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The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has nothing on the Great Falls Montana Christmas Tree! On Wednesday, AT Klemens, H&H Crane, and Johnson Madison partnered to bring our 2020 Christmas Tree to Downtown Great Falls. Take a drive Downtown to check out the beautiful tree that was locally donated and came from the Riverside neighborhood.
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Here is our Top 10 for this week celebrating work and successes to grow and strengthen the Great Falls regional economy -- Montana's Golden Triangle. And, sharing business resources and skill-building opportunities to empower your success.
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1) Our labor market continues to recover. In October, the unemployment rate in the Great Falls MSA dropped to 4.4% from 4.9% in September and another 143 people were back at work, according to data released by the Montana Department of Labor and Industry. We have a ways to go and the current COVID surge isn't helping. We had 1,050 fewer people employed this October compared to last October. This October we had 1,643 unemployed residents looking for work.
2) This November we are giving thanks for the Golden Triangle’s female entrepreneurs. Each Tuesday and Thursday this we're featuring the stories of our 2020 Fire Within award winners. This week we featured Aspire Winner Hallie Thompson, owner of Wholesome Hal’s, and Aspire Winner Candice English, owner of The Farmer’s Daughter Fibers, can be viewed on The Fire Within Facebook page.
3) Montana's Incumbent Worker Training program just became easier to use. Employers can view the videos at their convenience to learn how to use these grants to fund skills-based training of existing employees. These grants area available to for-profit and non-profit employers with less than 50 employees in the state. We can help you with these if you run into a snag. Or contact the IWT program manager, [email protected].
4) Development Counsellors International (DCI), the firm updating our Live in Great Falls website and leading our video project, presented their initial website designs to us this week and they look fantastic! We’re excited to offer the website as one of many tools to assist employers in attracting talent to relocate to Great Falls and our surrounding rural communities. DCI also presented storyboards for our Talent Attraction and Business Development videos and we can’t wait to see them in action next year!
5) It’s tough to find and keep talent. Learn what it takes to cut through the noise to find and keep the talent your business needs. Chris Czarnik, one of the nation’s top talent experts and author of the book “Winning the War for Talent”, is bringing his expertise to you December 1st, 8th, and 15th from 11 to noon. Each session will be recorded for on-demand viewing. Register here to join the sessions or to be sent a recording. Thanks to support from the SBA Small Business Development Center lead center at the Montana Department of Commerce, we're able to offer this series, usually costing over $350, for free.
6) The holidays are quickly approaching, so we are already looking at December trainings to help businesses finish out the year strong! The topic of our monthly business webinar on December 3rd at 11:00 AM MST is Engineering Growth in the Wake of COVID. Our business startup workshop The LaunchPoint is back on December 8th at 4:00 PM MST. And rounding out the year is Boots to Business, a two-day workshop December 17th and 18th designed to help military service members start their own business.
7) The Montana Chamber Foundation announced an exciting new state-wide High School Business Plan and Pitch Competition. Any of Montana's 40,000+ high school students are eligible to submit their ideas for new, innovative businesses or present their existing businesses. The Chamber Foundation is also accepting student entries that convey how to solve a business challenge and innovative ways to generate revenue. The Prospects competition is open to all Montana high school students from public, independent, or religious schools, homeschools, or HiSET. Students enrolled in career and technical student organizations or other community youth organizations like 4-H, Scouts, and Boys and Girls Clubs are encouraged to participate. GFDA supports entrepreneurs of all ages so get going with your ideas!
9) We're pleased to announce that Michela Turnquist will be joining the GFDA team on December 1st as our new Lending Operations Specialist. Michela has worked in commercial lending for the last five years at US Bank in Great Falls. She earned two BS degrees from Montana State University. Welcome Michela!
10) GFDA has two great career opportunities. We're boosting our lending team with a new Loan Officer position. We're going to post an alternate position of commercial credit underwriter this week. We really need someone to help with our underwriting and loan packaging because our lending activity is growing so much. And, we're looking for a Business Development Officer to lead our food processing, ag-processing, bio-processing and renewable energy business attraction and business retention/expansion efforts. Download position postings or visit our website. GFDA is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and Lender. We encourage all qualified candidates to apply! Please help us spread the word.
11) Thank you to this week’s Investors in Economic Development, Montana Credit Union and Stockman Bank, for their Legacy Division investments and GPD, PC for their Pacesetter Division investment. Our private businesses are a primary source of jobs, income and tax revenues for our region. Economic development tools and resources seek to ensure business security throughout the pandemic. Thank you for seeing the value in our work through increased investments and new investments this year. If you have questions about investment, email Teresa or call 406.781.9499.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
It's been a tough year which makes me all the more appreciative of what we have and what we have been able to accomplish working together.
Take care and stay safe,
Brett
Brett Doney
President & CEO
Connect with me on LinkedIn to network with the Great Falls Montana region. Forward the GFDA Top 10 to friends and colleagues. You can join our distribution list HERE or text GFDA to 22828.
"I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual."
Henry David Thoreau
We are HUNGRY to Grow the Great Falls regional economy, create higher wage jobs, build our tax base, improve our market competitiveness, and enhance the quality of life and economic opportunity for residents of Great Falls, Cascade County, and the entire 13-county Great Falls trade area.
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Economic Development Services
See our Great Falls Economic Development Menu of Services which includes our expanded staff team. We provide award-winning and internationally-accredited economic development services throughout Montana's Golden Triangle, and SBA 504 loans statewide.
Cost-Effective Rail-Served Industrial Sites Available
If your company needs a rail-served, BNSF-Certified, shovel-ready site with all municipal services at your door, we have lots available for immediate construction in the Great Falls AgriTech Park. Contact Jolene Schalper at 1.406.750.4481 or [email protected]
November SBA 504 Loan Rates
The 25-year loan effective rate came in at 2.552%; 20-year at 2.523%; 10-year equipment loan at 2.417%; and, 20-year refinance 2.566%; 25-year refinance 2.593%. These rates are FIXED for the life of the loan and are inclusive of all fees. If you would like to find out how to get financing for commercial real estate and equipment at potentially lower rates than you're paying for your home mortgage, please contact Jill Kohles at 406-590-1056 or [email protected].
Invest in Great Falls Regional Economic Development
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Events, Business Training, and Opportunities
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You are facing tough decisions right now. We’ve developed toolkits to help you decide what is best for your business. Toolkits include: Crisis Toolkit, Hibernation Toolkit, Business Resiliency Guide, Re-Opening Toolkit, and a Child Care Whitepaper. All of these can be found on our website.
Job Service Great Falls is hosting online Job Fairs on the first and third Wednesdays of the month from 10-11 AM. Employers should contact a job Service Workforce Consultant at 406-791-5800 to participate.
If you missed the Invest Downtown Great Falls event, don't fret, we recorded it! Make your way over to our Downtown Great Falls page to watch the recording and hear about Downtown Successes, Opportunities, the Visioning, and the announcement of Mountain Wave Distilling. While you're visiting our Downtown page, check out some more opportunities that are available in Downtown Great Falls! For more information or to inquire about some of these opportunities, call Christian Leinhauser at 406.836.0136 or email, [email protected].
The Blackfeet Tribe announced a grant program to support Blackfeet tribal business owners whose businesses have been affected by COVID 19. For more information.
There are many documented benefits of remote working and there are unique stressors. We explored these stressors and management techniques with Erin Butts, GFPS, and the Stop the Stigma Team on a workforce focused webinar. In case you missed it, here are the slides which include contact information for Erin if you want to follow up.
Two great food processing workshops offered by Headwaters RC&D. Trends in Online Selling for Food Producers, Wednesday December 2nd, 1-3 PM, designed to support farmers, food producers, and other farmers' market vendors, will cover the logistics of online selling and pre-ordering for food vendors that may typically sell in farmers' markets. The content is not limited to work in the market, but is geared to support online selling for vendors that would be found in those markets. Basics of Running a Food Subscription or Community Supported Agriculture Programs, Wednesday January 27th, 1-3 PM, will cover the basics of, and differences between, subscriptions and community-supported agriculture programs. Topics covered will include pricing, packaging, building a program, fulfillment, and more. This program is for farmers, ranchers, meal kits, and food producers of all kinds.
The new relocation website LiveInGreatFalls.com is officially LIVE! This website was the #1 request we got from local recruiters and HR professionals for aiding in attracting talented workers to Great Falls. The Great Falls At-A-Glance two-pager is a great complementary resource that highlights Great Falls for people unfamiliar with our community. The Great Falls Livability relocation magazine is a new tool to help you recruit talent from out of town to relocate to the Great Falls trade area. For printed copies or to have a conversation about best practices for recruiting employees, email Soren at [email protected]. Let's talk Talent Attraction!
Attention all businesses doing government contracting: Are you aware of the regulations for Cybersecurity? Don’t know where to start? Check out this E-Book – Cybersecurity 101 for Government Contractors. By entering the promo code "4PTAC2020" at the checkout link, you can receive it for free. For more information and future trainings on cybersecurity or doing business with the government, contact our government contracting advisor Shannon Clancy at [email protected].
Great Falls Tourism has a host of resources available to help local businesses deal with the pandemic. Check out the resources at https://visitgreatfallsmontana.org/COVID-19/. If you are a business owner and need materials to help educate your customers on how to stay safe, Great Falls Tourism is here to help, contact Rebecca Engum at 406-761-4436 to arrange for material distribution.
The Montana Department of Commerce is offering business grants to increase your international digital marketing efforts. Read more here.
The Montana Department of Commerce’s Office of Tourism and Business Development has launched the “Montana Aware” campaign to promote safe and responsible behavior among those who are traveling in the state. Through the formal “Montana Aware” campaign, 17 of Montana’s Convention and Visitors Bureaus and six tourism regions share $5 million to promote the initiative. To download the partner toolkit visit MARKETMT.COM.
The Great Falls Livability relocation magazine is a new tool to help you recruit talent from out of town to relocate to the Great Falls trade area. Here is the online link to the magazine. For printed copies, and to have a conversation about best practices for recruiting employees, email Soren at [email protected]. Let's talk Talent Attraction!
We have Brownfield Clean-Up money that we want to put to work! Our low interest Brownfield Loans can be used to clean up hazardous materials including but not limited to lead paint, asbestos, etc. Are you working on a project that could use some clean up? Call Lillian today to discuss eligibility 406.750.1253 or [email protected].
We are scheduling another Destination Creation Course which helps businesses increase their revenue, sales, traffic, and profitability. The proven 14-point business success strategy developed by internationally-known business consultant Jon Schallert teaches techniques to increase your ability to attract customers who are willing to go out of their way and postpone buying until they can visit your business. The Destination Creation Course retails for $399, and we are offering it FREE (for now) to Montana businesses. If you are interested in taking the course complete this survey to help us tailor the course to your schedule. Or if you have questions, contact Nathan Reiff at 406-403-4937 or [email protected].
Northrup Grumman is working to gather subcontractors for the missile upgrade project. This is a long process and they expect to gather information for three to four years. If you are a small business interested in doing business with Northrop Grumman, please complete the Supplier Information form at https://oasis-sbeforms.myngc.com/.
Manufacturers, if you're not engaged with the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center hosted by MSU, you're missing out on powerful resources, services, and networking. MMEC clients report cost savings of $160.3 million, new investment of $328.4 million, $1.3 billion in new and retained sales, and 6,186 new and retained jobs since 2000. We're proud to host an MMEC business adviser who covers the Golden Triangle region. Contact Doug Roberts at [email protected] or (937) 489-3985.
Of our online business planning tool, LivePlan, one said: "LivePlan is Awesome!" The LivePlan tool is helping her streamline her strategy in preparation for presenting to bank partners. We offer LivePlan licenses for free to active clients. Learn more about LivePlan on our website.
All of our recorded monthly business strategy webinars are available online for viewing anytime, click them out here.
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Vision
Hungry to Grow the Great Falls region
Mission
Grow and diversify the Great Falls regional economy.
Create higher wage career opportunities.
Improve market competitiveness.
The first economic development organization in the Rocky Mountain West to earn accreditation from the International Economic Development Council.
GFDA is a certified Community Development Financial Institution and a 501(c)3 charitable organization. High Plains Financial is a certified Community Development Corporation that offers SBA 504 loans statewide. GFDA and High Plains Financial are Equal Opportunity Employers and Lenders.
GFDA is proud to host a Montana Small Business Development Center, a Montana Procurement Technical Assistance Center, and a Montana Food & Ag Development Center. We are also proud to provide office space for MSU's Montana Manufacturing Extension Center.
For more info, click to our website.
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