Archive: January 2025

Assuming Leadership Roles at Stockman

21 January 2025
Dennis Pyburn
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Glendive Market President Jim Trotter has been promoted to Eastern Montana Regional President and current Eastern Montana Regional President, Brian Cooley, Miles City, will assume a new corporate systemwide role, effective January 1, 2025.

Trotter will have oversight of all the eastern Montana Stockman Bank locations, which include Miles City, Hysham, Terry, Glendive, Richey, Wibaux, Sidney, and Plentywood. Additionally, he will help ensure Stockman continues to meet the needs of local communities, small businesses, agricultural producers and area consumers.

Trotter was raised on a third-generation family ranch near Richey and has more than a decade experience with Stockman. He has served in several leadership roles, most recently as the Glendive Market President. Trotter earned his Master of Professional Accountancy degree, as well as his Bachelor of Science degree in business with an accounting option and a minor in agricultural business from Montana State University-Bozeman. He also holds the designation of Certified Public Accountant and is actively involved with the Dawson Community College Foundation and the Richey Saddle Club.

Cooley will move into a corporate systemwide role, continuing to manage a number of his ag relationships and serve on the loan committee. This role will allow Cooley more time with family and at the ranch.

Cooley was raised on a fifth-generation family ranch in Musselshell County and has more than 36 years of Ag banking experience.  He has been with Stockman since 2011 and has served in several leadership roles, most recently as Eastern Montana Regional President. Cooley earned his Bachelor of Science degree in business, with a minor in economics, from Montana State University- Bozeman. He is also a graduate from the Northwest Ag Credit School at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington; the American Bankers Association Graduate School of Finance; and the Northwest Banking School at the University of Portland. He is involved in a variety of activities that benefit the community and youth while spending his spare time on his family’s ranch.

Trotter will remain located in Glendive at 204 West Bell Street and Cooley will work from Stockman Bank’s Miles City and Billings locations.

Ag Award for Excellence

21 January 2025
Dennis Pyburn
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The Billings Chamber of Commerce announces that Jess Peterson of Western Skies Strategies, has been selected as the Billings Chamber 2024 recipient of the Award for Agriculture Excellence, presented by Stockman Bank. 

The award recognizes an individual, business or organization that has made outstanding contributions to the Billings agricultural community with a nod to their demonstrated excellence in their involvement in agriculture, leadership ability, and participation in civic, service and community organizations. The recipient is nominated by their peers and selected by the Billings Chamber Ag Committee and Board of Directors.

Peterson bridges the gap between urban and rural daily, as he conducts business in the greater Billings area and sometimes via horseback, sharing real-life insights and education about agriculture. As such he is the epitome of this award which recognizes an individual, business or organization that has made outstanding contributions to the Billings agricultural community with a nod to their demonstrated excellence in their involvement in agriculture, leadership ability, and participation in civic, service and community organizations. He will be honored at the 2025 Ag Celebration Banquet on January 31.

 “Jess does an excellent job of allowing downtown Billings to be better educated about rural Montana,” shares his nominator. “He lives and breathes agriculture daily as evidenced in his involvement with the Billings Chamber, our community, and the entire region of Southeastern Montana, while simultaneously running his lobbying company of Western Skies Strategies with his cow-calf operation.”

Peterson convened area auction company owners, cattle traders, cattle futures brokers, and businesspeople when the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission came to Billings. His involvement and relationships with producers in Carbon and Stillwater Counties helped the Billings Chamber lead a successful flood tour in 2022. Prior to the flood tour response, Peterson was a catalyst of the fire relief efforts held in Billings and Forsyth for our neighbors in Rosebud County.

This passionate, energetic and humble ag industry advocate gives back through mentorship of the next generations in agriculture, infusing agriculture onto the Billings Chamber Board of Directors, and reminding business owners in Montana’s City of the importance of agriculture on a regular basis.

Minnesota Business Moves to Billings

21 January 2025
Evelyn Pyburn
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It works.

Promoters of Montana as a great place to do business quite often achieve great success in convincing entrepreneurs to move their businesses to Big Sky Country. It certainly worked in convincing Peter Johnson to move his businesses – Archway Defense and Deep Attic to Billings from Minnesota.

A ribbon cutting last month at Big Sky Economic Development welcomed Johnson to offices at Rock31 in downtown Billings.

The businesses of this US Airforce veteran and former Federal Air Marshal are quite unique. Archway Defense, which Johnson founded in 2014, is a training program that provides training to local and federal law enforcement, as well as serving a vast array of corporate clients regarding workplace violence and active shooter mitigation training – all of which requires travel all over the county. The training is often provided at no cost to local governments because of sponsors and contributors who support the training. In fact, the Billings SWAT team has already benefited from such sponsor generosity.

In 2019, Johnson co- founded a tech startup called Deep Attic, which uses immersive, generative training, which is “augmented virtual and mixed reality” that is used in training to build skill sets faster “with an infinitely scalable business model in the deployment of VR AR technology.”

According to Johnson he really hadn’t thought much about moving his business until he encountered a cadre of Montana promoters (including the Governor) at the world’s biggest gun and outdoor gear show – the Shot Show in Las Vegas. He approached the Montana Chamber of Commerce booth and got invited to a reception for Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen.

Johnson said that the Governor spent 20 minutes telling him all about Montana’s pro business climate. The Governor and others at the event convinced Johnson that Montana was the place to be. He spent much of 2024 moving and opened for business in October.

According to BSEDA, Johnson served five years as Federal Air Marshal (FAM) International Team Leader conducting counter-terror missions and surveillance around the globe. During his time with the FAMS, Peter achieved “Top Gun” at the Federal Air Marshal Academy in 2010. Prior to FAMS, Peter served six years in the USAF Air Base Defense deploying internationally for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).

Johnson’s experience included designated marksmen, clearing ordinance, conducting reconnaissance, and gathering intelligence with local nomads. CONUS Peter served as a pre-deployment trainer, combat arms instructor, and assisted the Inspector General’s Office in testing base defense vulnerabilities. Academically, Johnson achieved a B.A. in Criminal Justice with a heavy emphasis on Counter-Terrorism. His undergrad culminated with his capstone research focused on the Radicalization of Somali Youth in Minneapolis.

Rock31 is a program of BSED. It offers co-working space with a range of customizable membership tiers, amenities and resources for any business and at every stage of career development. In addition to being part of a entrepreneurial community at Rock31, members have easy access to all of the resources Big Sky Economic Development provides to the community.