For a long time, West Virginia leaders have said that, in order for the state to grow and thrive, it must embrace and continue to advance in the technology field.

The next step in that process happened this Friday in Triadelphia.

Touchstone Advanced Components, located on Middle Creek Road in Triadelphia, cut the ribbon Friday on a new 12,500-square-foot manufacturing facility. This new facility will allow the company to expand its operations in using C-foam, a coal byproduct created by Touchstone about 20 years ago to create tools, molds and parts needed in the aerospace industry.

“Our industrial heritage is paving an innovative future, and we can be leaders not just in energy,” Touchstone Advanced Components President Daniel Connell said.

The expansion should mean new jobs as well. Touchstone officials believe they’ll see a rise from the 50 employees now at the company to around 100 in the future.

For years, Touchstone has been an innovator in the technology field, a jewel of the Ohio Valley. Now it’s expanding even further and adding job opportunities with it. This is exactly what those state leaders have asked for, and Touchstone is providing.

That’s pretty good for a business that started 30 years ago from humble beginnings, as Brian Joseph, president and CEO of Touchstone Research Laboratories, recalled Friday.

“From a small pizza oven, we’ve grown to large autoclaves to large scale production. It’s amazing,” Joseph said. “This is what I thought would happen, and I hope it happens much bigger than this. That’s the dream.”

It is a dream that those at Touchstone are helping become a reality. And West Virginia is better off for it.