More Older Americans Are Aging Alone. Who Will Take Care of Them? Project 2030: Montana’s Aging Population

MEDA -Montana Economic Developers Association

• More Older Americans Are Aging Alone. Who Will Take Care of Them? Project 2030: Montana’s Aging Population

  Unmonitored, older adults often uphold habits and living patterns that can chip away at their strength, such as eating scant or unbalanced meals or being extremely sedentary. Issues such as high blood pressure — and even ministrokes — may pass unnoticed. And those who develop cognitive impairments can become a danger to themselves and others. Local organizations are working to promote the “aging-in-place” model while implementing senior-friendly communities that bridge generational divides

• Child care is broken. Bay Area power couple’s PBS documentary ‘Make a Circle’ shows why

  “The pandemic was a lens to understand how fragile that whole system is,” Bradwell said. “This whole thing is held together with chewing gum and exploitation. As we say in the film, ‘Parents can‘t afford to pay. Teachers can’t afford to stay.’”

• The need for emotional intelligence in today’s AI world.

  10 in-demand soft skills to supercharge your career

• Anaconda, Montana angles toward self-reliance

  Tourism or industry? A southwestern Montana town faces an economic crossroads.

• Inside the program cuts, workforce purges, and secretive reorganization of the USDA

  As the Trump administration shrinks the Department of Agriculture, rural farming communities are left to pay the price.

• Request for Proposal (RFP): Short Video Storytelling– Economic Development Success Stories

  The Montana Economic Developers Association (MEDA) is seeking proposals
  from qualified videographers to produce a series of short videos that effectively
  tell economic development success stories from across the state of Montana.

• MEP August 2025 Newsletter

  MEP Annual Meeting 2025: The Power of Collaboration Oct. 1

• Montana Department of Commerce Weekly Roundup – Volume 2, Issue 35

  Commerce is working to improve the many ways you interact with our programs and services through updated communication options. To give you more information via fewer emails, Commerce’s updated communications will include the Commerce “Weekly Roundup” with news, events, grants, loans, funding opportunities and other important updates; a quarterly newsletter; press releases and urgent information when needed, like administrative rules making communications and other statutorily required notifications. You can update your subscriber preferences anytime.

Great Falls Development Alliance

• GFDA Top Ten for 9-1-25

  We still need dinner hosts for Touro students on September 11th. This is a fun tradition that helps the new class feel welcome in our community. Hosts are recommended to take groups of 3-5 students to a restaurant of your choice. Reach out to Jenn if you’d like to participate at 1-406-781-9499 or [email protected].

Montana Bioscience Cluster Initiative

• Welcome to the August 2025 Edition of Biowire

  Montana Colleges Continue to Drive the Next Generation of Bioscience

Montana Business

• Companies That Allow Remote Work Grow 1.7X Faster, New Data Shows

  Small firms are much more likely to allow remote work arrangements, the report also finds, and the gap is only set to grow.

• Mass Timber’s Edge: Smaller Crews, Quicker Builds, New Floors Above

  Mass timber has already proven its climate case. What is becoming more clear as projects accumulate is its advantage in time and labor. Speed of construction and smaller, more specialized crews create economic benefits that go beyond carbon accounting. They reduce costs, compress schedules, and open up new markets such as upward extensions on existing buildings where traditional reinforced concrete is too heavy. These are not side notes but core reasons why developers and cities are taking notice.

• Winter Of $300 Lift Tickets Looms As Rising Costs Price Out Wyoming Skiers

  Small resort owners in Wyoming are fighting to keep skiing affordable as major mountains push daily lift tickets to record highs. Deer Valley Resort in Utah and Colorado resorts Vail and Beaver Creek will charge $329 for peak single-day lift tickets this season.

Housing

• Two-story family home was 3D-printed in just 18 hours

  The walls are cyclone rated, thermally efficient, termite proof, and both fire and water resistant making them a strong fit for WA’s metro and regional conditions.”

Visit Montana

• These Newly Discovered Cells in Yellowstone National Park Breathe in Two Ways

  In a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, a microbe does something that life shouldn’t be able to: It breathes oxygen and sulfur at the same time.

Funding and Building your Business

• Rancher Says Wind, Solar Don’t Impact Land Any More Than Cell Towers, Oil Rigs

  “Some people are just against everything,” he says. “Not everything that draws a fight is negative.”

• Fresh, local, and predictable: How “indoor” farms are solving food’s biggest problems

  BrightFarms’ greenhouse-grown produce offers a blueprint for a more resilient, nutritious—and delicious—food chain that looks more like just-in-time manufacturing than traditional farming

• Proposal to address ‘nation’s worst workforce exodus’ fails to get support from Wyoming lawmakers

  The Wyoming Business Council says it has more policy ideas forthcoming to address ‘vicious’ shrinking workforce conundrum.

Regional Economic Development

• Ann Arbor is reinventing the power company

  If you live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, your rooftop could soon be part of a new type of sustainable city-owned utility.

Regional Business News

• Data Centers That Don’t Exist Yet Are Already Haunting the Grid

  Grid miscalculations could lead to overinvestment in fossil-fuel backup generation or underinvestment in renewable infrastructure, weakening progress toward clean energy targets

• Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says AI has already replaced 4,000 jobs

  “I’ve reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000 because I need less heads,”

• Feds takes next step in removing protections from 6.4 million acres of Montana’s national forests

  Since 2001, ‘Roadless Rule’ has prevented new road construction across 58 million acres of national forest land across the country, minimizing logging and development

American Prairie

• Bison eradication stripped western grasslands of nutrients, Yellowstone research shows

  “There are spots that bison hit hard, and places they don’t touch at all — and that can change over the years,” he said. “The cool thing is that allowing these bison to freely move across the landscape at a big scale, creates the heterogeneity.”

Tell Us Something

• Tell Us Something: Hello September! Looking Forward to Seeing You in October!

  We hope you’re having a wonderful start to the month! The air is getting crisp, and we are buzzing with excitement for what’s ahead. We have a lot of great news to share, from our upcoming event to updates from our amazing storyteller community. Our next live storytelling event is coming up on October 7th, and we are on the hunt for storytellers!

YOUR CAREER

• 5 ways to write better AI prompts

  Try these techniques to get fresh, useful responses instead of predictable pablum.

• Montana nonprofit warns federal budget cuts could harm thousands of Montana families

  “I don’t know how a lot of people would make it without this program,” said Stacey Sturna, a waitress who has spent 20 years in the service industry. “It has allowed me to work full-time, to be able to have shelter for myself and my wonderful dog.”

• August news for Montana nonprofits

  It’s back to school time for the kids – and for MNA members too. We’ll be honest: this newsletter is so full, it might have been more efficient to publish it as a book than an email – so sharpen your pencils and dive in. There’s lots going on in the policy world, big changes on the horizon in technology, and lots of new courses available, including the launch of our 2025 Accelerator program. Grab a snack and check it all out below.

• New COVID-19 variant with ‘wider range of symptoms’ surges in Bay Area

  “It’s more transmissible, so we expect that a lot of people will get it,” he said, referring to Stratus. “Particularly with kids going back to school, a sniffle is likely going to be COVID.”

Energy and Transportation

• Elon Musk’s Self-Driving Tesla Lies Are Finally Catching Up To Him

  For nearly a decade Elon Musk has claimed Teslas can truly drive themselves. They can’t. Now California regulators, a Miami jury and a new class action suit are calling him on it.

• Residents weigh in on proposed roundabout for downtown Helena

  The Helena City Commission is considering a multi-million dollar project that would transform the intersection of Last Chance Gulch, Neill Avenue, Helena Avenue, and Cruse Street into a traffic circle.

• A national lab made a nuclear fusion breakthrough. A new startup wants to make it into a power plant

  Inertia plans to commercialize a recent breakthrough from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—attempting to make it work at a scale that would add power to the grid.

• Antarctica Is Changing Rapidly. The Consequences Could Be Dire

  “Abrupt changes” threaten to send the continent past the point of no return, at which point continued ice-melting would submerge coastal cities around the world.

• Extreme Heat Makes Your Body Age Faster

  A study reveals that extreme heat accelerates biological aging even more than smoking or drinking.

• Missoula’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Plan August 2025

  As local temperatures continue to rise and extreme weather
  events become more frequent, shifting from single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs)
  to a diversified, sustainable transportation mix becomes essential.

• Missoula public schools launches in-house bus program saving the district about $600,000 over the next three years

  Each van can transport up to six students, offering a flexible way to serve routes that might otherwise require a larger, less cost-effective bus.

21st Century Education Initiative – “You Should Care…”

• Nearly two years in, NSF program maximizes research impact at Montana State University

  Seifert’s STRP has continued longtime work developing a digital platform through which middle and high school students explore the higher education experience. While the platform has been more than a decade in the making, ART funding supported the production of the digital product now used in more than a dozen Montana schools to help students prepare for and learn about their college futures.

2025 Legislature and Politics

• Want to work for National Weather Service? Be ready to explain how you agree with Trump

  “Asking a meteorologist to define how they as a new employee, are going to make the government more efficient is ludicrous,” McLean said. “I’d rather understand how well they are prepared to use the forecast tools and make a timely and accurate forecast.”

• Despite Trump targeting FEMA, poll shows Americans still support it

  Among a group of 924 adults who said they were at least partially familiar with FEMA, the poll found 86% agreed FEMA’s services after a natural disaster are very necessary or somewhat necessary. That included 83% of Republicans in the group and 95% of Democrats.

Government News & Events

• Fatberg-fighting tech could save cities billions in sewer cleaning

  Clearing these blockages before they cause sewage backups in our streets requires constant manpower and monitoring. In the US, it’s estimated to cost the country as much as US$25 billion a year to break these up and fix the damage they cause.

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