BUTTE – The Small Business Development Center honored homegrown entrepreneurs at the Montana Craft Malt small business that’s opening in the Montana Connections business park just south of Butte. The SBDC helps small ventures get started.
“In times like this, I mean, a start-up business is hard and rough and finding true partners as we found in them means everything,” said Montana Craft Malt President Jen O’Brien.
Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney noted during the event that Montana leads the country in small business development.
Montana Craft Malt, which plans to open this summer to develop malt for the craft beer industry, is building in this industrial park off the Silver Bow exit. It’s a convenient hub for doing business.
“So, for example, Old Dominion Freight is next door. We’re going to be a heavy user of freight and so there goes that,” O’Brien said.
“We have another relationship with a neighbor in this park that potentially could offer additional grain storage for us so, we’re all here doing our own thing but that are definitely ways that our businesses can intersect and benefit each other.”
The industrial park was developed for its strategic location.
“What we have to offer out at Montana Connections is absolutely amazing, we have a rail out here we have our interstate, so when we want to see the future of growth, this is the place,” said Stephanie Sorini, who heads the Butte Chamber of Commerce.
There’s still plenty of space on this sign, and that’s why economic leaders of Butte-Silver Bow are working overtime to try to market this industrial park to entrepreneurs all over the country.
“We work diligently as a group to promote these endeavors, in fact, most of our team is heading to a site selectors guild in Salt Lake next week,” BLDC Director Stephanie Joe Willauer said.
“I will be going to a different site selectors forum in June and we’re always out there actively recruiting new businesses to come out to the park.”
