Dana D. Davis, IOM, President
Dana Davis was born in Logan, West Virginia, and currently serves as President and CEO of the Southlake Chamber of Commerce. Davis received a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from West Virginia State University in 1977, and a Juris Doctor from the West Virginia University College of Law, Morgantown, West Virginia, in 1980. He began his legal career with the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office as an Assistant Attorney General. His first assignment was representing the West Virginia Department of Corrections at the State’s maximum security prison in Moundsville, West Virginia. After a year of service “behind the walls” of the Penitentiary, Davis returned to Charleston where he continued to represent the Department of Corrections and several other agencies of state government. Davis later served as Senior Assistant Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, Senior Deputy Attorney General, and Chief Deputy Attorney General. As Chief Deputy Attorney General he implemented changes that significantly reduced turnover and permitted a more consistent approach to the representation of state government agencies.
Davis left the Attorney General’s Office in 1991 and spent one session as Counsel to the West Virginia Senate Committees on Small Business and Banking and Insurance. At the conclusion of the 1991 Legislative Session, Davis joined the staff of the Governor’s Office of Community and Industrial Development as Director, Research and Strategic Planning. He was later promoted to the position of Deputy Director and served in that capacity or as Interim Director until leaving the office in 2000. During his tenure in this position he was instrumental in developing the State’s first strategic plan for economic development, in establishing a targeted industry approach to the economic development efforts of the State, in the reorganization of the office into one that was under the direction of a public-private Board of Directors, and in lobbying the legislature on issues impacting the growth of the State. Davis also oversaw the marketing and communication efforts of the office as well as a major technology upgrade that permitted the use and management of data in such a way that the economic impact of projects could be determined prior to the offering of an incentive package to client companies.
Following a brief stint in the private sector with companies involved in natural gas exploration and production, Davis accepted a position as President & CEO of the Lawton Fort Sill Chamber of Commerce in Lawton, Oklahoma, where he served from 2004-2010. He is married to the former Marcia Ann Michael of Paden City, West Virginia, and has three sons – Justin, a graduate of Cameron University, Blake, a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, and Ben, a senior at Byron Nelson High School.
