Kelley Goes is the youngest cabinet officer in the Manchinadministration and the first woman to serve as secretary of thestate Department of Commerce. Its a far cry from her early interestsin engineering and 16th century British prose. Goes was named headof the Commerce Department in January 2007, succeeding Tom Bulla,who returned to a career in banking. Earlier this month Gov. JoeManchin appointed her to a second job executive director of theWest Virginia Development Office. She succeeds Steve Spence, whocontinues as director of the offices International Division. TheLegislature elevated Commerce to cabinet department status in 2005.Manchins office has called the department the cornerstone ofeconomic development for West Virginia. In addition to thedevelopment office, the department is comprised of the divisions offorestry, labor, natural resources, tourism and energy and theOffice of Miners Health, Safety and Training; the Geological andEconomic Survey; and Workforce West Virginia, the states workforcedevelopment agency. Goes directs a staff of 2,261 and a $276.2million budget, although a lot of that is pass-through money,especially on the community development side. The development officehas a staff of about 90 and a $76.6 million budget. Goes, 38, is aPittsburgh native. She speaks softly and has a laser-quick wit.Listen to her for a while and youll find yourself leaning in tocatch her humorous asides. Her grasp of details is impressive.During her years in grade school Goes father worked for ConsolEnergy. She lived in Washington and Somerset, Pa. The family movedto Braxton County when her father took a job with a coal companythere. Goes was valedictorian when she graduated from Braxton CountyHigh School in 1987. At the time I was looking at engineeringschools, she said. A mentor convinced her to not go to a purelytechnical school. She enrolled at Vanderbilt University inNashville, Tenn. Goes said she enjoyed the engineering curriculumbut it didnt leave much time for other classes. I took a poetryclass. I had a wonderful professor who showed you how intellectuallychallenging poetry could be. I decided I didnt really want to beengineer so I thought, Why not be a true liberal arts major and takeLatin, Spanish, extra math classes and English? She ended upmajoring in 16th century British prose, which proves that when youre17 you know nothing about yourself. One benefit of her major: I readall of the great scientists of the 16th century because, back then,how else would you communicate or survive? Goes took between 19 and21 credit hours her last two years of college and graduated fromVanderbilt in 1991. I was accepted into the Master of Philosophy andEmblematic Studies at the University of Glasgow, she said. Emblemsare images with texts that developed in all European countries andlanguages during the Renaissance and continued to flourish in theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Goes liked the pageantry andpropaganda and rich tradition encapsulated by emblems. But I wouldntstart school for a whole year, she said. At the time, her family wasin London, Ky. Goes said her father learned how much it would costto send her to school in Scotland and, worried about anundergraduate degree that might not bear fruit, strongly encouragedher to take the Law School Admission Test. Goes said at that pointher work history consisted of assisting a veterinarian in Kentucky,working as a truck stop waitress at Skidmores in Flatwoods, andserving as a residential adviser at Vanderbilt. I applied to lawschools and the University of Kentucky offered me a scholarship thatincluded free basketball tickets, so the decision was made for me,she laughed. Goes graduated in 1995 and moved to Dallas, where shehooked up with a firm that promptly dissolved. The good news was, itwas a well-respected local firm. She interviewed with others andlanded with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, one of the most famousfirms in the nation (the Strauss in the firm: Robert Strauss,chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1973 to 1976; acabinet-level special trade representative in President JimmyCarters cabinet; and Carters personal representative to the MiddleEast Peace Negotiations. In 1991 Strauss was appointed ambassador tothe Soviet Union.) After starting work in litigation, Goesgravitated to patent infringement and intellectual propertylitigation. Then she got engaged to Erik Goes, a Kentucky native whowas working in West Virginia. They moved here and she worked forSteptoe & Johnson from 1996 to 1998. She went back to the Akin lawfirm in Dallas but returned to West Virginia in 2002. Goes said sheliked the Dallas firm and was making good money, but it was time tocome home. It was after Sept. 11. We were talking about raising ourown family and couldnt think of raising kids anywhere but WestVirginia. She got a job with the Attorney Generals office as legalcounsel to the divisions of natural resources, tourism and forestry agencies that are now in the Commerce Department. It was fun workingin state government, learning how hard agencies work and what theirmissions are, she said. After Commerce was reorganized she workedwith Secretary Bulla and Brian Helmick, who was the departmentsdeputy secretary and general counsel, on a variety of issues. WhenHelmick decided to return to private practice in 2006, Bulla askedGoes to become his deputy. I thought really hard about it, Goessaid. I decided I would like to continue working for thisadministration because I really believed in what they were trying todo. Six months later, Bulla left. Goes became Commerce secretary onJuly 3, 2006. Goes said that adding the job of executive director ofthe development office to her duties doesnt really change muchbecause she already has a lot of contact, including weekly staffmeetings, with Commerces agencies. Also, Mark Julian, the directorof the development offices Business and Industrial DevelopmentDivision, has been named deputy executive director of thedevelopment office and is managing the day-to-day operation andadministration of the development office. Goes said the developmentoffice consists of many dedicated individuals who have been there along time. They have a lot of historical knowledge they know whatworks well and what the challenges are, she said. At Commerce wevesaid the best sales person in the state is Joe Manchin, she said. Hehas a history of accomplishments building the business environment.We need to back that up by providing companies with high-qualityservice. When youre marketing the state youve got your hands fullfinding sites and working through location challenges, she said.Thats where we excel. We offer customized service for companies tolocate or expand and we work really well with other agencies instate government, so we do feel comfortable calling Workforce WestVirginia about what they can do, calling the Tax Department todiscuss business incentives. Thats really where we can and have seengreat success when we start using all of the resources we have as astate and operating as a guide for companies. Goes said thedepartment will soon roll out a marketing program that will pointout the positive changes in the states business climate that haveoccurred over the past few years. Thats attractive to businessesbecause, when you can communicate that to them, they have theconfidence that they can focus on the costs of doing business theycan control and not worry about the costs they cant control, shesaid. This administration has crystallized the reality that thebetter a company does in the state, the better the state does, sotheres a real opportunity to partner with companies, she said. Whenthat works, you dont need one agency to stand out and say, Look atme. The new marketing program will fit right in with Manchins ComeHome campaign, she said. Goes tends to plan in one-week increments.Our goal every week is to make sure everything were working on iseither advanced or youve checked on it, she said. Because thisadministration and my agency have an ambitious agenda, the way tomanage that is to try to move everything forward. Some days its astruggle to return all of the phone calls and e-mails. No two daysare ever alike. Its never boring. I get to wake up every morning andask, What can I do for West Virginia today? What seed can we plant?What question can we answer for a company? How can I make thisagency operate more efficiently? What can we make better? Weve seensuch huge strides I cant believe how far weve come in 18 months,she said. Goes and her husband will mark their 12th anniversary inOctober. Erik is an assistant U.S. attorney. He works out of thefederal courthouse, downtown. The Goes have two daughters: Grace, 4,and Hannah, 3. The family lives in Scott Depot. When shes notworking, Goes enjoys cooking, reading and spending time with herfamily. Im not secretly a bass guitarist for a rock band or anythinglike that, she said.
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