Richard Romano came to the Gallatin Valley with a pickup truck pulling a motor home. He wasn't intending to stay; he planned to stay loose-footed and travel the nation.
But then he saw an ad for a job opening at a Belgrade machine shop.
"I didn't give one iota if that man hired me," he said. "I showed up to the interview in a T-shirt. And he hired me."
That was in the early 1990s. Now, Romano runs his own business, Freeway Enterprises, a metalworks company that does everything from servicing lawnmowers to making gear for the Pentagon's communication satellites.
Romano is owner, technician, marketing director and every other title a large cooperation would have divided among hundreds of people.
"This is a one-man shop, but as far as the Defense Department knows I might have 100 employees," he said recently from his Belgrade shop. "The irony of the thing is I could be sharpening lawnmower blades for some old lady one day and making antennas for the Defense Department the next."
His antennas, by the way, were originally intended for airplanes, but were found to work at extremely high speeds, prompting the Pentagon to install them on two defense satellites, one of which is being used in the Iraq war.
Romano is enthusiastic about the local economy. With the right business idea and determination, there is work to be had, he said. Freeway Enterprises started with less $40,000 in machinery, Romano said, and now has $300,000 worth.
"And it's all paid for," he said.
Business boosters throughout the area are enthusiastic about all the small, specialized, locally owned businesses such as Freeway Enterprises operating in Gallatin Valley.
Nationwide, 99 percent of all businesses are considered "small," according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.
But Montana's economy is even more inclined toward small businesses. Montanans started more companies per person than residents of any other state, with an average of 7 percent of adults starting small businesses each year in Montana, according to the Kaufmann Foundation, a nonprofit organization that studies entrepreneurship. The national average is half of that,.
"We are definitely a smallbusiness town," said David Smith, president and CEO of the Bozeman Area Chamber of Commerce.
CELEBRATING SUCCESS
And when people are looking for a place to start a business, many, many chose the Gallatin Valley, it seems.
"The entrepreneurial spirit in Bozeman is very strong," Bob Hietala, president and CEO of Prospera, a Bozeman nonprofit economic development organization, said. "From the MSU students who stay and start businesses and the entrepreneurs who relocate to the area and start businesses," there is no lack of desire to open up a small shop in the valley.
Reasons for that abound. The scenery and cultural amenities, which have landed Bozeman on several "Best Places to Live lists, play a role. But there's also the old adage, "business breeds business."
Romano, for example, stopped here and plugged into an already existing machine industry.
Anne Marie Quinn came from San Diego, Calif., to find the infrastructure she needed to form her biomedical company, Montana Molecular, in Bozeman.
Montana Molecular uses research from Montana State University to create its product, technology that can chart images of structures of live cells.
The scenery helped her make up her mind, but Quinn said she was drawn here by the community of biotech firms and a culture of support.
"There are few biotech companies that blazed this trail before me," she said. "They have provided all kinds of advice and support...
"Here, when you have a success, everyone celebrates," she said.
Quinn got some help from the Tech Ranch, formed by MSU in 2000 to help create more highpaying, intellectually stimulating jobs in Montana. Since its inception, Tech Ranch has helped get more than 60 businesses get off the ground, said Gary Bloomer, the company's director of client development.
On average, these companies employ fewer than 10 people, Bloomer said. Montana Molecular, with two employees in addition to Quinn, is typical.
REALITY CHECK
Several factors, however, conspire to keep businesses in the valley small, local entrepreneurs said.
Venture capitalists don't like to switch planes when visiting their investment companies, Quinn said, which means fewer venture capitalists are willing to plunk down their money in this area, and that restricts growth to some extent.
In addition, Bozeman is a long way from the big trade hubs, driving up the costs of importing materials and exporting goods, said Spencer Williams, owner and president of West Paw Design, a Bozeman company that designs and manufactures eco-friendly pet products.
On the other hand, he said, those costs are mitigated by the "Montana brand," which helps him associate his product with clean, natural lifestyles.
Williams bought West Paw Design in 1996 and ran the shop with a single employee. Now there are 32 people working in a new shop, built in 2000.
And while a local economy built on a hodgepodge of small companies, as opposed to one or two major employers, may help insulate the area from economic swings, that has both an upside and a downside.
"We've become a much more diversified economy. That's strength," Hietala said. "If you think of some of the areas like Michigan," where the economy has been heavily reliant on the auto industry, "the downside is very obvious when an industry starts to limp." Michigan now has the highest unemployment rate in the county.
But the downside to a small but-diversified economy could be lower wages, Bloomer said.
"A company that is selling their products and services on a national level can also pay national-level (wages)," he said. "Those wages trickle through the economy."
And while there are many, many small companies in Gallatin County, there are many, many small companies that fail.
Bloomer said just over half of the companies Tech Ranch has helped start have gone out of business, noting that that is better than the national statistic.
In Belgrade, Romano said he has talked to colleagues "about ready to hit the soup kitchen."
"Small businesses thrive here, but they think they can sit back wait back in a rocking chair and have people walk through the door," he said. "If you sit back, you'll be at the back of the line."
Daniel Person can be reached at dperson@dailychronicle.com or 582-2665.