On Wednesday, after serving in the minority party leadership, Republican businessman William Paul Cole III, seen at his Bluefield Nissan dealership, will become the 49th president of the Senate.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — When William Paul Cole III becomes the 49th president of the West Virginia state Senate on Wednesday, he will bring with him a different view and wisdom from his father.
“One thing I have that’s a little bit unique is that business background,” the deep-voiced Cole, R-Mercer, told the Daily Mail last week while sitting inside his Nissan dealership in Bluefield. “I tend to look at things through a business prism.”
His perspective, in large part, has been influenced, not by a career in politics but as a professional businessman.
Cole, 58, currently oversees about 500 employees between five automobile dealerships located in West Virginia and Kentucky, a manufacturing plant in Tennessee and a variety of other business interests.
But he knows that having a business perspective is not simply enough to fix the woes that ail the state.
“It’s so easy, especially for a businessman, to point a finger at all the things that are wrong in West Virginia and things that need to be fixed,” he said.
Cole credits a lesson learned while working for his father, William Paul Cole II, as a big reason he finds himself in the position he’s in today…