After spending seven years searching the Rocky Mountain Front from Durango to Canada, our family moved to Columbia Falls in mid-1999. Jacki and I sought the perfect small mountain town to raise our boys (Alex and Jonathan, now 18 and 15 respectively). We were looking for a place similar to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, where I grew up. We knew when we got here that we were home.
Kalispell is very much like the Harrisonburg Virginia I grew up in and in our minds, Columbia Falls was the best place in the Flathead.
Some sage advice from a 40 year resident of Jackson Hole formed the focus of our search. When he and I were discussing my family’s anticipated move to a mountain town, he looked me square in the eye and said: “Son, if you want to move up here, you’ve got to bring 2 things: Your own job and your own woman, cause we don’t have enough of either one.” Jacki and I were already married, so that was taken care of. The rest meant that I had to start or buy a business, so I started a software company (eventually known around town as the home of the “crazy arm waving ladies on Nucleus”) and moved it here a few years later.
Jacki teaches sixth grade at the CFalls Junior High. Our family is involved in the CFalls Swim Team, Boy Scout Troop 41, The Rotary Club of Columbia Falls, Columbia Falls Chamber, CFHS Speech and Debate, CFHS tennis, as well as the CFHS Jazz Factory & Columbians jazz bands.
After 23 years in the software business working for people as big as Ross Perot and as little as myself, I’ve since found a place teaching small business owners how to solve their marketing and technology problems. My journalism background pales next to the rest of the Beacon staff: I was the Photo Editor for the University of Arkansas student newspaper from 1980-82. The upside of that was unlimited access to the football field and the basketball floor during the Lou Holtz, Eddie Sutton, Sidney Moncrief era of Arkansas sports, a sports photographer’s dream.
These days, my writing is most often found on my blog www.rescuemarketing.com/blog, my print newsletter for businesses and occasionally as a contributing writer and advisory board member for Clarion Magazine.
What I ask of you is this: Don’t be shy. If there’s something you want to see a story on, let me know. If you’d like to contribute to the CFalls Community page, let me know that too. I’d like to involve our youth in the Community Page as well, so if you have something to get off of your chest, well, let me know. This page is about CFalls, not about my view of it. Without your input, advice, contributions and criticism, it just won’t be worth as much to either of us. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.