The 2nd annual Appalachian Basin Real Estate Conference will provide some insight into the evolving growth of the region. Many government and industry experts recognize that U.S. cannot solely depend on the Houston and Gulf region for petrochemicals for two overriding issues: constant hurricanes and tropical storms are creating havoc for the industry every year; and the recent surge in plastic demand due to the pandemic.
Oglebay Resort and Conference Center
465 Lodge Drive
Wheeling, WV 36003
(304) 241-2545
CLICK HERE to book your room at the Special Conference Rate.
The Appalachian Basin Real Estate Conference will provide a comprehensive view of the once-in-a-generation industrial and commercial development in the region. A wide array of commercial activities are coalescing around the Appalachian Basin. This is your chance to learn how you can take advantage of these opportunities.
We have lined up an exciting list of the top real estate, energy, land development, and economists. You’ll learn ho to transform your business to take advantage of these explosive developments in our own backyard!
Attendees will also network with industry experts and fellow participants and prepare your company for these land development opportunities. Reservations and Special Room Rates will be available soon.
Breakfast and Registration | Coffee and Light Refreshments
Welcome | Joe Barone, President, Shale Directories, LLC
Presenting Sponsor Presentation | Speaker to be Announced
Workforce Panel sponsored by Frontier Group of Companies | John Deskins, Assistant Dean for Outreach and Engagement, Director of the Bureau of Business & Economic Research. Moderated by Pat Ford, Business Development Director, Frontier Group of Companies. Pat has successfully brought industrial companies and developers to the Appalachian Basin. Workforce is the most challenging issue for bringing new companies into the region and Pat has track record of success in addressing the issue and bringing companies into the Appalachian Basin. We are pleased to have Frontier’s and Pat’s support. Read Pat’s “Muscle Memory” to learn more about our workforce’s readiness.
Ohio River Corridor Opportunities | Adam Bruns, Managing Editor, Site Selection Magazine
Break – Networking
Infrastructure Panel sponsored by Monroe County Economic Development | Planes discussion featuring Robert Hartigan, Business Development Director, Akron-Canton Airport; Freight Rail discussion featuring Casey Cathcart, Executive Chairman, Cathcart Rail; Josh Martincic, Vice President of Business Development, Long Ridge Energy Terminal. Moderated by Jason Hamman, president, Hamman Consulting Group
Ohio River Transportation | Mark Locker, Director, Manager for Maritime, Freight Mobility and Logistics, ODOT, Eric Thomas, general manager, Benchmark River & Rail Terminals
Lunch
State of the Plastics Industry in the Appalachian Basin | Tom Gellrich, Founder, Top Line Analytics
The Future of Development of the Appalachian Basin | Bryce Custer, President, Ohio River Corridor
Concluding Remarks | Joe Barone, Shale Directories, LLC
Adam Bruns has served as managing editor of Site Selection magazine since February 2002. In the course of reporting hundreds of stories for Site Selection, Adam has visited companies and communities around the globe. A St. Louis native who grew up in the Kansas City suburbs, Adam is a 1986 alumnus of Knox College, and resided in Chicago; Midcoast Maine; Savannah, Georgia; and Lexington, Kentucky, before settling in the Greater Atlanta community of Peachtree Corners, where he lives with his wife and daughter.
Mr. Cathcart is Co-Owner and Founder of Cathcart Rail, an Ohio-based freight rail services and transportation company established in 2016 and currently employing nearly 800 people across 60 locations in 22 states. Cathcart Rail’s subsidiary companies include Appalachian Railcar Services, operator of the largest independent contract shop network, Bucyrus Railcar
Repair, operator of the largest repair agent network, and the Belpre Industrial Parkersburg Railroad, a shortline railroad serving international plastics, petrochemicals and metals customers along the Ohio River Corridor, among others. Cathcart Rail is currently in growth mode, across both acquisitive and organic opportunities.
Prior to founding Cathcart Rail, Mr. Cathcart served as Associate Director and Co-Lead of both the Rail & Transit and Public-Private Partnership (P3) teams within the Global Infrastructure and Project Finance Group of Fitch Ratings for three years, where he provided in-depth credit analysis related to infrastructure project finance within the energy, transportation and water/wastewater sectors. He led $4.3 billion in transit project finance transactions, Fitch’s pursuit of Canadian business (serving as primary on all of Fitch’s assignments in the market) and the $4.5 billion LaGuardia Airport Terminal Replacement Project. Additionally, he led the firm’s mandates related to the $5.8 billion acquisition of the ITR Concession Company (Indiana Toll Road Concession restructuring), a $3 billion private passenger rail corridor and the $1.6 billion Central Texas Turnpike System Second Lien restructuring.
Mr. Cathcart’s broader professional experience spans nearly 15 years, including over six years in debt capital markets investment banking focused on transaction origination, structuring and execution within the energy and infrastructure sectors. His executed-financing experience amounts to nearly $7 billion. He holds an MBA, with concentration in Finance, and BS degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics.
Custer has experience in all aspects of commercial real estate including acquisition, disposition and development of office, retail and industrial projects. As an active real estate investor for over 20 years, Custer understands the challenges facing both buyers and sellers in sale and lease transactions. Utilizing his experience from prior businesses, he works to discover critical success factors to develop solutions that meet the needs of both parties.
His current focus is serving the needs of the Petrochemical, Oil & Gas, Derivative Industries and Energy Services companies capitalizing on the drilling and exploration of the Utica/Marcellus Shale in eastern Ohio and the West Virginia panhandle, which includes the Appalachian Basin and the Ohio River Corridor. His primary focus is in the area of site selection for industrial clients utilizing rail transport throughout Ohio and West Virginia and barge transportation along the Ohio River.
John Deskins serves as Assistant Dean for Outreach and Engagement, Director of the Bureau of Business & Economic Research,
and as Associate Professor of Economics in the College of Business & Economics at West Virginia University. He leads the Bureau’s efforts to serve the state by providing rigorous economic analysis and macroeconomic forecasting to business leaders and policymakers across the state. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Tennessee.
Deskins’ academic research has focused on economic development, small business economics, and government tax and expenditure policy, primarily at the US state level. His work has appeared in outlets such as Contemporary Economic Policy, Public Finance Review, Economic Development Quarterly, Small Business Economics, Public Budgeting and Finance, Regional Studies, Annals of Regional Science, Tax Notes, and State Tax Notes, as well as in books published by Cambridge University Press and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Patrick Ford is the Business Development Director for the Frontier Group of Companies. The Frontier Group of Companies is
a full-service industrial specialty contractor working throughout North American and regions of Central and South America. Frontier’s customers include some of the world’s leading Fortune 500 with industrial and manufacturing operations. Core services include: plant demolition, facility acquisition and repurposing, industrial dismantling, environmental remediation, asset recovery, industrial gutting, scrap metals recycling, asset recovery, equipment removal and salvage, high structure removal, rail road services, and energy production.
Pat is a dynamic leader with the vision to spot peaks where others see only valleys. His unique strengths include the ability to manage multiple projects, generate personal and financial investment, and achieve consensus among dissenting partners. Skilled and passionate public speaker, with a genuine desire to see communities, organizations and local leaders achieve their best. Pat is known as an empathetic listener, who seeks to develop others’ ideas, not to persuade others to his position. He has an intuitive sense for managing projects and personnel, with a methodical and logical approach to ensure desired outcomes and believes in managing change for the better and setting realistic goals with measurable results.
Tom Gellrich is the founder of TopLine Analytics. Gellrich has been one of the pioneers in understanding and identifying the changes that shale gas as risks and opportunities for the US manufacturing industry. His presentations and white papers have been extensively quoted.
As an executive with experience in operational business management, strategic development, hands on sales and marketing Tom
provides a unique perspective combining all elements. He has been involved in several start-up opportunities – innovation – balanced with Fortune 50 experience – rigorous application. At Elemica, a B2B service company that Tom was instrumental in founding, he managed all aspects of European operations but focused on customer acquisition. Prior to Elemica, at Arkema/Atofina, Tom held a variety of positions in Strategic Planning, Business Management, and Business Consulting. His entry to the business world was with Exxon Mobile, moving from engineering to project management and business roles.
Jason Hamman is the President and Founder of The Hamman Consulting Group. Established in February 2013, The Hamman
Consulting Group provides a full range of location advisory, site selection and economic development services to private and public sector clients.
Jason’s work with private sector clients includes site selection and location analysis, identification and acquisition of taxincentives and grants and real estate brokerage services. He also works with economic development organizations to prepare economic development strategic plans, identify target industry sectors, labor market/workforce analysis, site development/analysis, market/feasibility studies, grant writing and project management services.
Robert P. Hartigan, C.M., ACE, is currently Vice President of the Akron-Canton Airport. As Vice President, Hartigan provides independent management oversight of the Akron-Canton Regional Airport Authority’s 2400 acre campus that is host to a varied tenant base at Akron-Canton Airport, including CAK’s ground transportation, parking, retail, and car rental operations. 
Before joining the Akron – Canton Airport, Hartigan served as the Airport Manager at the Cuyahoga County Airport – Robert D. Shea Field (“CGF”). Responsibilities also included ensuring airport operations continued while overseeing the delivery of more than $39 million in capital projects.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Management from Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana. Robert holds an FAA commercial pilot certificate with multiengine and instrument ratings and holds an advance ground instructor certificate. He has earned National Incident Command System certificates from the Emergency Management Institute. He has has been a resident of Streetsboro, Ohio, since 2020, where he and his wife Rochelle make their home.
Mark is the Manager for Maritime, Freight Mobility and Logistics within the Division of Planning, Ohio Department of
Transportation. Mark conducts and participates in Statewide Planning activities, ie. Long Range Transportation Plan, Corridor, Freight and Economic Development Studies etc. Ohio has the distinction of having the first large program statewide FAST Actcompliant Freight Plan in the United States. Mark coordinates with Ohio’s maritime partners to understand and enhance the state’s freight infrastructure and is project manager for Ohio’s Statewide Maritime Strategy. He was appointed by three US DOT Secretaries to the Marine Transportation System National Advisory Council (MTSNAC) which advises the US Secretary on Freight and Maritime matters.
He serves as Ohio’s representative to AASHTO and MAASTO on Special Committees for Freight, Council on Water transport, the State Transportation Innovation Council (STIC), Freight and Truck Platooning. Mark is Ohio’s representative to the Conference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers and the Mid America Freight Coalition. He is a professional planner and proud Ohio State University Buckeye with over 31 years public sector experience.
Martincic serves as Vice President of Business Development at Long Ridge Energy Terminal who is owned by Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure and GCM Grosvenor. The Long Ridge team is developing a 1600-acre property in Hannibal Ohio and is constructing a 485-Megawatt combined cycle power plant designed to deliver exceptionally low power costs to our industrial and commercial users.
This low-cost power is the result of the use of the most advanced clean natural gas and steam recovery technology in the industry. In addition, they have dedicated proprietary natural gas reserves developed in the nearby region to supply their fuel requirements at very low cost as they are vertically integrated.
To further enhance the clean power generated from the facility, they are evaluating the potential for carbon capture technologies and green hydrogen generation to be one of the first power plants to be able to supply 24/7 green power.
Over his 25 year career, Martincic was employed at Antero Resources, Carbo Ceramics, and GE Water Technologies in Pittsburgh, PA where was exposed to the safety culture, operational excellence and the process-oriented mindset of a major industrial operations for oil and gas, Steel, Aluminum, Power, Chemical, Glass, and Oil Refineries.
Martincic is a long-time Pittsburgh resident and a graduate of University of Pittsburgh with a degree in chemical engineering. He resides in Pittsburgh, PA.
Since January 2010, Mr. Thomas has served as general manager of Benchmark River and Rail Terminals, LLC in Cincinnati, 
Ohio. The terminal, along the Ohio River and the CSXT railroad, focuses on distribution of bulk liquid chemicals by barge, rail, and truck. Previously, Mr. Thomas was president of Southside River-Rail Terminal, Inc., also in Cincinnati. He holds a bachelor of science in accounting from Northern Kentucky University.
He is a past chairman of the board for the International Liquid Terminals Association (ILTA) for which he previously served on the executive committee and at large since 2007. He is the current executive director, a co-founder, and inaugural chairman of the board for the Central Ohio River Business Association (CORBA), and also chairs its Regional Maritime Committee. Mr. Thomas also served as chairman of the Greater Cincinnati Harbor and Maritime Control Committee (GCHMCC) from 2007-2008.
Oglebay Resort and Conference Center
465 Lodge Drive
Wheeling, WV 36003
(304) 241-2545
CLICK HERE to book your room at the Special Conference Rate.
Questions? Contact Joe Barone, Shale Directories, (610) 764-1232 or email.
