- Montana Manufacturing Center

Keynote: MADE IN USA:
Smarter Choices
for Growth

Keynote Speaker Doug Hall, founder of Eureka! Ranch and the nation's number one growth expert, asked more than 285 manufacturers and allies attending the October Compete Smart keynote luncheon three simple but core business questions:
-- Have your profit margins grown in the last five to ten years?
-- If you lost your No. One customer, would you survive?
-- And are you having fun (doing what you do)?

If the answer to any of those is no, companies need to take action, today, he said. He then offered hope and encouragement for Montana's manufacturers and manufacturing across the USA. More about this later...

Participating in the all-time Compete Smart favorite: Company Leaders on "Lines on Success"

Peter Stark Founding Partner, Northslope Sustainable Wood, Missoula
Laura Fleming President & Controller, SRS Crisafulli,Inc., Glendive
Bjorn Nabozney Co-founder, Big Sky Brewing Co., Missoula

Red Oxx.com, a travel and adventure gear manufacturer in Billings, Mont., added a dimension to this year's conference with the donation of Red Oxx travel baskets which were used
at the banquet tables for several mealtime activities and then given away at the closing luncheon to the person at each table who had traveled the furthest. Made from the same tough-as-nails fabrics and clasps as other Red Oxx travel gear, the baskets fold flat and are a great way to keep sunglasses, keys and other gear together. The baskets are available with embroidered corporate branding for employee or client gifts.

Conference Offerings
More than 100 conference goers ventured to multi-site Missoula plant tours at Spectrum Products, CM Manufacturing, American Eagle Instruments, Roscoe Bridge, GTC Nutrtition, and Diversified Plastics. Feature sponsors for the tours were MT Hydraulics, Helena, & General Distributing, Great Falls. A total of 25 breakout sessions were also offered over two days covering Lean Manufacturing, marketing, informed decision making tools, and guides for business management.

Twenty-eight exhibit booths in the Rotunda of the Hilton Garden Inn and a 90-foot showcase of Montana products, sponsored by UPS, provided the backdrop for networking during the event. Many of the showcase items were given away in a special caramel-wrapped fortune created by another Montana company, Good Karmal in Bozeman.

Related activities
SkyWindWorld.com installed kites throughout the conference facility, adding color and motion befitting the theme "Electrify Your Business," which played to Ben Franklin's innovation with kites that led to a new product -- the lightning rod, and the creativity and the human spirit that kites themselves embody.

Sterling Savings Bank assisted MMEC with an effort to bridge the ingenuity of today's young people and manufacturing as a real career option, by providing conference seats for 37 high school students and their advisors. Five Skyview Biofuels Team students, with advisor Mr. Fred Michels from Billings, and four Corvallis Robotics Team members, with advisor Tracy Dickerson, exhibited their latest projects and the competitive robot in the exhibit halll the first morning. A contingent of advanced marketing students from Missoula's Sentinel and Big Sky high schools joined the teams for the keynote luncheon and stayed on for a customer service session made available through the Montana State University College of Business Family Business Program.

THANK YOU Compete Smart sponsors, helping make it all possible, adding a dimension as you network with manufacturing peers & allies.

Platinum Sponsors