took finding so many houses throughout the entire nation to stay afloat. So, we did downsize a little bit through that stretch, but we rode it out nicely and now we are gearing back up. Just recently we’ve been in the process of training an additional crew. That leads me into my next question. Do you prefer your crew coming in fresh or do you prefer someone with a lot of experience? BN: We prefer to mold them ourselves. I was the first employee – and that was in 1981 – and I was an apprentice starting out. I’ve got two employees down here now that started not that long after me that are still top guys within our system. We’ve got half a dozen who have been working for well over 20 years. We are kind of a family-style business I would say and we learn a lot from one another. We prefer to work through an apprenticeship and a training program where we bring in guys who have zero experience and we train them here, we bring them into the family. From what I’m seeing in my notes, travel is part of the gig for your log smiths. How far reaching is Montana Log Homes? BN: I was in Maine not that long ago, actually. We are in 40 different States from Maine to California and everywhere in between. We are also up in Canada: in Alberta and Sas- katchewan. We were actually featured in Time Magazine back in the early 80s when we were exporting log homes
to Japan. We were one of the early companies that took advantage of that new market. We only actually ended up doing it for a few years because the US market took off so much at the time that it didn’t make sense to be overseas anymore. Because of the nature of the system we can pre- build and ship anywhere. I have been able to explore a good deal of the world through this system. We also – and not all companies do this, but we always do – send two of our men to re-assemble on-site wherever the house is going. We fly out, rent a car and go do the restack and take a care of any chainsaw-type work that needs to be done. We do not do turn-key construction. We specialize in just the log portion so we can typically be in and out on an average house in about a week; a good-sized house maybe two weeks. And Brad I understand that you’d like to mention one of the custom touches you leave with every Montana Log Home customer. BN: Yes. We provide each client with an historical mark- er-type plaque that has their name and the year the house was built and our logo on it and then further down the road, 50 years or so, you’d be able to know when that house was built, who it was built for, and who built it. Let Montana Log Homes provide a quote for the log home of your dreams. Send a sketch or floor plan, including dimen- sions and the building location, to Brad and his design team at montanaloghomes.com.
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APRIL 2018 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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