Western Montana InBusiness – Overview of western Montana’s economy – New year welcomes optimism, new reporters

They’re stacked on my desk at home: a half-dozen calendars promising the clean slate of a new year. Accompanied by photos of Montana’s wildlife, Colorado’s mountains and the art of Georgia O’Keef­fe.

All is possible.

In my own family, 2008 promises a year filled with those big momentous sorts of events, most notably my daughter’s graduation from Carroll College. Already, she’s filling her clean, postgraduation slate.

All is possible.

By SHERRY DEVLIN

So, too, do we greet the new year in the Missoulian newsroom, where each month we produce Western?Montana InBusiness – starting, every January, with an economic forecast edition.

We have several new faces in our midst these days, including Pam Podger, our new business reporter.

Pam has written for newspapers for about 25 years on both the West and East coasts, covering business, religion, politics, farmworkers, agriculture and state government.

She comes to the Missoulian from the Roanoke Times in Virginia, where she covered the Rev. Jerry Falwell and his Liberty University, religious diversity in the Bible-belt and county government.

Her first reporting job was covering business, and then as business editor, at the Middlesex News in Framingham, Mass. She’s also worked for the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press the San Francisco Chronicle and the Fresno Bee.

A native of Wellesley, Mass., she graduated from Hobart & William Smith Colleges in 1982 and received her master’s degree from Northwestern University.

Pam wrote the overview story for this month’s InBusiness, and the report is one of cautious optimism.

While certainly not bullish, our Missoula-based economists are at least drinking from half-full glasses.

From Larry Swanson comes the promise of a good year for western Montana’s economy, albeit one of slower population growth. From Tom Power comes a message of successful economic diversification. And from Paul Polzin comes assurances that Montana will miss the worst of the subprime mortgage debacle, although there will be impacts.

We have a new reporter on the environmental beat as well, John Cramer. You’ll find two of his stories in this edition, forecasts for the year ahead in the mining and oil and gas industries. Both, by the way, are doing just fine – and Montana’s oil and gas production, of course, is actually enjoying a bit of a boom.

John also comes to the Missoulian from the Roanoke Times.

He has 25 years of journalism experience covering a range of issues, including urban affairs, medicine, government and the military. He has a master’s degree in journalism from Ohio University and has worked for daily newspapers from Oregon to Florida.

And we have a newly fortified lineup of regional reporters, with Michael Jamison in the Flathead and Kootenai country, Vince Devlin in Lake and Sanders counties, and Perry Backus in the Bitterroot Valley.

You’ll be hearing lots from them in the year to come, as the Missoulian and Western Montana InBusiness deepen our regional coverage. All are experienced hands and longtime Montana journalists.

And so we begin again, with calendars both plentiful and clean, a newsroom renewed, and thousands of pages ready to be filled with the story of life in western Montana in the year 2008.

Full Issue: http://www.mtinbusiness.com/inbiz-0801/

All is possible. Sherry Devlin is editor of the Missoulian and also of Western Montana InBusiness Monthly. She can be reached at (406) 523-5250 or by e-mail at [email protected].

Reach editor Sherry Devlin at (406) 523-5250 or by e-mail at [email protected].
SHERRY DEVLIN Is editor of the Missoulian and Western Montana InBusiness Monthly.