Michael Cochrane has been named the new Wyoming County prosecutor.

Cochrane, the assistant prosecutor since 2009, was selected by the county commission at its meeting on Wednesday.

He succeeds Rick Staton, who is resigning effective March 16 to take a job with the state.

Cochrane says he looks forward to the challenge.

“It will be the same case loads, but the big changes will be the administrative part added to it,” he commented.

“I always wanted to work in the law,” Cochrane remarked.

“Working in the prosecutor’s office makes all the difference in the world in the community ,” he said. “We take care of situations that the community wants addressed. We get to tackle that directly.”

A 1985 Man High graduate, Cochran spent four years in the Navy, primarily as a Marine Corps medic.

He obtained a B.A. from Marshall in 1994 and graduated from the Mississippi School of Law in 1998.

After passing the bar in both West Virginia and North Carolina, he worked for a law firm in Charlotte from 1998-2002.

He has served as an attorney for the Bureau of Child Support Enforcement in both Wyoming Count and McDowell County from 2002 to 2012.