WARREN, Ohio – The newly named CEO of Forward Lawrence said he looks forward to capitalizing on the county’s economic and logistical assets.
Albert “Chip” Abramovic was announced last week as successor to Ben Bush, who joined the Allegheny Conference in September as its vice president of public affairs.
Abramovic is in his third term as a Venango County commissioner, a role he will step down from as he begins his new position Feb. 3, according to a news release. In his new role, he will lead Lawrence County Regional Chamber of Commerce and Lawrence County Economic Development Corp. The two entities form Forward Lawrence, which is based in New Castle, Pa.
“I’ve always wanted to give back and give people a hand up in life,” he said during a phone interview.
The incoming Forward Lawrence official connected his interest in wanting to do better for his community not only to his service as a county commissioner but to the history of his family, which has operated a golf course for more than 40 years. During that time, he has seen “the positive and the negative,” not only in the golf course but in the broader economy.
When he moved home from Pittsburgh, he got involved with the local Elks board, he said. From there, he began getting involved with other organizations, leading to his running for county commissioner, and engaged with the public as a financial adviser.
Beyond the regular activities involved with being a county commissioner, Abramovic said he is engaged regularly in economic development work and serves on several regional boards in western Pennsylvania, “kind of my passion above and beyond what I do, the day-to-day work,” he said.
“This opportunity, when it was presented to me, is something I truly enjoy,” he remarked. In his new role, he will be able to “get rid of a lot of the white noise” that he encounters as a commissioner and “do a straight focus on stuff I’m passionate about.”
As Abramovic prepares to begin his efforts to grow Lawrence County, he is looking at the emerging technologies and growth sectors that are developing from the Pittsburgh market and considering how to attract and build companies that can tie into those supply chains.
Also, the Lawrence County region, including Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, along with the western Pennsylvania corridor with Interstate 79 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, is “logistically perfect,” he pointed out.
“Lawrence County also has a perfect blend between industry and agriculture, and I really enjoy agriculture, so I’m really excited about this,” he added.
He also wants to explore opportunities to capitalize on the plastic pellet production taking place at the Shell Polymers Monaca plant in nearby Beaver County. He pointed to assets such as the Penn State University Behrend campus and the plastics industries developing around it.
“How do we start to take advantage of that?” he said. “How do we just connect it and make that happen from start to finish?”
Abramovic said he will be spending the next six to eight months getting acquainted with the key players in the county and understanding its political dynamics. A past chairman of the Northwest Commission, he already is acquainted with figures such as Rod Wilt, executive director of Penn-Northwest Development Corp. in nearby Hermitage.
Wilt said he first became acquainted with Abramovic when he was with the American Petroleum Institute’s Keystone Energy Forum. The Penn-Northwest official got to know Abramovich better after he was appointed to the Northwest Commission, as well as through the Pittsburgh Institute of Politics.
“I’m very excited,” Wilt remarked. “Chip will not have a learning curve at all. He knows exactly what he’s doing in the economic development realm.”
The two organizations already have several “interconnected partnerships,” he said. Those include a joint population initiative and a merger of Penn-Northwest’s Future Leaders and Forward Lawrence’s Young Professionals organizations.
“I just know that now that they’ve named a successor to Ben that we can pick right up where we left off without missing a beat,” he said.
“I’m a strong believer in cross-county collaboration and communication,” said Abramovic, a former president of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. “We’ll see what the full development and opportunities are for collaboration, but being neighboring counties [and] neighboring organizations working together only helps all of us grow together.”
Pictured at top: Albert “Chip” Abramovic.