It was a painful, yet familiar, story for executives around the table. Kevin, a top manager at a Montana technology firm, had recently made a job offer to Mark, a promising programmer from Salt Lake City. Mark sold his house, packed up his wife and kids, and moved to Missoula on a Saturday to begin the new position on Monday…

A little over a year ago, Montana State University’s TechLink helped saved the lives of two American medical missionaries who were infected with the Ebola virus during the western Africa outbreak in 2014.

At the Montana High Tech Business Alliance the stories we’re excited to tell in 2016 – about the state of the industry, high-growth companies, and scores of new employees hired - all point to a state on the rise.Here’s a sneak peek at five positive trends I see in the year ahead for Montana businesses.

Technology boot camps and training programs are springing up around Montana to address the #1 barrier to growth for the state’s high tech and manufacturing firms: finding skilled technology workers.