What Montana Can Teach Us About Housing Reform

MEDA -Montana Economic Developers Association

• CBS Nightly News – Montana ranchers challenge status quo in bid to survive – The Mannix Ranch and Old Salt Co-op

  Cole Mannix, (Mannix Family Beef) cofounder of Old Salt Co-op, says the long-term survival of ranchers depends on rewriting the rules of the existing food system. The co-op unites five ranchers who are all committed to sustainable land management. Jo Ling Kent reports.

• Indie movie filming in Missoula soon! Want to be involved?

  We ask that you please join us as we make Nearly Departed and take it to the big screen! How can you get involved?

• AI Is Powering A Hidden Exit Strategy To Help Businesses Actually Sell

  “What breaks my heart professionally?” he asked when I sat down with him. “Seeing so few businesses continue life in a new form. It hurts me every time I read about a business shutting down, causing so much loss for stakeholders and damage to the community with the void they leave behind.”

• California remote workers are bringing their high salaries elsewhere It’s more than cash incentives luring these workers away

  The economic boost that one high-income earner — and in this case, two — can bring to a small city like Texarkana is making relocation incentive programs more popular than ever for local governments. A city no longer has to offer big tax cuts to lure an entire company to relocate or start its operations in town. Instead, it can outsource the heavy lifting of economic development to a company like MakeMyMove and reap lasting benefits just by making an individual feel welcome.

Montana Business

• Rivian opens first service center in Montana

  This is one of almost 60 service centers Rivian has around the country, where various electric trucks, SUVs, and commercial vans are created.

• Montana adds nearly 6,000 new businesses in August…. Really???

  We think this is great but how many of these are expensive cars or RV’s being registered as LLC’s?

Housing

• From Empty Spaces to Community Places: Why Nonprofits Belong on the Ground Floor of Affordable Housing

  The results benefit residents, neighbors, and the organizations themselves.

• NYC to Require 20% of Senior Housing be Multigenerational

  The Senior Affordable Rental Apartments program now requires some two-bedroom units to accommodate adult children or other caregivers.

• What Montana Can Teach Us About Housing Reform

  Two years ago, lawmakers in the Big Sky State passed one of the most comprehensive state-level housing reform packages in the country. This year, they doubled down on their success.

Visit Montana

• CBS News – A look at the Old Faithful Inn, a human-made treasure inside Yellowstone National Park

  “The architect, Robert Reamer, sent a small group of men out looking for the ‘freaks of the forest,’ is what we call all the funny twisted pieces,” she said.

American Prairie

• Restoring Bison to Yellowstone Has ‘Reawakened’ the Ecosystem as the Large Animals Migrate, Study Suggests

  An analysis of plant diversity and soil health across the bison migration corridor suggests free-roaming bison lead to more nutrient-rich plants

YOUR CAREER

• Forget Learning Tech: This Study Shows Soft Skills Are Better for Boosting Your Career as AI Arrives

  With AI flooding offices, you may think brushing up on computing skills is the best way to help your career. The reality of today’s workplace says something different.

• A Study Reveals the Surprising Jobs People Want in the AI Age

  Many Americans think becoming a notary, or a firefighter are among the most solid career options in an increasingly AI-powered world.

Energy and Transportation

• Waymo Is A Trillion-Dollar Opportunity. Google Just Needs To Seize It.

  If Alphabet pushed the rollout of its self-driving tech company even harder, Waymo could dominate a new market with the potential to generate more revenue than its ad business.

• Plastic Recycling Not Requiring Sorting Could Be Coming

  In a new study, Northwestern University chemists have introduced a new plastic upcycling process that can drastically reduce — or perhaps even fully bypass — the laborious chore of pre-sorting mixed plastic waste.

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

• Montana Ag Network: School trades processed foods for nutrition to boost brain health

  In Wheatland County, Judith Gap School District has eliminated processed foods, added sugars, seed oils, and high-fructose corn syrup from its breakfast and lunch menus at the start of the year in an effort to boost both physical and cognitive development in students from pre-K through 12th grade.

• Three colleges, one mission: OneMSU provides accessible education to Montanans in health care

  “Montana is vast, and through this partnership, we can better serve the many communities and towns in need of skilled workers,” said DeeDee Dalke, director of Allied Health at Gallatin College MSU. “They’re each a piece of the puzzle that ultimately supports patient care.”

• The human edge: Soft skills in an AI world

  It’s one thing to list these skills in a job description, but it’s during interviews and assessments that candidates really get the chance to show them in action.

• Montana State faculty member studies impact of four-day school week on children

  Tomayko’s published research has focused on impacts of the four-day school week on high school achievement and educational engagement; effects of four-day weeks on physical education exposure and childhood obesity; impact of reduced school exposure on adolescent health behaviors and food security; and a national assessment of four-day school week policy adoption and implementation.

2025 Legislature and Politics

• TEI upcoming community events – Missoula, Butte, Helena + Streamed & Bozeman

  Montana Initiative to Undo Citizens United, we start in Montana…

• ‘Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World’ by Anne Applebaum

  Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran.

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