Danny Twilley of the Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative at West Virginia University #100

Trail EAffect Episode 100 with Danny Twilley of the Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative at West Virginia University

This is Part 1 of a 4 Part Series featuring the Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative

• Danny Twilley Backstory
• Stacking Outdoor Experiences
• Outdoor Recreation Transforming People and Place
• The Bailey’s Trail System Backstory in Athens County Ohio
• Becoming part of the IMBA Trail Labs Presenters Team
• How Danny ended up at West Virginia University Backstory
• Side Topic – Back to Bailey’s Trail System
• Creating the Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative
  • Born out of an idea at the 2019 Snowshoe WV World Cup Event
• Selling the vision through a data driven approach and presentation
• Asset Mapping and how they used data see how West Virginia compares to other outdoor recreation communities
• Danny attending a presentation by Brad Smith, the CEO of Intuit at the time
• Tulsa, OK and Outdoor Recreation, and how that lead to Danny digging deeper
  • What Tulsa Remote was doing
• Learning and leveraging the Remote Worker Concept
  • Looking at other states similar to West Virginia and learning / creating the narrative on the West Virginia Advantage
• Pressure testing the concept of Remote Work
• The first meeting / presentation to Brad Smith
• The gift of 25 million dollars from Brad and Alys Smith
• Building out the Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative through the core of COVID – 2020 / 2021
• Partnering with the West Virginia Department of Tourism
• Creating Ascend West Virginia
• Tourism is the Red Carpet to Residency
  • Creating Ambassadors for the state
• The West Virginia Advantage: Valuable, Rare and Hard to Imitate
• Really digging deep into community data, and a complete holistic approach on this
  • Ground Truthing this by actually talking to the residents of the communities
• Trails – the arteries of Outdoor Recreation that can be built unlike other outdoor recreation assets
• Putting trails in within a mile of every house in Morgantown, WV
• The reason for hiring an expert in trail development for the team such as Rich Edwards
• The reason for hiring Andy Williamson his understanding of non-profits, communities and outdoor recreation
• The importance of a good Trail Plan / Design in unlocking funding for trail building
• Closing Comments and teasers for Parts 2, 3 and 4 of this series

Links:

Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative:  https://oedc.wvu.edu/

Dr. Danny Twilley Bio: https://oedc.wvu.edu/about-us/meet-the-team/danny-twilley

Brad D. Smith: https://braddsmith.com/

Ascend West Virginia: https://ascendwv.com/

Bailey’s Trail System: https://baileystrailsystem.org/

This Podcast has been edited and produced by Evolution Trail Services

Trail EAffect Show Links:

Evolution Trail Services: www.evotrails.com

Contact Josh at evolutiontrails@gmail.com

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