UPDATE: Owners of Putnam County business talk about Pence’s visit – WSAZ-TV
UPDATE 3/26/17 @ 10:15 p.m. TEAYS VALLEY, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- When a world leader's platform is in the middle of a warehouse, there's usually a good story tucked close by.
Vice President Mike Pence spent almost all his Saturday trip to the mountain state on the campus of Teays Valley business, Foster Supply
"And let me thank our hosts today, Ronald Reagan Foster and Nancy Reagan Foster. I just said a little bit ago, they're my second favorite Ron and Nancy's I've ever met." Vice President Mike Pence said.
Owners Ron and Nancy hosted one of the most powerful men in the world and say he was a gracious guest.
"He's so personable, and he remembered our names, remembered our employees, remembered what business we do, so it was remarkable. Wouldn't you agree?" Nancy Reagan Foster said.
The focus of the visit was small businesses like Ron's, which started in 1981, with the help of his twin sons. The legacy is still going strong.
He said, "We're transitioning into the next generation, and the United States of America has just transitioned from one presidency to another, and I think small business is gonna have a voice."
Brothers Ron and Geoff are also owners and run different divisions of the company.
"The round table discussion was very valuable and just to see it was really interesting, just seeing that the current administration in Trump and Pence are very, very interested in small business," said Ron.
"He talked to us about certain issues and then came down here and actually remembered those issues, talked about them, mentioned them in his speech," said Geoff.
Parts of a round table discussion spilled over into the occasional joke from the podium
The Vice President joked, "I just heard that you have a wall division here at Fosters. Maybe we need to talk."
A family business now hoping the Vice President remembers the notes he took in West Virginia.
"Hello West Virginia! It is great to be back, if only just to say thanks," he addresses the crowd after walking onto a small stage inside a Foster Supply warehouse.
Foster Supply hosted two events for Vice President Pence, a campaign-style speech with an audience of an estimated 150 people and a more intimate roundtable discussion with approximately a dozen small business owners.
"President Donald Trump is gonna be the best friend American small business will ever have," Pence told the crowd.
In the larger setting, SBA Administrator Linda McMahon helped rally the crowd.
"I've been bankrupt. I've had my house auctioned off, my car repossessed in the driveway, pregnant with my second child at the time, so i get it," she said. "And that's what President Trump wants to do -- proper taxes, proper regulatory environment, making sure that we are providing our small businesses with the tools that we need to start, to grow and to be successful."
Tim Burns, the CEO of Grassmasters, LLC, a landscaping business located in Scott Depot, was one of the few selected to shake hands with the VP and one of a dozen to participate in the roundtable discussion
"Everybody really had a chance to go around and talk about their business, problems they face," he says. "Meeting Vice President Pence was definitely an honor, and he was very open to what we had to say, and I feel like it was a very good conversation."
Not much from the sit-down conversation made its way to the stage. Instead, Pence preached a message to the crowd that the Trump administration has not forgotten West Virginians.
"West Virginia voted overwhelmingly to make Donald Trump the 45th President of the United States, and we will never forget it," Pence said.
Predictably, the conversation also moved to building a wall, healthcare and coal.
"Right after we dropped our hands on January 20th, it was official, the war on coal is over, and a new era of American Energy has begun."
A day after legislation was pulled off the House floor that would have unraveled former President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, Pence told a gathering Saturday in Scott Depot, West Virginia, that "we will end the Obamacare nightmare and give the American people the world class health care that they deserve."
He told a few hundred people at construction materials firm Foster Supply that Friday's setback was a victory for the status quo in Washington, D.C., "but I promise you that victory won't last very long."
Earlier, Pence and U.S. Small Business Administrator leader Linda McMahon held a private discussion with a dozen business owners about the challenges they face.
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UPDATE: Owners of Putnam County business talk about Pence's visit - WSAZ-TV
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