Montana Business

Today, the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center (MMEC), along with its trade association, the American Small Manufacturers Coalition, released the results of its 2011 Next Generation Manufacturing (NGM) Study, identifying key trends affecting the industry and steps U.S. manufacturers can take now to be successful in the next generation.

To date the Missoula-based HuntingGPSMaps.com has been successful in expanding its business model.

"It made a lot of sense to be in Seattle in the beginning," Pine said. "But there really wasn’t a question where to put our hub. The great thing about Montana and specifically Kalispell is there’s a wonderful work force of people. For our type of business, it’s an excellent place to have a service-based operation."

Tech Awards Circle winners are selected by an independent circle of journalists and are considered the "best of the best" in the computer and consumer technology industries today. Previous winners include companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Rosetta Stone, Carbonite and YouSendIt.

"We currently are in almost two-thousand cities across the United States and Canada since our launch a little over a year and a half ago when we launched Schedulicity," said Schedulicity CEO Jerry Nettuno, "we’ve already scheduled over five million appointments and most of those appointments are booked after business hours."

"My hat goes off to the Torgerson family. For four generations, they’ve weathered significant changes in the global economy and are continuing to hire folks in the face of today’s current economic challenges. It’s important that we recognize the hard work and true grit it takes for a business like Torgerson’s to continue to provide folks with good-paying jobs," Baucus said.

The business numbers give Bozeman the distinction of being home to twice the number of optics companies per capita as Tucson, Ariz., which is widely regarded as a major center of the optical industry.

Nomad Global Communications Solutions http://www.nomadgcs.com/ specializes in providing advanced communications solutions to areas that have been struck by both man-made and natural disasters and these special vehicles are made in the Flathead Valley.

"It is the perfect merging of Montana agriculture with Montana manufacturing," Bonnie said. "And that’s pretty special to me."

The big challenge will be gaining ground on countries like Canada and China that started trade talks after the U.S., but reached agreements sooner.