Local Vienna resident spotlighted by West Virginia Fellowship Program

VIENNA, W.Va. (WTAP) -The Generation West Virginia Fellowship Program is a cohort where leaders across the state can help gain networks from each other and learn new skills along the way.

Chris Mancuso, a architect at Pickering Associates and a council member for the city of Vienna, was working in Denver, Colorado prior, but always wanted to come back home as he wanted to give back.

“I found the opportunity to move home, and get involved with local politics and use my career and profession to really make a much bigger impact in a small town,” Mancuso said. “It’s something that was really appealing to me.”

The program recently started this summer and Chris has been taking advantage of networking by meeting with different people.

“We have the opportunity to network with people across the state and learn from people across the state, and kind of bring that back to our hometown,” Mancuso added. We’ve met folks from Ascend West Virginia, we’ve met the president of WVU. We’ve met with West Virginia tourism. So, we’ve met with a lot of these bigger organizations that kind of run the state.”

Chris, in the end, hopes to take what he’s learned from the program and translate it to becoming a leader in his local community.

“There are all sorts of people we are getting to network with, which I think is so valuable in a state where we are pretty spread out.,” Mancuso said. “Working in small towns and stuff, it’s a little isolating sometimes. To be able to reach out to people in Morgantown, Wheeling, Charleston, or wherever they might be and know they’re working on the same stuff, I think that’s going to be super beneficial to me as being a leader in the community.”

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