Senator promotes High Tech Jobs Summit

By STEVE DAINES

Like you, I’m grateful I get to call Montana home. I’ve always said one of the best decisions I ever made was picking my great-great grandmother, who homesteaded east of Conrad and got our family to Montana.

Montana offers an unmatched quality of life ­— we offer a workforce that is unmatched with a strong work ethic that is passed on from generation-to-generation in Montana.

And now with technology, we can grow more good-paying jobs that allow Montanans to stay in the state we love. That’s because technology has removed geography as a constraint. We can build world-class businesses in Montana.

That’s why one of the first actions I took as your U.S. senator was to host the first Montana High Tech Jobs Summit. This summit brought together Montanans and global leaders in technology to my hometown of Bozeman, the same place where I helped grow RightNow Technologies into the area’s largest commercial employer.

And now, just two years later I’m co-hosting the second Montana High Tech Jobs Summit in Missoula. Missoula is a leader in high tech innovation and entrepreneurialism.

The Montana High Tech Jobs Summit will be held on the campus of the University of Montana on Oct. 9. We have a great line-up of keynote speakers who will discuss opportunities in tech, including the president of Microsoft, vice president of T-Mobile, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee.

Together we can encourage the growth of high-tech jobs in Montana. These are good-paying jobs that will not only allow our state to grow economically, it will ensure that the kids we’re training at our universities and colleges can stay in Montana, which is why I’m hosting this event at the University of Montana.

As I’ve traveled the state, I’ve seen the impact that technology has had on dozens of small Montana businesses. From Proof Research in Columbia Falls to Blackfoot Communications, who are working to expand and improve internet access, Montana is becoming a hub of innovation and technological success.

At RightNow Technologies, where we created 500 high-paying Montana jobs, our recruiting slogan was “work where you also like to play.” The area’s largest employer is a global business based in Bozeman, just a short drive to Yellowstone National Park.

And throughout the Montana High Tech Jobs Summit we will learn together what it takes to create jobs in our back yard so we can continue to get outdoors and enjoy what makes Montana great: the Beartooths, Glacier Park, Holland Lake and the Spanish Peaks.

You won’t want to miss this great event, so register now at montanatechsummit.com while space is still available!

The future of Montana belongs to us all – and we already know technology is the future.

See you there.

Daines, a Bozeman Republican, is Montana’s junior senator.