Keelan and Brianna James of Belgrade as owners of Easy Lawn Hydroseeding, LLC have been named as Montana Small Business Person of the Year by the Small Business Administration.

Both Keelan and Brianna grew up in Montana and met while attending Montana State University in Bozeman.  Keelan was pursuing a degree in Civil Engineering while Brianna earned her degree in Education.  After they got married, the couple decided to stay in Southwest Montana and raise their family in Belgrade. 

Keelan has always been a self-driven individual, and after college, he set out on a path of entrepreneurship.  His passion for the outdoors inspired the idea of starting an environmental restoration business in 2008. 

Easy Lawn Hydroseeding provides seeding, erosion control and land reclamation services for commercial and residential customers.  The company focuses on land restoration after major construction projects, environmental clean-up, river and stream restoration, wetland mitigation, and private land improvements and management. 

When the business first started, Keelan and Brianna were the only two employees but over the past twelve years the business has expanded to a staff of twelve.  By 2016, the company had outgrown their original location. SBA financing made it possible for the business owners to purchase property and build a new, larger facility to house their business operations.

The new location allowed the business to expand their service area to other states including Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota.  Future plans include expanding their service area into Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

Keelan and Brianna James are strong supporters of their community. They started a mentoring program to help struggling families that have experienced a financial crisis.  The program focuses on education of sound financial practices and helps with real life implementation of those lessons and even grant funds to help families get back on their feet. They focus their efforts to help homeless teens in their community. 

As a high school teacher, Brianna has seen the rise in homelessness in young teens who are displaced from their parents. The program will provide life skills and solutions with the goal of teaching kids self-reliance and how to succeed on their own.

Keelan and Brianna James were nominated by Randy Tyler, Assistant Vice President at The Yellowstone Bank, Bozeman.