Business Leaders Breakfast: Rural Living in 2025

Small towns are thriving again as new residents bring energy, skills, and ideas to rural communities.  Today, attracting people - not just businesses - is key to building vibrant, sustainable towns.  A new economic model is emerging around “resident recruitment” which complements the traditional model of industrial recruitment, but incorporates research on community development, economic development, and tourism. Recruitment of residents is especially important in a tight labor market as now it’s not sufficient to show new potential residents the job, they must envision their life there. 

Featured Presenter: Benjamin Winchester
Rural Sociologist, University of Minnesota Extension, Department of Community Development

Ben has been working both in and for small towns across the Midwest for around 30 years. He conducts applied research on economic, social, and demographic topics surrounding a theme of “rewriting the rural narrative” and received the Rural Renewal Research Prize in 2021 for this work. He lives in St. Cloud, Minnesota with his wife and two children.