The Top 10 Montana Economic Stories of the Past Year

Evelyn Pyburn attended the recent Economic Outlook Seminar hosted by the University of Montana's Bureau of Business and Economic Ressearch. One of the things that stood out to her was a top list of Montana economic stories over the past year.

You can hear what The Big Sky Business Journal's Evelyn Pyburn has to say about each of those stories in the podcast audio below.

So what were the top 10 Montana economic stories of the past year, according to the BBER? Data centers tops the list...here's the full list based off of my chicken scratch while listening to Evelyn's report.

1. Data centers
2. Income Tax Relief
3. Property Tax Reform
4. Patient Access to Experimental Treatments
5. The US Forest Service Closing the Region 1 Headquarters
6. VACOM setting up shop in Lewistown
7. A New Luxury Hotel in Big Sky
8. The New Hospital Expansion in Billings
9. A New Luxury Development on/near Flathead Lake
10. The US Patent Trademark Office and a Defense Innovation OnRamp Hub in Bozeman

Number 4 is one we haven't heard too much about. Kudos to our Governor and Montana Legislature for continuing to deliver on health care reform. Apparently Montana is leading the way when it comes to patient access to experimental treatments.

Evelyn Pyburn: "Montana positioned itself on the frontier of allowing patient access to experimental treatment when it passed the first in the nation law that allows firms to move quickly from a phase one trial into phase two, which apparently is really enticing for bio pharma firms in developing experimental treatment centers in the state, which produce the biotech and medical research and so called medical tourism."

Full audio on the top 10 list and more: 

 
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4uqLPhlCB4SrveumvC1nXx?si=HpIGs773Q7-z9O2Bv_tSxg