Morgan remembered for perseverance
The ribbon-cutting to introduce Starpointe that took place in October 2004 marked the beginning of Washington County’s largest industrial park, a 1,200-acre site in Smith and Hanover townships.
The ceremony that day, which introduced the first two companies that would come to the park, arrived after several years of complex land negotiations engineered by Max Morgan.
People who worked with Morgan, who died Monday at 88, said the park, which today continues its buildout, could never have happened without his persistence.
“He was someone who never gave up,” Washington County Commissioner Diana Irey Vaughan said Tuesday. “It would not have happened without Max Morgan.”
Morgan, who served the county for two terms as its treasurer and later was elected county commissioner, was also remembered as a man who knew how to get people together to turn big ideas into major achievements.
A carpenter who had worked in construction and a partner in a family real estate agency, Morgan was a businessman who enjoyed politics, then left the political arena to pursue business opportunities, managing and developing property for condominiums in Florida.
When he returned to Washington County in 1989, he was named the first executive director of the Washington County Council on Economic Development, a new organization formed to help people who lost their jobs because of the collapse of Western Pennsylvania’s steel industry.
The council arranged loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration to help people start their own businesses.
At the same time, Morgan was also tasked with finding a location for an industrial park that would attract manufacturers to the area.
Former commissioner Bracken Burns said Wednesday he remembered Morgan pitching the idea for the park.
“That was Max’s brainchild from the get-go. He sold it to us and we said, ‘Get it done,’ but it was a little complicated.”
Burns said Morgan possessed the combination of business and political skills to pull off the land swap, in which WCCED paid Allegheny Power $1.4 million for 3,489 acres of land in Blaine and Donegal townships. The council then swapped the property for 1,275 acres owned by the state Game Commission in Hanover and Smith townships for the new industrial park.
Those who knew him said Morgan persevered through the lengthy, arduous process undaunted.
“I never saw Max depressed or sad,” Burns said. “He was a ray of sunshine.”
“He always had a smile on his face,” Irey Vaughan said, adding that in all of the meetings with him, she only saw him less than upbeat one time, during a critical point in negotiations.
Dan Reitz, who worked with Morgan after joining WCCED in 1996, and succeeded him as executive director after Morgan retired in 2008, said his former boss was a people person.
“He really knew how to get people together to get things done,” Reitz said. “He knew everybody and everything that was going on.”
Burns also praised another WCCED project Morgan led, the restoration of the dilapidated former B&O railroad station on South Main Street, which today serves as WCCED’s headquarters.
Both Burns, a Democrat, and Irey Vaughan, a Republican, said they consulted Morgan when deciding to make their debut runs for commissioner.
“Max supported me when I ran. He came to my fundraisers,” Irey Vaughan said, adding that she used his suggestions for ways to improve the county’s economic development processes as part of her campaign.
“Max was such a gregarious individual, and a politician, and I mean that in the most positive way,” Burns said. “He made you feel comfortable.”