Albert “Chip” Abramovic wonders how, as a Venango County Commissioner in Pennsylvania, he can change the narrative and make rural “cool again.”

Audrain County hosted the third Rural Leaders of Economic Mobility peer exchange through the National Association of Counties last week.

Representatives from 10 rural counties across the country converged in Mexico to learn about the programs that foster economic mobility implemented by Audrain County leaders and industry powerhouses that sustain the economy.

The teams arrived in Mexico Sept. 22, where they attended a welcome dinner at the Carlson House and prepared for a week of educational programs and tours.

They visited the Mexico Area Chamber of Commerce, Missouri Military Academy, Audrain Handi-Shop, Audrain County Shelter Resource Coalition, Audrain Historical Society, Sydenstricker Genetics, Sydenstricker Nobbe Partners, ADM Biodiesel Plant, Community R-6 FFA Classroom, Poet Ethanol Plant, Hickory Ridge Orchard and many of Mexico’s shops on the square.

Abramovic was first to host the RLEM peer exchange program in October 2024.

He took the teams on a train ride through Oil Creek and taught them about Venango County’s up-and-coming rural robotics institute.

“We are going to do a robotics, AI and drone (program) for high school kids and a straight curriculum for them to start learning about that industry,” Abramovic said.

But now he was in Audrain County to learn.

“It’s really impactful to see the biodiesel plant, the ethanol plant, and some of the things they have here and how the industry of ag grew around it and made it more sustainable and more profitable,” Abramovic said.

The true meaning of economic mobility, Abramovic explains, is raising kids up above the levels of their parents, no matter what demographic or income level that may be.

During his visit, Abramovic found himself noticing a lot of similarities between Venango County in Pennsylvania, where he is serving he third term as county commissioner, and Audrain County.

“Audrain County is beautiful,” Abramovic said. “Coming here from Columbia north, that looks like Western Pennsylvania but then once we get here in Mexico specifically, it looks like home.”

But Abramovic and the rest of his peers weren’t visiting to soak in the beauty of rural Missouri and the two counties’ similarities appear to run deeper than their landscape.

Venango County is known as the birthplace of the oil industry. Major names such as Rockefeller and Pennzoil got their start there in the 1800s.

The oil industry left Venango County in the late 1980s and early 1990s, leaving a gaping hole in the economy, much like what happened when A.P. Green and Harbison Walker closed in Audrain County.

Venango County reinvented itself and transitioned to the manufacturing industry and currently produces light equipment and machinery.

“There is a wheel created everywhere, and everyone’s wheel has a little bit different spin to it,” Abramovic said. “A lot that we’re seeing, aside from the deep, deep ag, we don’t have, but there’s opportunities here to learn from and make what we have better.”

Of the 10 counties involved in the peer exchange program, Abramovic speculates that every single one of them is struggling with population loss and an eroding tax base like his.

“The cool thing is the networking of the peer group and learning from each other,” Abramovic said. “It’s one thing to learn from your peers in your region; it’s another thing to learn from peers across the country that are all dealing with the same stuff you are.”

According to Audrain County Eastern District Commissioner Leslie Meyer, the RLEM peer exchange program has been instrumental in changing the way these participants think about their own communities.

And it is clear the counties represent a united front in promoting economic mobility to ensure that the younger generations will have a path forward to stay in rural communities and make a great living while they’re doing it.