September 30, 2026 | By: Ed Ryan, Founder | Reshore Technologies
Every year, companies across West Virginia buy billions of dollars in products from overseas.
At the same time, manufacturers throughout the Greenbrier Valley are looking for ways to grow sales, reach new customers, make better use of existing capacity and justify the next investment in equipment, people or facilities.
Those two realities may be much closer together than they appear.
On October 2, National Manufacturing Day, Reshore Technologies formally launches a new manufacturing intelligence platform built around a simple question:
If an American company is buying a product overseas, is there an American manufacturer that can make it here?
For manufacturers here in the Greenbrier Valley, that question is not theoretical.
It could represent a customer your company does not know about yet.
The Demand Is Already Here
Reshore Technologies does not create demand. It helps manufacturers see demand that already exists.
West Virginia companies import approximately $5 billion in goods each year. During our initial work in the state, we identified roughly $680 million in potential import-substitution opportunity where domestic manufacturing capabilities may overlap with products currently being purchased overseas.
Kentucky manufacturing and import data have now been added to the platform as well, bringing tens of billions of dollars in additional import demand into view.
For a manufacturer here in the Greenbrier Valley, the opportunity is straightforward: a company elsewhere in West Virginia or Kentucky may already be importing a product that you make today, or one that your company may be capable of producing.
The problem has traditionally been finding that opportunity.
A manufacturer may be only a few hours from a buyer purchasing the same type of product overseas, yet neither company may know the other exists.
That is the information gap Reshore Technologies is designed to address.
Built to Help Manufacturers Find Customers
The platform brings import activity and domestic manufacturing capability together so manufacturers can identify potential sales opportunities that align with what they already make.
A manufacturer can build its company profile, identify the products it produces and begin evaluating companies that are importing related products.
Instead of starting with a broad question like, “Where can we find more business?” the conversation can become much more specific:
Who is already buying products like ours?
What are they importing?
Where are those buyers located?
How closely does that demand align with what we manufacture?
Can we compete for that business?
That does not mean every imported product represents a realistic reshoring opportunity. Manufacturers still have to compete on capability, quality, price, delivery, certifications, capacity and all the other factors that matter in business.
But they should at least be able to see the opportunity and decide whether it is worth pursuing.
What This Could Mean for a Greenbrier Valley Manufacturer
Think about a manufacturer operating anywhere in Greenbrier, Monroe or Pocahontas County.
That company may already have strong customers, skilled employees, specialized equipment and production capabilities developed over many years.
But there could also be companies elsewhere in West Virginia or Kentucky buying similar products from foreign suppliers today.
Without visibility into those imports, the local manufacturer has little reason to know that potential customer exists.
Reshore Technologies is designed to make those connections easier to identify.
That could mean finding a new customer for an existing product.
It could mean discovering enough recurring demand to justify another machine or production line.
It could mean identifying an adjacent product that fits capabilities the company already has.
It could mean supporting an expansion, another shift or additional employment.
Or it could simply give the company better market intelligence before deciding where to invest its time and capital.
For smaller manufacturers in particular, that matters. Most do not have large market-research departments or teams of analysts digging through international trade data looking for potential customers.
The opportunity may already exist. The challenge is seeing it.
West Virginia Was the Starting Point
We built and tested Reshore Technologies first here in West Virginia.
During a summer design pilot, more than 100 users across more than 40 organizations participated, including manufacturers, importers, economic development organizations, industry associations, banks and universities.
The most important result was not the number of users. It was what started happening once the information became visible.
Manufacturers began identifying importers.
Importers began identifying domestic manufacturers.
Economic development organizations began looking at how they could help connect both sides and move individual opportunities forward.
That is the process we wanted to build.
For years, reshoring has largely been discussed as a national policy goal. Our objective is to make it something a manufacturer can actually work on — company by company, product by product and customer by customer.
Greenbrier Valley Manufacturers Will Not Be Limited to West Virginia
West Virginia and Kentucky are only the beginning.
Reshore Technologies is being built to expand across all 50 states, with the longer-term objective of mapping approximately $3.4 trillion in annual U.S. import demand against more than 286,000 American manufacturers.
That matters for companies in the Greenbrier Valley because their market should not stop at the county line or the state line.
As more states are added, a local manufacturer will not be limited to looking for opportunities in West Virginia and Kentucky.
The same company could eventually identify potential buyers purchasing relevant products from overseas in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas, California or anywhere else in the country.
The manufacturer still has to earn the business. Reshore Technologies does not change that.
What it changes is the ability to know the opportunity exists in the first place.
This Is About Growing Companies Here
For a Greenbrier Valley manufacturer, reshoring is ultimately not an abstract trade-policy conversation. It is a business-development opportunity.
If a local company wins an order that previously went to a foreign supplier, that can mean new revenue coming into that business and into this region.
Enough new revenue can mean another machine. Another employee. Another shift. A facility expansion. A new supplier relationship. Or the confidence to make an investment the company had been considering but could not yet justify.
That is why import data becomes much more useful when we stop looking only at billions and trillions of dollars and begin breaking that demand down into individual products, individual buyers and individual opportunities.
The national numbers are enormous. But the question for a manufacturer here is much simpler:
Which of those imported products could your company make?
And if the demand is already here, will your company be ready to compete for it?
Reshore Technologies launches publicly on October 2, National Manufacturing Day.
Greenbrier Valley manufacturers can learn more and create an account at app.reshoretech.com.
Bring Manufacturing Home.
About the Author
Ed Ryan is the founder of Reshore Technologies and the National Reshoring Center. A West Virginia native, Ryan has more than 20 years of experience in international trade, customs, supply chains and manufacturing, including leadership roles with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and senior private-sector trade compliance experience. He founded Reshore Technologies to help American manufacturers identify domestic growth opportunities by connecting existing U.S. manufacturing capabilities with products companies are currently buying from overseas.
