3. Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
4. Monongalia County Board of Education
5. University Health Associates
6. Monongalia General Hospital
7. Wal-Mart Associates, Inc.
8. Teletech Customer Care Management (WV), Inc.
9. Gabriel Brothers, Inc.
10. West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services -- Center for Disease Control

West Virginia University - This school offers three different campuses in Morgantown: 1) Downtown, 2) Evansdale, and 3) Ruby Memorial Hospital/Health Sciences Complex. WCU is on the Top 100 List of best research insitutions in the country.

• West Virginia University Hospital School Of Radiography Technology
• West Virginia University Hospital Dept. Of Nutrition and Dietetics

ADDITIONAL SCHOOLS

• West Virginia Junior College
• Monongalia County Technical Education Center
• Morgantown Beauty College Inc
• Human Resources Development and Employment – non-profit Employment & Training agency.
• Human Resource Development and Training – non-profit corporation (different from the one above)

Additional Morgantown Research Faciltiies

BUSINESS & ENVIRONMENT

• Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and Development
• WV Geological and Economic Survey
• WVa Agriculture and Forestry Experimentation Station
• US Forest Service Engineering Laboratory

HEALTH & MEDICAL:

• National Biometric Security Project @West Virginia
• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health - Center for Disease Control

ENERGY:

• National Energy Technology Laboratory (noted above)
• National Research Center for Coal & Energy
• Petroleum Research Laboratory
• US Bureau of Mines - Coal Research Center