One of Huntington’s most transformative leaders is driving innovation and entrepreneurship in new ways at Marshall University’s iCenter.
By Katherine Pyles
HQ 128 | Winter 2025
Trustworthy. Genuine. Educator. Innovator.
Those who know Tricia Ball have no shortage of glowing words for their colleague and friend. While she might not be a West Virginia native, her close colleague H. Toney Stroud said it’s a familiar local saying that sums Ball up best: “She’s good people.”
“You’ve heard that phrase before — someone’s ‘just good people,’” said Stroud, chief legal officer and vice president for strategic initiatives and corporate relations at Marshall University. “That’s Tricia. She’s the kind of person you just want to be around.”
Hearing Ball describe her childhood in Farmington, Pennsylvania, just a few miles from the West Virginia state line, you’d think she grew up in the Mountain State. Her parents, who opened a pizza shop after her dad was injured in a logging accident, instilled in her the enduring work ethic she has become known for in Huntington.
“I had to stand on a stool to reach the cash register,” recalled Ball, who started working at the restaurant at age 9. “People would look at my dad like, ‘Are you really going to let this kid take my money?’”
The experience taught Ball not only the value of hard work but also the power of entrepreneurship, she said, planting the seed for what she believes is her life’s “bigger purpose” and her “North Star” — “helping to reframe Appalachia’s history from one of generational poverty to one of generational prosperity.”
A first-generation college student, Ball earned her bachelor’s degree from West Virginia University and master’s degree from the University of Florida. She was working in student affairs at the University of Florida when her husband Christopher, a Kenova native, proposed a move to Huntington, “just for a year or two,” as Ball recalled.
But not long after their arrival, their son Aaden was born prematurely at just 26 weeks, requiring a 70-day stay in the NICU. The Balls were met with an overwhelming outpouring of support from the community, Ball said. And by the time she brought her baby home, Huntington had become home for her as well. Ball still remembers one local barista who, recognizing her from the family’s daily Facebook updates, shared words of encouragement before passing her a cup labeled simply, “Aaden’s mommy.”
If Aaden’s time in the hospital connected Ball to Huntington on a personal level, it was joining Marshall University in 2018 that anchored her professionally. Ball started at the university’s Appalachian Transportation Institute and Center for Business and Economic Research before transitioning to the Lewis College of Business Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation, also known as the iCenter.
At the iCenter, Ball taught entrepreneurship and design thinking, which she describes as a human-centered approach to problem-solving that focuses on innovating “solutions that people love, not just solutions that work.” Under the leadership of the iCenter’s co-founder Dr. Ben Eng, Ball worked primarily with high school students in West Virginia’s CTE (Career and Technical Education) programs.
“We’d do these workshops, and the students and teachers would be so engaged, coming up with amazing ideas,” she recalled. “But then we’d leave. I told Ben, ‘I feel like a paratrooper. We descend in, do our thing, then disappear.’”
Ball and Eng came up with an idea: What if the iCenter could train students in Marshall’s College of Education, equipping future teachers to bring innovation and entrepreneurship into their classrooms? Even better, what if the iCenter could integrate these concepts throughout all of Marshall’s colleges and departments, fostering design thinking across the university?
Their vision was prescient. When Brad Smith became Marshall’s president in 2022, he encouraged Eng to expand the iCenter’s reach in precisely those ways.
“Tricia and I talked about what we thought the iCenter could eventually be,” said Eng, an associate professor of marketing and entrepreneurship and the interim dean of the Lewis College of Business and Brad D. Smith Schools of Business. “When Brad came to Marshall, that’s what we actually became.”
By that time, Ball was serving as president and CEO of the Huntington Regional Chamber of Commerce — a role she had dreamed of ever since learning what a Chamber of Commerce was, she said. Ball would spend almost three impactful years in that position, leaving a legacy that continues to resonate through the community, before returning to the iCenter in November 2024.
“When I met Tricia, what struck me immediately was, ‘This person is going to do great things,’” recalled Stroud, who served as the Chamber’s board chair during the first year of Ball’s tenure.
“She has a genuine love and vision for this region, always thinking in the long term and looking toward the future. But the other thing that stands out to me is what she does behind the scenes — mentoring others and helping them look toward their own futures as well.”
Ball led the Chamber through a total rebranding and strategic planning process, with a five-year plan that outlined 19 strategies and two long-term development goals. Within 20 months, 89% of those strategies had been completed or were in progress.
Among Ball’s notable initiatives are the Greater Huntington Candy Cane Trail, designed to incentivize shopping local during the holidays, and the Nonprofit Roundtable, which brings together leaders of local nonprofits to network and share best practices. Her crowning achievement was the launch of Leadership Huntington, a 10-month, cohort-based program that connects and empowers leaders to become change agents in our community.
Ball attained a 41% increase in attendance at the Chamber’s annual dinner, a 123% rise in participation at monthly networking events and a 187% boost in attendance at monthly professional development sessions. Using the design thinking principles she championed at Marshall, Ball developed fun, creative strategies to promote local businesses, like “business birthday parties” to celebrate milestone anniversaries.
For Ball, fun and games are serious business. The ability to think creatively, what she and Eng refer to as “imagination bandwidth,” can hold the power to make or break a business, she asserted.
“Think about companies like Sears, Kodak and Blockbuster — companies we thought would exist forever that aren’t around anymore,” she said. “It was their inability to innovate and adapt quickly. We want our local businesses to spend time doing just that.”
Ball returned to the iCenter in November to serve as its executive director, the role previously held by Eng, who is shifting his focus to his interim dean responsibilities. On Dec. 1, Megan Archer, previously the digital marketing and media manager for Marshall Health Network, will serve as the Chamber’s new president and CEO. Archer was a member of Leadership Huntington’s inaugural class.
Leaving one dream job for another is bittersweet, Ball acknowledged, but her reasoning remains clear.
“I’ve learned from mentors of mine throughout the years to ask yourself two questions to decide if it’s time to move on,” she said. “First, can you say with conviction that you’re leaving your current organization better than you found it? And second, are you running toward something and not away from something?”
According to Eng, there’s no one more qualified for the role than Ball, nor anyone whose vision aligns more closely with the iCenter’s mission.
“Tricia has always been an innovator, and she’s always had the heart of an educator — and now, through her work with the Chamber, she’s developed this economic development muscle that’s really going to allow us to scale our impact throughout Huntington and Appalachia,” he explained. “She’s coming back to realize the dream that we talked about all those years ago — and not only that, but to take that dream to the next level.”
Put simply, he said, “This is not a passing of the torch — it’s a homecoming.”
For Ball, the work is deeply personal. She envisions a city and region brimming with opportunity, she said, a place where her sons Aaden, 10, and Ethan, 8, can grow up and not feel the need to leave.
“One of my favorite Bible verses is Jeremiah 29:7: ‘Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper,’” Ball said. “I believe the whole point of leadership is to drive positive change on behalf of others. That’s my purpose here.”
