Montana Business

“someone’s palm is getting greased.”

The Montana Department of Agriculture mailed partial payment checks totaling $611,770 Friday to 40 farmers in Montana and North Dakota who delivered 2008 safflower crops to Sustainable Systems LLC at Culbertson and were not paid.

Fully qualified local companies, two of which teamed up to build four other border stations – and at a third of the cost anticipated for the new ones – weren’t even given the opportunity to bid on these contracts, which instead were given to two giant corporations in California.

The administrator-designate for the federal General Services Administration has agreed to visit Montana, where there are complaints that out-of-state companies stand to get too much contract work for Montana stimulus projects.

What is Community?

“Our business is rolling and we’re bursting at the seams,” said Mystery Ranch co-founder Renee Sippel-Baker.

"With Bootstrap Montana’s assistance, we’ve been able to undertake three initiatives: 1) upgrading our web site, 2) sending samples to key people like bloggers, editors, and industry ‘influencers’, and 3) hiring another person for order fulfillment."

Do you know someone
who could be a DBE?

If they are a small business owned by a minority or a woman and have less than $750,000 in personal net worth and less than $22.41 million in sales averaged over the last 3 years, they may qualify! Tell them to contact Wendy Stewart, DBE Program Manager at 406-444-6337 or [email protected] for an application packet.

Regulatory filings show that Sustainable Systems had contracted for oilseed in 2008 at rates far greater than current values.

We’re a little envious of the new offices atop the First Interstate Bank building, where our reporter and photographer ventured this month to write about office space, pricing and availability in Missoula. Now there are some sweet digs (although I’d probably spend way too much time lookie-looing!).