Mountaineers visit NASDAQ Burdette: 'It was an awsome experience'

MORGANTOWN — Mountaineers celebrated the success of Fairmont-based MVB Financial Corp in style with a special visit to New York City.

Finance students from West Virginia University’s College of Business & Economics traveled to the Big Apple with MVB officials, many of whom are college alumni, to ring the closing bell on the floor of Nasdaq March 28.

“It was an awesome experience,” said senior economics major Michael Burdette, one of the students invited to ring the bell. “We were invited along, and we thought we were only going to be spectators, but they really let us into their circle. We were talking to their higher-ups, their CEOs and some of their top shareholders.”

Burdette said an added bonus to the experience was the broadcast of the bell-ringing ceremony on the Nasdaq screen in Times Square.

Amelie Currat, a senior finance major, said she was proud to be included in the moment, since MVB is the first West Virginia-based company to go public on Nasdaq for nearly two decades. She said she was also impressed with the number of WVU alumni succeeding in business.

“We were part of; that was amazing,” she said. “It was amazing to meet many WVU alumni. Maybe could be us in a few years. It’s doable. That makes it not a dream but something realistic, like one of the goals of graduating West Virginia University. That was my biggest take-away — that you don’t have to go to some school in New York City to make it.”

Currat and Burdette said they were proud to represent West Virginia and the university in New York, adding it was encouraging not only to see an in-state company on the Nasdaq floor, but also to know that it was one not far from campus.

“It really makes it more real,” Burdette said. “You talk to all these Wall Street bankers, and it’s like they live in a different world than you do. But it was very cool to see people who could very well be your neighbor out doing this.”

Currat and Burdette and other business students also visited the trade floors of the New York Stock Exchange to see and learn from the brokers firsthand. They also visited globally recognized financial companies such as Royal Bank of Canada and The Match Group, parent company of Match.com, along with fellow Mountaineers such as Wall Street executive Penni Roll, an alumna who is chief financial officer of Ares Capital Corporation in New York.

MVB had gone public only a few months prior to making it onto the Nasdaq trading floors. Larry Mazza, its CEO, earned a B.S. in business administration from WVU in 1983. He said the experience at Nasdaq was monumental for him and for and the company. He said it was made even more special with WVU students joining MVB for the special ceremony.

“Sharing this special day with the finance students from WVU added to our experience and reminded me of my time as a student,” he said. “I am excited that MVB was the first bank from West Virginia in 18 years to be listed on the Nasdaq. MVB Financial began trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market on December 7, 2017. Ringing the Nasdaq closing bell in March was the celebration of a major milestone in MVB’s growth journey.”

Mazza is far from being MVB’s only connection to WVU.

Susan Carlock of the senior management team; Matt Dean, vice president and chief credit officer; and CEO Ed Dean are all WVU graduates. Gary LeDonne, a member of the MVB board of directors, is a member of the WVU College of Business and Economics’ Visiting Committee and is an executive-in-residence at the business college. Other notable Mountaineer connections at MVB Financial include Matt West, senior vice president of operations and a graduate of the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, along with Stephen Brooks, who earned degrees from the WVU School of Pharmacy and College of Law.

Dr. Naomi Boyd, the WVU business college’s Fred T. Tattersall Chair in Finance and an associate professor of finance, who led the students on their experiential learning trip through New York, said the experience was unprecedented.

“The week was truly magical,” she said. “The opportunity to see what a West Virginia-based company is capable of will transcend the trip to New York because it shows bright, young minds that staying in the state of West Virginia and building companies in the state can bring them all the way to Wall Street and beyond.”

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