So, I just got home from a big family reunion for my wife's family. It was held at the Ranch at Rock Creek right outside of Philipsburg. I have fallen in love with your fine state!

The question I have for all of you lucky members that get to call this state home, what do you do for work? Montana was always a bucket list item for me, and now that I have been there, I want to eventually move there.

I was a Professional Land Surveyor, retired now making beaded jewelry.

I'm from the government and I'm not here to help.

I retired from the Army so, I really don't work a lot anymore, I do help my wife with her internet business and I do help my partner once in a while in our machine business, but with him, I am just basically on the phone, he does all the machine work in his shop in WA.

Is there any industry there, to speak of, or is it mainly just education, agriculture and tourism?

Retired fed govt. Not enough hrs. in the day to do everything I want.

MT is a big state with scattered/varied employment opportunities. In addition to that already mentioned there's state & federal natural resource mgt. & tourism. Medical is important in the key cities.  Some scattered industry but nothing that's state wide.

From PA too and now live just down the road from Rock Creek. Own my own business. Still can't figure out how to live on Rock Creek. You're looking at a minimum of 200k for a cabin with no electricity, phone service, no internet, no plowing, and an outhouse. If you want to live there where there is plowing and electricity, it's pretty much half a million.

Boy, 1/2 million, hell I live on 5 acres, surrounded by 50K thousand acres of private timber land that I have full access to hunt, ride ATV's hike, etc, with plowing up to about a mile away from my 2400 square foot home, with internet, flushing toilets, electricity and TV and I could not sell my place for a 1/2 mill.  I even have great view of the Flathead valley and the Swan range and still couldn't even come close to that amount of money.  We are considering selling and I might be able to get 250K out of the place

Which is fine, I only paid $40K for it when we purchased.

There are still pretty good buys out there..

No doubt. But if you want to live in a popular, relatively isolated,  area with like 50 homes with a world class trout stream and a wilderness area and national forest as your back and front yards, you gotta pay the big bucks.

It's why you gotta be a millionaire to live in polebridge. A place where there is no gas station within an hours drive, with an economy  the size of a general store and bar. The size and costs of some of those houses up there are insane.

Who would have thought rich people value their privacy so much they will build a place 40 miles from electricity, where the only semblance of society is a huckleberry pastry.

Ya, I am only 20 miles from the nearest gas and grocery store.  You could not pay me enough money to live in Polebridge.

Bigger question is what do you do OP?  Perhaps someone on here has connections or info in your area of expertise and can help you achieve your dream.

BTW, The Ranch at Rock Creek is a insanely nice place. I haven't been by there in a couple of years and I believe it has changed hands since I was last in the area. I lived in P-burg for five years. At that time the ranch was known as the Flying Checkbook. IIRC, the owner started EMachines. He spent a lot of money rehabilitating riparian areas, thinning for fire mitigation, and employed some of the quality local carpenters for building projects. Pretty much the entire Antelope range (hills to the east of the ranch) are private. The ranch owner would only let kids and disabled hunters on.  I had access to another large ranch next door. There are a ton of elk in those hills come November.  I'm not sure what it's like now.

There is industry, it is mostly a matter of what and where.

Billings has a lot of places that do work connected to the oil fields. Plus there's the refinery in Laurel.

There are a few firearm manufacturers in Kalispell. I can be at Falkor's facility in less than 10 minutes. NEMO is on the south end of town. There are also places in the valley that make parts, like Proof Research.

Butte and Anaconda have basically nothing. There's a casting shop and a silicon plant outside of Butte, but basically Butte is a barren wasteland for jobs unless you work at the hospital, the silicon plant, or you're a lawyer. Drug dealers and pawn shops do pretty good business though....

It's been a while since I've been to Great Falls. They have a refinery and I think some other industry.

Berkeley of the Mountains...I mean, Missoula, has small manufacturers like Zombie Tools. I can't tell you much about what else is there, because my skin crawls every time I go to Missoula, so I don't go often and I don't stay any longer than I absolutely have to.

Havre has basically nothing. It's a cesspit. That's basically the entire Hi-Line (Glasgow, Malta, Wolf Point, Culbertson, Poplar, and all the little towns between). You know it's pretty bad when Havre is the 'Jewel of the Hi-Line'. Havre has the locomotive and car shops for BNSF, so if you can get in there and you don't mind living in Havre (yuck), you're set. Glendive has a diesel shop too, I believe.

There are all kinds of small fab/welding/machine/whatever shops scattered everywhere. You won't find any major manufacturers like Boeing, Honda, General Dynamics, etc. You want to work here in any kind of industry, you'd probably better just get used to the idea of making a small amount of money and not having great benefits. There are exceptions, yeah.

Oh, and there's also the mining and logging industries, as well as two railroads. Railroads pay well, have good benefits, but it's hard to get hired on. You basically have to be related to someone to get hired on at MRL, and BNSF only posts jobs a couple times every year or two. Logging seems to pay basically shit. I have friends that have worked or currently work in mining, and they make good money and have good benefits, but again, it can be hard to get on. I tried to get on at Stillwater Mining Company (I didn't care which mine, I tried for all of them in MT) probably 30 times, even went and got my MSHA certification on my own. Same with the quarry/concrete place in Three Forks.

I got lucky (plus the company I work for loves to hire veterans because we're used to waiting many hours "because reasons" and we tend to be more open to travel and working hours that may come at all hours of the day and/or night, in any weather conditions) and got on with one of the few places that pays well and has good benefits. But I spend the majority of my time away from home, because I don't have the seniority to hold anything close to home. Sometimes I can hold a position in Browning or Cut Bank, but I live in the Flathead Valley so those are both further than I want to drive every day for an extended period of time, and I'm not going to be paying for a hotel or camping out in either of them.

It might help to know what kind of industry you're specifically looking for.

You are right, The Ranch at Rock Creek was an incredible experience. Especially considering I wasn't the one paying the bill for myself and my family.

As for what I do, well, I was a machine operator in a Mechanical Steel Tubing Mill. But, after being laid off 4 times in 5 years, my union finally decided to file for a Trade Adjustment Act Claim. So now, my job is going to school for Electronic Engineering Technology. I should graduate in October of 2018. So, if anyone has any leads on Technician jobs next fall, let me know! lol

You see the Northern Lights last weekend? I did, albeit rather faint. It was incredible and certainly didn't help to dissuade me from wanting to move to this glorious state. What is your business?

I grew up in western PA but have been out west since I was 20.

Well, it would mean living within commuting distance of Butte (Silver Bow, technically, but still too close to Butte), but you might have luck at REC Silicon. You could always live in Deer Lodge, it's what about 25 or 35 minutes from Silver Bow I think.

I got lucky with the fact my company (Houston based) had a operation in Billings. There's 3 refineries here that always have something going on. The hard part is finding a gig that isn't part time. You might start looking at companies like Mj Electric, Yellowstone electric, and colstrip electric.

http://resodyn.com/ in Butte hires assembly people fairly regularly. Also http://www.mtpp.com/ out near REC is growing all the time

Thank you all for your responses. Please, by all means, keep the responses coming! I won't be able to pull the trigger on a move like this until Fall of 2018, but I am certainly going to use this thread as a point of reference!

Not this time, but if you're here long enough you'll see them plenty.

There is a pretty small and thriving machine industry here in/around Missoula. Montana Machine, Diversified Plastics, Smith Machinery, CM Manufacturing, GT Advanced Technologies. Just south of town is Bitterroot tool. Just north on the Res is DRS. Those are the big ones, but there are a ton of small 1-3 man shops all around the area doing just about anything from welding, titanium work, composite engineering, water jet, high powered laser, resin manufacturing etc...

I have a small shop with some CNC equipment where I do prototyping and small runs. Mainly designing injection molds, and composite work.

Work with steel...? check out ADF in Great Falls,they prefab steel girders,structure ect. for oil rigs,bridges skyscrapers ect. Any CNC experience?

ETA you can still find a decent house in town for 150-200K out of town increases in price depending on area.

Come look in the Flathead Valley in NW MT.  We have an Applied Materials campus here.  I know for sure that they're looking for welders and CNC machinists.  The also employ a bunch of engineers.

My son worked at the Ranch at Rock Creek for a summer job several years ago.  He ran their archery program there and often helped out with the gun range.  It's a very interesting place, but as I understand it spendy as hell.

Sadly, no CNC experience. BUT, I will be a qualified Electronics Technician in a bit more than a year. Hopefully with a focus on Instrumentation and Control. I'm sure they have techs there though. Thanks for the input.

I will be sure to keep that in mind. What campus is that?

The Ranch is indeed spendy as hell. I think the house we were staying in was like $1800 per night per person. Like I said, I'm just happy I wasn't the guy footing the bill. Their Archery course was a ton of fun. 3D Archery and they just opened up a second course the weekend we were there!

Applied is on the North side of Kalispell, on Reserve Drive, it used to be Semi Tool which specialized in Semi Conductors and had quite a good business with the Federal Government, from friends I know, they say it is an interesting place to work..

As mentioned we have a lot of companies that specialize in gun parts and gun manufacturing here, there are lots of smaller companies here, but Applied is one of the big ones with other places around the world.

Sent you a PM about jobs in Billings.

When I moved here, I was told to bring my own money.   Depending where you live, that can be true.   Kalispell is growing and there are places that are looking for help.  Problem is the jobs available are not exactly the highest pay.

Much truth spoken here.   Every time I go up there and ride that dusty gravel road and meet a new Range Rover, I cringe.

So, basically, if I want land out in the middle of no where, I should win the Powerball before I move out there. Got it.

Not really, I am not in the middle of nowhere, but I am a ways from town with lots of breathing room around me, in 2.5 miles I have 5 neighbors.  All of us butt up to thousands of acres of timber land that has nothing on it, but we can ride ATV's, Hunt, Ride Horses, so pretty much with the access we have we all might as well live out in the middle of nowhere..

None of our properties are really all that expensive these days.

This is one of Applied's current listings for the Kalispell "campus":  Kalispell openings

Here's another.  There is overlap.  More Kalispell opening info

The state does nothing to attract jobs. You either bring money, or tough it out yourself. The Missoula and Bozeman SBAs will do fuck all to help out small businesses, unless you're a trendy coffee shop, the next non-profit, or somehow connected to a school, businesses are extremely DIY. There are a few business representatives in the state, but cater more towards Californians buying franchise businesses here. Even the ones that claim to work in the "firearms" side of things. Bullock or Tester don't give a shit about small business unless you're a virtue signaling non-profit that pays their employees no more than minimum wage because they're tackling an extreme problem in the state or something. Most of the businesses around are boot strapped and built up from something tiny.

Montana isn't exactly business hostile, but the state is not exactly doing anything to promote business or make it easier for us.

Whom do you suppose is to blame for that predicament?

The state and local govts typically haven't put much energy into promoting legislation/policies that diversify the economy. MT really needs to promote schools/education that promotes the trades, and to provide tax incentives to small/moderate-sized manufacturing.  

There are exceptions such as MSU and some scattered schools.

But MT is a BIG state with a relatively small population, and lots of room between large population centers. Outside those large cities rural MT is at a disadvantage due to their locations.