Spencer Svonavec on Building a Team in Rural America: Why Local Hiring Matters

Spencer Svonavec

When people talk about job creation, the conversation usually centers on cities. Tech hubs, financial centers, places where the economic activity is concentrated and visible. What gets overlooked — consistently and consequentially — is the rural economy. The small towns where a single employer can be the difference between a community that thrives and one that empties out.

Spencer Svonavec understands this dynamic personally. He runs Simkol Corp and Rockwood Stone in Pennsylvania, employing over fifty-five people. In rural areas, those numbers carry a different weight than they would in a city. Fifty-five jobs in a small community means fifty-five families with stable income. It means money circulating through local businesses — the gas station, the grocery store, the hardware store. It means kids staying in the area instead of leaving for opportunities elsewhere. The ripple effect of rural employment is enormous, and it starts with employers who make a conscious decision to hire locally.

That decision is not always the easiest one. Local hiring in rural areas means working with the talent pool that exists, which sometimes means investing in training rather than waiting for the perfect candidate to show up. Svonavec has embraced this reality. At both Simkol Corp and Rockwood Stone, the expectation is not that someone walks in the door fully formed. The expectation is that they show up willing to learn, willing to work hard, and willing to grow.

This approach requires patience, and it requires a genuine commitment to people rather than just positions. When you invest in training a local hire, you are betting on that person and on the community they come from. You are saying that this town has people worth developing, and that the skills gap is something you are willing to help close rather than use as an excuse to look elsewhere.

The retention benefits are real. Workers who are hired from the local community tend to stay longer than transplants brought in from outside. They have roots in the area. Their families are there. Their kids go to the local schools. They are not going to jump ship for a slightly better offer three states away because their life is here. That stability is worth its weight in gold for an employer who depends on experienced, reliable people showing up every day.

Svonavec also sees local hiring as a responsibility that comes with operating in a rural area. When your company is one of the significant employers in a region, the decisions you make about hiring, training, and retention affect the entire community. That is not a burden — it is an opportunity. An opportunity to demonstrate that American-owned businesses can create meaningful careers in places that the broader economy has largely forgotten.

There is a narrative in this country that rural areas are dying, that the jobs are gone and the young people are leaving and there is nothing to be done about it. Svonavec rejects that narrative because he is actively proving it wrong. Every local hire is a bet against that story. Every training program that takes a willing worker and turns them into a skilled professional is evidence that rural communities can sustain themselves when they have employers who are willing to invest.

There is also something to be said about the culture that local hiring creates within a company. When your employees know each other outside of work — when they went to school together, when their kids play on the same teams, when they see each other at the same places on weekends — the workplace dynamic is different. There is a built-in accountability and camaraderie that you cannot manufacture with team-building exercises or corporate retreats. People look out for each other because they genuinely know each other.

The model is not complicated. Hire from the community. Train the people you hire. Pay them fairly. Treat them with respect. Give them skills that will serve them for the rest of their careers whether they stay with you or not. That is how you build a team in rural America. And that is how you keep a community alive.

Spencer Svonavec is not just building companies. He is building the workforce around him, one local hire at a time. And the community is stronger for it.