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Montana Manufacturing Center – Forward Focus – Summer 2008

Inside this Issue: Growth Thrust – Pull System Feature – Free Webinars

Hear Company Challenges & Triumphs at Compete Smart October 2 and 3 http://www.mtmanufacturingcenter.com/Events/index.htm

By Deborah Nash, MMEC

The spotlight will focus on managing growth challenges and opportunities when
company leaders from Missoula, Glendive and Whitefish share their stories with
manufacturing peers and allies at Compete Smart on Oct. 2 and 3, 2008, at the
Missoula Hilton Garden Inn.

Featured in the favorite conference segment “Lines on Success” are Bjorn
Nabozney, co-founder of Big Sky Brewing Company, Peter Stark founding partner
at North Slope Sustainable Wood, LLC in Missoula, and Laura M. Fleming, President
of SRS Crisafulli in Glendive.

The segment offers valuable insights based on real experience within very different
industries. It is a regular highlight of the biennial conference. This segment has
special sponsor support from First Interstate Bank.

In his humorous style, Nabozney will explain how he and friends started a capital
intensive business without cash and grew it into a fully functional brewery in just six
months. He will disclose some of the values that allowed the business to grow, building
a 38,000 square-foot building after less than seven years in operation. Among
the brewery’s feature beers is Moose Drool.

Stark, a writer and forest land owner, will tell a compelling story about how
the business community and environmental community can work together to the
mutual benefit of both. His company uses small diameter larch trees from forest
restoration sites in the northern Rockies to manufacture high-quality tongue and groove flooring and trim under the
“Treadlight” brand.

Fleming runs a 40-year-old firm
located in Glendive, a much more rural
set- ting in eastern Montana. The
company builds versatile,
rugged highcapacity
pumps,
dredges and power
units. Its original
product was used
in high capacity
pumps to irrigate
family farms along
the Yellowstone River.

Today, selling highly engineered products
worldwide presents the company
with challenges in locating enough local
talent to fill growth needs. Fleming’s
story will explore methods of developing
regional talent and recruiting nonlocals
in a way that integrates them into
the eastern Montana landscape. Her
story will resonate with many Montana
companies that struggle with limited
workforce and skills shortages.

The two-day event is organized by
the Montana Manufacturing Extension
Center, a Montana State University
outreach center in Bozeman, and cohosted
by NorthWestern Energy with
support from other firms and organizations.
During the closing luncheon on Oct.
3, Ken Green, President of Timberline
Tool in Whitefish will share the results
of several growth initiatives the company
embarked on late last year.

An energizing keynote address by
America’s #1 growth expert, Doug Hall
will officially launch on-site activities at
noon on Oct. 2 along with a Montana
Product Showcase and Exhibitor Hall.

Area manufacturing plant tours
highlight activities prior to the keynote
luncheon. Three multi-site options will
be available: Spectrum Products, CM
Manufacturing and American Eagle
Instruments; Roscoe Bridge, GTC
Nutrition and Diversified Plastics; and
a shorter walking tour to both Diversified
Plastics and Felco
Industries near the
conference facility.

The tours are sponsored
by two peer
manufacturers in
Montana – Montana
Hydraulics in Helena
and General Distributing,
headquartered in Great Falls.

The sixth biennial event will offer
more workshops and seminars than
previously with 25 topics to choose
from in marketing, Lean Manufacturing,
workforce resources, plus decisionmaking
and growth tools.

A special dinner with menu items
grown and produced in Montana
will be provided by
feature sponsor Montana
Department of
Agriculture.

Registration for
the two-day event is
$195 with team and
early signup discounts.

More information
and online registration
are available at
http://www.mtmanufacturingcenter.com.

Full Newsletter: http://www.mtmanufacturingcenter.com/PDFs/summer08.pdf

News Catrgory Sponspor:


Dorsey & Whitney - An International business law firm, applying a business perspective to clients' needs in Missoula, Montana and beyond.

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