For more than five years, A Vision Shared has tried to identify ways that West Virginia needs to change and outline a path to follow to accomplish those changes.

Now the statewide economic development group will have another entity helping it do its job -- Imagine West Virginia.

Imagine West Virginia is an independent, objective policy research and development institution dedicated to identifying and researching policy issues facing the state. Once the issues are thoroughly researched and examined, the Imagine West Virginia 16-member governing board will make specific recommendations as to how board members believe the state should proceed so the outcome significantly improves residents' quality of life.

"I am so impressed with the caliber of people who have agreed to be on the governing board," said Pat Getty, president of the Benedum Foundation, which is helping to fund and create Imagine West Virginia. "They all have such diverse backgrounds and experiences, but they all have a lot of credibility and stature. I am especially impressed with those from out of state who committed their time and knowledge to help the state where they are originally from."

Becky Cain Ceperley, president of the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation, is one of the people who sits on that governing board. She said Imagine West Virginia was created as an offshoot of A Vision Shared, not to replace it.

"Vision Shared is a whole volunteer group of task forces and work teams -- I think there are about 800 people around the state who have volunteered their time to A Vision Shared -- and through those processes of talking and meeting they've identified a lot of areas that need to change. And a lot of those changes require new public policy," Cain Ceperley said. "And when we start looking at public policy issues, it becomes important to form an objective, independent research arm to look at these policies and really study them."

That's something the individual groups that make up A Vision shared may not have the time, money or capability to do. But that is exactly what Imagine West Virginia is looking to tackle.

"We will have the time to collect the data and research the information," Cain Ceperley said.

But before Imagine West Virginia can start tackling the biggest challenges facing the state, it first must find an executive director. The governing board just posted a job opening for the executive director position on A Vision Shared's Web site, which says the position's salary range will be $70,000 to $90,000 per year.

Imagine West Virginia will be funded trough a mix of grants and donations. The Benedum Foundation already has pledged as much as $200,000 per year to the program. The Foundation already gave Imagine West Virginia its first $50,000. To receive the remaining $150,000, the group must be able to raise that much money from local corporations, community and business groups or other local entities first.

"Our board wants to support something like this, but we also want to make sure it's being supported locally using non-public funds," Getty said. "And we'd like to see funding lined up for several years just to make sure the program has long-term support."

Getty said West Virginia looked at several other states to find examples of how to form the new institution. They examined efforts in North Carolina, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey and California. In the end, the group that helped design Imagine West Virginia opted to mimic New Mexico's public policy research organization, known as Think New Mexico.

"We thought they had the best program for us to follow," Getty said. "Believe it or not, New Mexico and West Virginia are similar in a number of different ways."

So what did the design group like the most about New Mexico's organization?

"One thing we really liked was the concept that this is an independent board of governors that included people of stature who do not have political ambitions at this point in their lives," Getty said. "And when that group of people makes a recommendation, it has credibility because of the stature of the people who sit on the board. Another aspect the designers liked about New Mexico's organization is that Think New Mexico only focuses on one policy recommendation at a time."

That's what Imagine West Virginia will do.

"We may take up only one, maybe two, issues each year," Cain Ceperley said. "We're talking really in-deptph analysis of issues here. We're not just going to flip through a question and say, 'Well, six other states do it like this ...' and go for it. What Imagine West Virginia needs to be is in depth and unbiased in its search for solutions that make a difference for people in the state."

Who Are They?

Below is a list of people who will sit on the governing board of Imagine West Virginia, a newly formed public policy research and development institution dedicated to addressing some of the bigger challenges facing the state.

• Hank Barnett, former CEO, Bethlehem Steel, Bethlehem, Pa.
• Ralph Baxter Jr., chair and CEO, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, San Francisco
• Marty Becker, chairman, West Virginia Media (parent company of The State Journal), Charleston
• Gaston Caperton, president, College Board and former governor of West Virginia, New York City
• Sylvia Mathews, president of Global Development Program, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle.
• Kenny Perdue, president, West Virginia AFL-CIO, Charleston
• Mike Perry, former CEO, Bank One, Huntington
• Sally Richardson, executive director and associate vice president of health sciences, West Virginia University Institute for Health Policy Research, Charleston
• Robert Simpson Jr., managing partner, Simpson & Osborne AC, Charleston
• Craig Underwood, consultant, Boston
• Charles Vest, president emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
• Martha Wehrle, former member, West Virginia Legislature, Charleston
• Becky Cain Ceperley, president, Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation, Charleston
• Newton Thomas, retired executive, Carbon Industries Inc., Charleston
• Tom Heywood, partner, Bowles Rice McDavid Graff & Love, Charleston
• Pat Getty, president, Benedum Foundation, Pittsburgh