CHARLESTON, W.Va. –A two-day show that helps coal mining businesses connect with one another, but also potential customers is in Charleston.

The West Virginia Coal Show, put on by SEMCO Publishing in partnership with the West Virginia Coal Association as they celebrate their 51st symposium, began April 15 at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.

Peter Johnson, President of SEMCO says that this is the second year they have partnered with WVCA.

He said that when he approached them about working together, Johnson said that he didn’t know what the end results were going to be.

“Without any really expectations, we didn’t know if there was going to be 30 booths, 50 booths, whatever, we ended up with 150 booths the first year,” Johnson said. “So that exceeded certainly our expectations.”

He says that this year’s pre-show registration, has already exceeded expectations.

“Coming into this year’s show, we were probably about 30 to 40 percent ahead on advanced registrations for attendance and we’ve had a good walk in traffic today as well,” he said. “I have no idea what the numbers are or what they’ll end up being.”

The show had over 150 exhibitors this year.

One company, Jennmar, has supported the coal industry for over 50 years, began making ground control products for mining services only. However, they have since expanded into making their products to support all sorts of infrastructure.

Jennmar

Vice President of Engineering at Jennmar Ben Mirabile said that the company loves the opportunity the show gives them.

“Because it gives us a chance to see our customers away from the mine sites, see them out have a little bit of social time but right here this is our core customer base, this is where we started, and this is really who we are,” Mirabile said. “So, really like this show, we were here last year and plan to continue to be.

Another company, Schurco Slurry, is a family-owned business out of Jacksonville, Florida, with a manufacturer out of South Africa.

Nick Schur, the owner said that they weren’t at last year’s show. He said that he was approached by someone with North America Mining at an expo he was at last year.

He says they are using this show as an opportunity to sell back into the mining market.

“We’ve come back up into coal, because much to people’s chagrin coal is still a commodity that people are purchasing, so we’re back up here, we took about a five-year hiatus and now we’re back up here trying to sell into this marketplace,” Schur said.

Along with the exhibitors being able to network, the show, with the help from WVCA, they were able to, at the last minute, bring the first annual job fair for companies and people who are looking to hire or wanting to get into the coal industry. This was also in conjunction with Work Force West Virginia.

Johnson said that since this was the first job fair, they didn’t have time to get the word out there about it. However, next year they plan on making sure that they can advertise it a little bit better.

He said that his role was to get exhibitors to the show floor.

A Schurco slurry pump

“What we’re doing is trying to add reasons for people to come, we try the usual things with the door prizes,” Johnson said. “The people do come to attend the conference sessions as well, but we need people on the show floor. Our goal is to keep growing mainly the attendance, and if we do the attendance first, the exhibits will follow.”

U.S. Senator Jim Justice was one of the key speakers at the conference. They were also able to get Jimmy Brock, the CEO of Coal and Natural Resources and Randall Atkins, the CEO of Ramaco Coal.

The show will conclude at 6 p.m. on April 15 and pick back up on April 16 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For more information on the show, you can go to their website at www.wvcoalshow.com.